CCHA Annual Report for Residents 2022 - 23

Annual Report for Residents 2022 - 2023

What’s inside?

Welcome

3

Who we are

4

2022-23 key highlights

5

Customer

How residents get involved

Residents’ Scrutiny Panel

Resident Feedback Groups Resident satisfaction

Compliments and complaints

National Tenant Satisfaction Measures

Equality, diversity and inclusion Our homes and communities

Lettings and neighbourhoods

Partnership working – a focus on Workington

6

7 7 8 9

10 11

12

Independent living

13

Repairs and maintenance

14

Home ownership

13

Investment in your homes

15

Spotlight on damp and mould

16

Compliance

Growth and environmental sustainability New homes

Energy efficiency and net zero carbon Innovation

15

17 - 18 19

Financial inclusion

20

Value for money

22

Our Community Fund 2

6

Improving how you can get in touch

21

23

Welcome from the Chair and Chief Executive Welcome to our Annual Report for Residents, which provides an overview of our achievements and performance in 2022/23.

Highlights from the report include: •

•

Resident satisfaction remaining above 90% we strive to be an excellent housing provider, one that delivers the best possible services to our residents.

The launch of our new five-year Corporate Strategy in 2022, explaining the objectives we are working towards, the values we will champion, and how we will continue to make sure that we put our residents at the heart of everything we do, at all times.

We remain absolutely committed to ensuring we listen to all feedback from residents, both where it is positive and where we have fallen short of expectations. This helps us continue to learn and grow and is something our Board and Leadership Team are passionate about.

As well as publishing this report each year, we pledge to keep residents up to date throughout the year about how we are performing, and some of the things we are doing to improve our services and the communities we serve. We publish a Residents’ Voice Report twice per year which you can read in the library section of our website.

Thank you to our residents for your continued support during the year, and a special thank you to those who have taken their time to provide us with feedback about our services and been involved with us over the past year. Thanks also to all the team at CCHA for their continued hard work and commitment.

We hope you enjoy reading our Annual Report and thank you again for your ongoing support and commitment.

During the year, Board Members have taken part in a series of direct engagement activities with residents. This has enabled them to hear your feedback and it’s something we are committed to continuing with.

Keeping residents safe in their homes remains our highest priority. This year a focus was making sure that our processes for managing issues like damp and mould are as robust as they can be.

Simon Roberson Chair of Board

Stephanie Murphy Chief Executive

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Who we are Our purpose “Providing affordable homes and sustainable communities with pride, passion, principles and partnership.”

Castles & Coasts Housing Association (CCHA) are a landlord and housing developer, and we really care about our residents, colleagues and communities.

We provide people with homes and support, owning and managing more than 7,000 properties in rural and urban communities across the North of England, with around 75% of these in Cumbria.

We aim to fully understand and meet the diverse needs of all our residents, making sure there are no barriers to accessing our services.

We’re committed to making sure we put our residents’ voices at the heart of everything we do, encouraging feedback about services, and using this to make improvements.

4

Our values We take ownership We are ambitious We are respectful We employ over 260 dedicated colleagues, all committed to making a difference to our residents and communities.

We launched our five-year Corporate Strategy in 2022, setting out how we will deliver homes that are safe, warm and affordable while reducing our carbon footprint to do less damage to the planet. The strategy is grouped into five main aims focussing on customer, our homes and communities, our people, growth and environmental sustainability, and innovation.

In this annual report we share key achievements from the financial year (1st April 2022 to 31st March 2023). We’ve split it into sections to reflect our Corporate Strategy.

2022-23

Key highlights Here are some of our key statistics for the year.

22,484

98.9%

83

repairs completed (including building safety repairs)

of emergency repairs completed within timescale

new homes for affordable rent and shared ownership brought to our region

£830,000

519

841

in additional benefits gained for 267 residents by our Financial Inclusion team

new tenancies started

anti-social behaviour cases logged

89,439

662

106

contacts with Customer Services via calls, emails and website

compliments received

complaints received (1.44% as a proportion of stock)

5

Customer OUR AIM:

We aim to be a truly customer-driven housing provider, which puts our residents’ voices at the heart of everything we do.

How residents get involved

Our Residents’ Charter, which was co-created with feedback from over 1,000 residents, outlines CCHA’s six commitments to residents, along with how these commitments are measured:

Relationships Communication Voice and influence Accountability Quality When things go wrong You can view the full Residents’ Charter by clicking here.

Meet the Chair of our Residents’ Scrutiny Panel (RSP) The RSP is truly involved in lots of aspects of the work carried out by CCHA, and I feel that the panel plays a vital and well-respected role in making things better for CCHA residents.

We have members from across our region and from all kinds of backgrounds. We meet every month, then around four times a year, we’ll review an area of CCHA’s service. Our findings are reported back to the Audit and Risk Committee, which is a subcommittee of the CCHA Board. This year, we’ve been busy reviewing aids and adaptations, the organisation’s repairs bookings process and rent and service charge statements.

Coming up, we’ll be carrying out a review of CCHA’s performance against its Residents’ Charter commitments. We’ll share the findings in a future Residents’ Voice Report.

I can thoroughly recommend joining the RSP, as we really do help shape services to make sure they meet the needs of residents.

To help us keep on track with these commitments, we have different ways for residents to get involved depending on what commitment you’re able to give.

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Henry Barker, RSP Chair

Resident feedback groups

Resident satisfaction

As well as the RSP, we have Resident Feedback Groups (RFGs), which are one-off ‘task and finish’ groups that look at a specific service area or policy and give us feedback. Residents can be involved in RFGs in a way that suits them, depending on how much time they can spare. During the 2022 - 2023 financial year RFGs supported the RSP with their scrutiny exercises and were also surveyed on what matters to them in their local area.

It’s important to us to keep monitoring how happy you are with the services we deliver, as it helps inform where and how we can make improvements.

When you contact us, or when we carry out work in your home, we’ll ask how satisfied you were with the service as another way for you to give us feedback.

Overall Resident Satisfaction by Service Area

The table below gives an overview of resident satisfaction feedback during the 2022/23 financial year, from our service satisfaction surveys. If you were one of the residents who responded, thank you!

Target

Response Rate

2022/23

Aids and adaptations

95%

37.5%

95%

Customer services

90%

14.4%

93%

Income

90%

15.3%

98%

New resident (lettings process)

95%

29.5%

98%

New resident (void repairs)

90%

29.5%

96%

Planned works

90%

23.1%

90%

Responsive repairs

90%

15.7%

90%

Gas servicing

90%

25%

98%

Grounds maintenance

80%

9.7%

82%

Communal cleaning

80%

11.3%

76%

Overall satisfaction with CCHA services

90%

16.9%

92%

As you can see, overall satisfaction with CCHA services is in line with our set targets, with all service areas meeting or exceeding the targets we’ve set, other than communal cleaning. As this is slightly below target, we’re closely monitoring quality to identify where improvements can be made.

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Compliments and Complaints Whether we’ve exceeded or fallen short of our residents’ expectations, we encourage them to let us know. We use compliments and complaints as another way to learn where we can make improvements to services.

In this financial year, we appointed a Board Champion for complaints.

“CCHA really do strive to provide a safe and well-maintained home for all our residents, but we acknowledge that at times we can fall short of this, and we embrace feedback from our residents. I see my role as a ‘channel,’ making sure that the Board are fully reassured of the robustness of the complaints service and that we aim to continuously improve how we provide our important services.”

Last year we received:

662

compliments

106

complaints

Based on the number and nature of the complaints, here are the areas where we know we can make improvements (some complaints cover more than one area):

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27 57

8 3 Erica Morriss, Board Champion for Customer Complaints

8

Communication with residents Staff training Review of policy

8

Managing resident expectations

Contractor management

Delays in completing repair works caused by materials and/or labour shortages

National Tenant Satisfaction Measures From 1st April 2023, all social housing tenants were provided with a new way to give valuable feedback on the services provided by their landlords.

The Regulator of Social Housing has created the new system, called ‘Tenant Satisfaction Measures’ (TSMs), for assessing how well social housing landlords in England are doing at providing good quality homes and services.

The Regulator of Social Housing led a series of consultations to develop the TSMs, and we’re pleased to report that our RSP members were involved in these.

In readiness, colleagues in CCHA’s Customer Experience team started piloting the TSMs with a small number of residents from January 2023 and were happy that the system was working as it should ahead of the launch. From that point, like every social landlord in England, we began sending out TSM surveys to people who rent homes from us, usually on the anniversary of their tenancy.

Starting from Autumn 2024, the results will be published annually to show residents how their landlord compares to others. We will share TSMs in future reports.

9

Equality, diversity and inclusion Our five-year Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) Strategy was launched during this financial year. Our vision is:

‘Celebrating diversity and ensuring an environment where residents, staff and communities can thrive.’

To support the strategy, we have a delivery and communications plan with several key actions including the creation of an ED&I Charter. Codesigned by our Resident Feedback Group, all our colleagues and key delivery partners have signed up to this.

This year, we also began to run events to celebrate diversity such as LGBT+ History Month in February 2023, where we raised awareness of LGBT+ communities through news items and promotion, meetings and interactive quizzes.

The CCHA website was reviewed for accessibility, which led to us introducing an accessibility tool called ReachDeck. This is integrated into our website and offers speech, reading and translation support tools for visitors to the site.

We created an updated equality impact assessment process. This makes sure all new policies, services, and procurement of goods and services are assessed, to make sure they are inclusive.

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We also appointed a Board Member, Helen Forsyth, to be our Board Champion for ED&I.

“All my life, I’ve tried to focus on the individual and what they need, to make sure they share the opportunities we all should have. This means thinking about all the parts that make someone who they are. As a CCHA Board Member, I was very honoured to be asked to be the Board Champion for ED&I this year.”

Helen Forsyth, Board Champion for ED&I

Our homes and communities OUR AIM:

We will offer our residents a safe, high quality home that is affordable, in a place that they are proud to live. We will invest our resources wisely to achieve this.

Lettings and neighbourhoods

Our Lettings and Neighbourhoods team is committed to supporting residents all the way through their tenancies and welcomed hundreds of CCHA residents last year.

The team really cares about the health and wellbeing of residents and will offer support or signpost to other agencies where needed. The team works pro-actively with residents and partners to tackle anti-social behaviour so that residents can live peacefully in their homes, and also deals with safeguarding concerns.

Key statistics: New tenancies

519

Time taken to re-let our properties We reduced the time taken to re-let our properties by 7 days. On average it took 8 days to sign residents up from the day a property was ready to let

Tenancy sustainability

Only 10% of tenancies ended within the first year (in 2019-20, this was at 23%)

Safeguarding

449

cases reported. This was a 63% increase on last year (371 adults, 47 children and 31 domestic abuse concerns)

Anti-social behaviour (ASB)

841

cases logged (on average, 6 fewer cases per month than last year)

815

cases closed

97%

cases successfully resolved

95%

cases acknowledged within agreed timeframe

Resident satisfaction

98%

were satisfied with the lettings process, from new residents

11

Partnership working – a focus on Workington In August 2022, we worked in partnership with a range of agencies as part of the award-winning ‘Operation Respect’ campaign which aims to tackle ASB. The campaign scooped the prestigious Keep Britain Tidy ‘Community Engagement’ award in February 2023 for its work in keeping local communities clean and tidy.

Led by the Allerdale Local Focus Hub Partnership, it involved engagement with several agencies, education and enforcement activities that have had a hugely positive impact, plus a significant decrease in fly-tipping.

12

CCHA colleagues also took part in an event in the Northside area of Workington in January 2023, which aimed to boost community spirit by providing residents with access to support and advice.

Over 100 people attended the event, organised by Allerdale Local Focus Hub, to engage with others in their community, access advice and guidance, and discuss any issues in their area.

New tenancies were started in 2022/23 We welcomed lots of residents during the year with 87 new tenancies in our Independent Living (IL) schemes.

We have 22 IL schemes across our region, including one ‘extra care’ scheme in Keswick. Our schemes offer over 55s independence in their own self-contained apartments, along with a range of social spaces, health and wellbeing activities and support to access care options if their needs change over time.

Carisbrooke Court (pictured above) in Sunderland benefitted from a major refurbishment in 2022 which has seen the communal area, quiet room, hair salon, scooter store and reception areas completely transformed.

Our IL residents took part in a wide range of social activities across our schemes. Popular activities during the year included seated exercise classes, arts and crafts, gardening, coffee mornings, afternoon teas, lunch clubs, day trips, games and the firm favourite, fish and chip Friday! This year, lots of residents also joined in the national celebrations for the Coronation of King Charles III.

Our Home Ownership team have continued to expand and manage almost 1,100 properties for CCHA. In partnership with our Development team, they welcomed 15 Shared Owners into our new build properties.

We continue to develop and improve using customer feedback to help make sure our leaseholders receive the best possible service from us, tailored to their individual needs.

13

Repairs and maintenance Our Repairs and Maintenance team and partner contractors continued to work in challenging circumstances. Despite the impacts of increasing energy, material, and labour costs, we have completed more jobs, improved performance and seen an increase in customer satisfaction in the past year.

We’ve expanded our in-house property and grounds maintenance team, Castles & Coasts Services (CCS), to become more responsive, more efficient and to enhance our residents’ experience.

CCS carry out most of our repairs and empty property maintenance, giving us more control of our resources.

During the last financial year, we have responded to over 22,000 repair jobs. We have prioritised emergency and urgent repairs, completing 98% of them on time. We continued delivering good performance on routine repairs, achieving an on time completion rate of over 94%.

Key CCS highlights:

Key statistics:

13,527

responsive repairs completed

361

properties made ready to let

Repairs completed

22,484

10,736

Emergency repairs

communal cleaning visits

(including building safety repairs)

98.92%

completed in timescale (Target: 95%)

Urgent repairs

98.25%

completed in timescale (Target: 95%)

grounds maintenance visits

3,785

1,968

smoke and carbon monoxide reports submitted

957

Electrical Installation Condition Reports (EICR) completed

3,375

scheme fire alarm tests carried out

285

compliments received about the service

14

Investment in your homes

Our Asset Investment team deliver planned improvement works to our residents’ homes.

This includes replacing and upgrading kitchens, bathrooms, and heating systems and conducting external work on doors, windows, and roofs.

Working with local authorities, the team manages our aids and adaptations process, helping residents live independently in their own homes for as long as possible. By collaborating with occupational therapists we provide a range of support, including handrails, lever taps, stair lifts, and wet-floor shower rooms.

We are working hard to address the backlog of jobs caused by the previous COVID-19 restrictions, alongside an increasing focus on making sure our residents’ homes are more efficient (see page 19).

Key statistics:

1,081

component upgrades completed

202

aids and adaptations completed

Compliance

The Compliance team have maintained high standards of safety checks whilst working through the backlog of jobs caused by previous COVID-19 restrictions. We have moved our electrical safety inspection regime to a five-year rolling programme, which means we’ve made huge progress during the year. Plans are now in place to work with residents to gain access to homes to ensure the maximum safety of their homes.

Key statistics:

100%

valid fire risk assessments

100%

valid gas certificates

100%

valid water risk assessments

100%

valid asbestos surveys

99.9%

valid electrical inspection reports (within 10 years)

100%

lifts have a valid inspection

15

Spotlight on damp and mould We have previously told you how we quickly acted following the launch of the Housing Ombudsman Spotlight on Damp and Mould Report, and outlined how we were working to implement all the recommendations.

The health and safety of our residents is our highest priority, and this year we created a dedicated ‘damp and mould taskforce,’ led by our Directors of Property and Housing Services and involving key colleagues.

This was brought into even sharper focus for the housing sector following the tragic death of a toddler in Rochdale.

The main focus of the group is to make sure we have the most robust and timely processes in place, to respond to any reports of potential damp and mould.

If you have any concerns around damp and mould, please contact us straight away on 0800 085 1171.

There is also lots of helpful advice and guidance on our website, which can be found here.

Keeping your home healthy A Helpful Guide

16

Growth and environmental sustainability OUR AIM:

We are committed to developing new, high quality and affordable homes across the North of England and Borderlands area and will actively work towards a net zero future.

New homes

We aim to provide new and affordable homes in the locations where we know communities would benefit most from them. 2022 – 23 was a busy year for our Development team, bringing 83 new homes for rent and shared ownership across our region.

Cumbria

Development partner

New homes

Story Homes

18

Gleeson

2

Orton Road, Carlisle

Story Homes

8

Speckled Wood, Carlisle

Persimmon

5

Stonecross Meadows, Kendal

Jones Homes

4

Aspen Grange, Carlisle Calluna Grange, Broughton Moor

37

Total new homes in Cumbria North East Longshore Village, Blyth Shoreview, Blyth Station Road, Wallsend Total new homes in the North East

Development partner

New homes

Miller

18

Taylor Wimpey

6

Persimmon

22 46

17

Cumbria

North East

We’ve forged new relationships with three developers across Cumbria and:

The team acquired 46 energy efficient homes in Longshore Village and Shoreview in Blyth; and Fallow Park in Wallsend, North Tyneside; and held a public consultation event in Hexham for a proposed housing development of around 62 new homes.

•

bought five properties on the Speckled Wood scheme

•

took handover of two homes at the Calluna Grange site

•

the first four units were handed over to us at the Stonecross Meadows development in Kendal

We also work closely with Story Homes and this year took handover of: •

18 new homes at their Aspen Grange scheme in Carlisle

•

eight bungalows at the Oakleigh Fields scheme, off Orton Road in Carlisle

A successful open day was held at one of our newest developments, Adlam Court in Newsham, Blyth. Residents in the 27 new homes met colleagues from our development and housing teams, the site’s developers and builders, and members of our RSP. The team also has a busy year ahead with more homes set to be delivered in Blyth, Howden and Wallsend. The planning application has been submitted and the team is working with a small housebuilder to bring 25 highly energy efficient homes to Haydon Bridge in Northumberland.

In November 2022, the team sought local views on a proposed affordable homes scheme in Brampton.

The housing development could see around 60 new homes.

2023/24 looks to be another busy and exciting year with CCHA own-build schemes at Ellerslie in Gosforth and Crookfield in Staveley due to start on site; two planning applications submitted; and ‘Section 106’ purchases secured at nine other sites.

Aspen Grange, Carlisle

18

Longshore Village, Blyth

Energy efficiency and net zero carbon Helping our residents to reduce the cost of heating their homes by improving the energy efficiency of properties has become increasingly important.

CCHA’s approach to the Government’s target of Net Zero Carbon by 2050 started several years ago with the introduction of air source heat pumps and solar panels to homes with no mains gas supply.

We have recently introduced a new system that uses the data from each Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) to help us cost, plan, and prioritise our work. The aim is for this to help us by directing our focus towards properties most in need of thermal improvement.

We’re taking measures such as better double glazing, and loft insulation as part of re-roofing works, as we work towards improving the thermal performance of properties.

96%

of all CCHA homes now have an EPC

68.5% of our homes are already EPC Band C or higher (with a target of all homes to be Band C or higher by 2028)

422

homes had their thermal performance improved to EPC Band C during 2022-23 (against a target of 150)

19

Innovation OUR AIM:

We will be commercial, innovative and ambitious, continually looking at ways we can improve our services, ensuring everything we do comes back to our social purpose.

Financial inclusion

267

At CCHA, we provide more than just a home. Our dedicated Financial Inclusion team is on hand to support any residents who may find themselves struggling with their finances. They can offer help and advice on a range of issues.

residents were supported by our Financial Inclusion team this year, with benefit gains for residents of more than

£830,000

as a result.

£23,000 benefits ‘over payment’ debt cancelled This heartwarming story is just one example of support provided by the team over the past year.

Roy* and Sue* had been claiming sickness and disability benefits for many years due to their health needs. In 2014, one of them took on a small part-time job, working eight hours per week, and didn’t realise they had to declare this to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The DWP found out about the wage, stopped the couple’s Employment and Support Allowance, and calculated that they had been overpaid by more than £23,000.

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The Financial Inclusion team were told that deductions from Housing Benefit would be made going forward. Over several weeks, we worked with Roy and Sue to calculate their household income and to see if they were entitled to any other support.

We passed this information to the local council, and it was agreed that full Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support should be awarded. This cancelled the overpayment, meaning that they thankfully did not owe anything. * Names changed to protect privacy

Our Community Fund

Our Community Fund provides much-needed funding to local organisations and groups, to create opportunities for projects across our communities that support the following objectives: •

Sense of community – bringing communities together

•

Training and employability – supporting residents to gain or develop skills

•

Health and wellbeing – improving the health and wellbeing of residents

•

Improving communities – reducing ASB

•

Increasing financial and digital inclusion for residents

Managed on our behalf by Cumbria Community Foundation, our funding has helped support over 2,500 people in local communities across Cumbria in the last financial year.

Details of the how to apply for the fund can be found on our website by clicking here.

‘Team Tanzumbria’ youth exchange programme Local charity, Cumbria Rungwe, provides a link between the communities of West Cumbria and Rungwe in Tanzania. It’s been running a successful youth exchange programme for over 30 years to give young people the chance to experience other cultures and the young people themselves get involved in fundraising activities. The charity’s work with young people from Workington and North Copeland includes peer mentoring and young leader development culture, as well as awareness raising and involvement in local West Cumbrian schools.

CCHA funding has helped reinvigorate this programme, which had to pause during the pandemic. Mary Kipling, Fundraiser, said: “The CCHA funding is being used for our first youth exchange programme in West Cumbria since the pandemic. We’re hosting a group from Rungwe, Tanzania, and the funding is helping us build a team of young people and community volunteers from West Cumbria and Rungwe - ‘Team Tanzumbria’.

They’ll visit schools and community groups across the area, involving people of all ages and abilities in the joy of diversity and multiculturalism.

Our young people and volunteers will gain skills, confidence, and an insight into how their own communities’ work.”

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Value for money – how we use your rent

We aim to make sure every pound we spend delivers the maximum benefit to our residents and the communities we serve.

We use our income, from your rent and other sources, in a prudent and effective way to make sure we get the best value for money that we can for the services we deliver.

We listen to the views of residents so that we know our investments are helping us shape our services in the right way.

How we spent your rent in 2022/23:

Investment in residents’ homes:

The money we spend in residents’ homes on repairs and improvements.

Improvement projects:

The money we spent on making large scale improvements to residents’ homes, such as new roofs, kitchens or bathrooms.

Cost of providing services:

The money we spent delivering services in residents’ homes and communities.

Interest on loans:

We borrow money to invest in residents’ homes and to build new ones.

We use some rental income to pay back interest on borrowing.

Total:

You’ll notice the total is over 100%. That’s because, as well as all your rent being spent on the categories above, we also used other income such as house sales to help fund our planned improvement projects throughout the year.

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40% 23% 37% 13% 113%

Improving how you can get in touch

We’re always looking at new ways for you to get in contact with CCHA, aiming to make it as easy as possible for residents to access our services, in a way that meets individual needs and preferences.

New ‘callback’ service

Website accessibility tool

Request a callback

In July 2022, we launched a new webchat service and to make things even easier, we quickly followed that with our ‘request a callback’ service.

To use this service, just visit the ‘Contact Us’ page on our website and click the ‘Request a callback’ button (picture above). You’ll be asked for your name and the number you’d like us to call you back on, free of charge, and as soon as a Customer Services team member is available, they’ll give you a call back.

We’ve introduced the ‘ReachDeck’ website accessibility tool. This is integrated into our website and offers speech, reading and translation support tools for visitors to the site.

You’ll now see the icon above on every page of the website. Clicking on it gives you the options of adding a ‘screen mask’ in different colours, having the page read out loud, translated, displayed in larger text or simplified, and more.

You can also get in touch with us in the following ways:

Visit us at our offices at 5 Paternoster Row, Carlisle or Stoneleigh, Park End Road, Workington every Tuesday and Thursday between 10am and 2pm Phone us on 0800 085 1171 Email us at cs@castlesandcoasts.co.uk Visit the ‘Contact us’ page on our website at castlesandcoasts.co.uk/contact You can also view your account, pay your rent and log a repair anytime via our Residents’ Portal, which can be accessed here.

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To access this report in another format, please contact our Customer Services team by calling 0800 085 1171 or emailing cs@castlesandcoasts.co.uk