a place for everyone RESIDENTS’ REVIEW 2012/13
a place to live a place to grow a place to learn a place to play a place to care a place to explore a place to develop a place to mix a place to belong a place to work Contents Introduction 03 Repairs performance 04 – 05 Rental income and lettings 06 – 07 Complaints 08 – 09 Your neighbourhood 10 – 11 Value For Money 12 – 13 Looking after your home 14 – 15
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NEWLON HOUSING TRUST RESIDENTS’ REVIEW 2012/13
Annual Report for residents 2012/2013 Welcome to your copy of Newlon’s annual review for residents. This report lets you know how well we have done in providing services to you in the last year. You can see at a glance where performance has improved. Working with our Residents’ Forum we have agreed to report on the following areas of performance: l l l l l l l l
Repairs Rental income Lettings Complaints Value For Money Neighbourhoods Looking after your homes New homes
We have also provided an update on the services provided by Newlon Fusion and Outward, members of the Newlon Group, who can provide services and support for our residents and their families.
About the pictures in this year’s review The photographs in this review show a range of resident involvement activities, new developments and existing homes. If you want to know more about any particular picture or activity, please let us know by e-mailing info@newlon.org.uk.
If you would like this Annual Review in large print, or in any other format, or if you require help with translation please call 020 7613 8080, or e-mail info@newlon.org.uk.
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Repairs performance Repairs are the main thing that the majority of our residents need to speak to us about at one time or another. As such, this is the area of performance that most affects how you see us as a landlord. Therefore, we spend a lot of time managing the performance of our two main contractors, Breyer and BSW, to ensure they deliver a service that you will be happy with.
Repairs done on time 2010/11 89.5% 2011/12 91.5% 2012/13 94.7% Over the past few years we have worked closely with our contractors to improve the percentage of jobs completed within target time. Although we were just below our target of 95% last year, performance has continued to improve and so far we have met the target during 2013/14. We know that it is important that wherever possible contractors should complete repairs on their first visit. In the year 2012/13 we managed to achieve an average of 86% of jobs completed “right first time” which is just above our target of 85%. This improved from 80.4% in 2011/2012. We also know that it is important that contractors keep the appointment you have been given. Newlon has a target of 97% of appointments made and kept. Unfortunately we only managed to achieve an average of 86% last year. This was largely due to problems experienced by our main repairs contractor Breyer with their new appointments booking software. As a result, a significant number of appointments were missed during the summer of 2012. We have been working closely with Breyer to improve this and we are currently achieving an average of 92% of appointments kept. This is still below our target of 97% and we continue to work with all our contractors to try and improve performance in this area. Improving our repairs performance is one of our key business targets for the next year and we will report on progress in our quarterly newsletters.
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NEWLON HOUSING TRUST RESIDENTS’ REVIEW 2012/13
Aids and adaptations An area of work that is becoming increasingly important to our residents is providing aids and adaptations to allow people to continue to live comfortably in their home. This includes fitting things like grab rails in bathrooms and improving access to properties. During 2012/13 we provided aids or adaptations to 117 residents’ homes and we managed to get 96% of these done within the target completion time. If you feel this is a service that you, or someone living with you, would benefit from please contact our service centre on 020 7613 8080 or e-mail info@newlon.org.uk to find out more.
Health and Safety in your home Every year around 40 people in the UK die from carbon monoxide poisoning mainly caused by faulty gas appliances and many others suffer ill health. In order to keep our homes safe, if you rent your home from Newlon, our gas contractor (BSW) will contact you at some point during the year to arrange your annual gas service and safety inspection. At the end of 2012/13 we had inspected 100% of our properties with gas appliances and all of them had received a gas safety certificate known as a CP12. In our larger buildings we also carry out a weekly Health and Safety inspection to all communal areas and equipment. This includes testing of fire systems, door entry systems, lift alarms and emergency lighting. These checks also pick up any general maintenance issues that need to be looked at in these communal areas.
Newlon resident and workplace volunteer Celyne meets Graham Watts from Newlon Fusion
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4. 1. Hale Village 2. Vickers Court 3. Whitehall Mansions 4. Inside at Coppermill Heights 5. De Havilland Court roof garden 6. Albert Cottages
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NEWLON HOUSING TRUST RESIDENTS’ REVIEW 2012/13
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Rental income and lettings Rental income
Lettings
Overall rent arrears (as percentage of rent roll) End of 2010/11
4.51%
End of 2011/12
4.39%
End of 2012/13
4.71%
Last year we did the following: l l
301 new lettings. 24 internal transfers and a further 13 through the Tower Hamlets Partnership.
Lettings performance During the year arrears increased slightly. We rely on residents paying their rent because we use this income to pay for the services we provide. The majority of residents are good payers, but we understand that this year has seen more people experience financial pressures due to the economic climate and that some families are experiencing hardship and have struggled to pay their rent.
Average void turnaround
Where people cannot pay we work with them to get them back on track with realistic payment plans. But if residents ultimately do not pay, we will take the firmest action up to and including taking possession of the home as a last resort. We work hard to avoid evictions and are pleased that the number carried out went down to 13 from 17 the previous year. Evictions are always the last resort and in all cases we aim to help residents maintain their tenancies.
2012/2103 86%
Changes to welfare benefits Last year we spent a considerable amount of time preparing residents for the changes in the benefits system that started from April 2013 with the introduction of the ‘Bedroom Tax’. Many of our residents were affected by this change which effectively meant that their Housing Benefit was reduced by 14% or 25% if the regulations deemed that they had one or more unoccupied bedrooms. Early statistics show that about a third of affected residents are paying this ‘shortfall’ in their Housing Benefit, a third are not paying it at all, and the remainder are paying some of it. This inevitably means that rent arrears are creeping up. With the additional introduction of Universal Credit and the Benefits Cap some residents may also find that Housing Benefit may not pay for all of their rent. We believe this may force up rent arrears and make it harder for residents to pay on time.
2011/2012
42 days
2012/2013
49 days
Satisfaction with new properties 2011/2012 85%
Newlon tenants transferred to new homes 2011/2012 38 2012/2013 37 A void is when a home becomes empty because the previous tenants have moved out. Our performance measures the average time it takes to move new tenants in from when a home has been vacated. This includes making sure that properties are fit and ready for living in and the time taken to sign up and move in new residents. This took us longer on average in the last year than the year before and to help improve our performance we have created a new lettings team to speed up the process of moving people into the homes we have available. We also carried out 40 Mutual Exchanges during the year. This is the easiest way to find a home appropriate for your needs and if you do need to move we would encourage you to find out more about Mutual Exchange. If you are interested in the possibility of arranging a Mutual Exchange please call our service centre on 020 7613 8080 or e-mail info@newlon.org.uk.
We publicise information and updates about the changes to benefits in our quarterly newsletters and on our website at www.newlon.org.uk/residents/changes-to-benefits and will continue to give residents more information on how we can and will help. Through Newlon Fusion we can provide residents with a range of help and support services. This includes providing advice and guidance on managing finances, understanding benefits and finding employment. We have also increased the number of specialist support agencies that we can direct our residents to so that they can get appropriate advice and guidance. Last year 135 residents were referred to financial support services. 7
Complaints Complaints are important to Newlon as they tell us where our service has not been as good as it should and offer us the opportunity to learn how we can improve. Our target for responding to complaints is 10 working days and we responded to 92% within that time in the last year.
Number of complaints
Percentage replied to on time
2011/2012 128
88%
2012/2013 257
92%
Main reasons for complaints in the past year We look closely at which aspects of our service cause residents to complain and in the past year the main source of complaints related to our repairs services. Complaints relating to repairs by our main contractors account for 30% of all the complaints we receive. We also receive a significant proportion of complaints relating to estate management and customer care. Concerns about estate management primarily relate to the cleaning and general maintenance of communal areas and complaints about customer care mainly refer to correspondence, either e-mails or telephone messages not being responded to.
Learning from complaints We hold monthly Complaints Meetings to review outstanding complaints, to ensure appropriate action has been taken in each case and discuss learning points. In recent meetings the following actions have been recommended to improve complaint handling: l
Training to be provided to staff on letter writing, as there have been some letters of poor quality.
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Newlon’s Quality Manager, who manages our complaints team, to attend the Breyer Liaison Meetings to specifically discuss all open complaints with them and to look at ways of improving communication to ensure complaints are being handled and any frequently occurring issues are picked up.
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An article to go in the residents’ newsletter to ensure people are clear about Newlon’s obligations regarding insurance and decorations.
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NEWLON HOUSING TRUST RESIDENTS’ REVIEW 2012/13
How we handle complaints When we receive a complaint we will acknowledge it within three days telling you who will investigate the issue and how soon you will get a full reply (normally within 10 working days). We will apologise when we are at fault, do what we can to put things right and advise you how you can appeal if you are unhappy with our response. Below is an outline of who will deal with your complaint: l
Stage 1 will be dealt with by the manager of the service. In 2012-13 we received 222 Stage 1 Complaints;
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Stage 2 will be dealt with by the Director with overall responsibility for the service. In 2012-13 we received 35 Stage 2 Complaints.
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Stage 3 will be dealt with by the Complaints Case Panel, which is comprised of a Resident Forum or Resident Board member, a Board member and a member of our Executive team. In 2012-13 we received four Stage 3 appeals.
If a resident remains unhappy after the Complaints Case Panel they can approach the Housing Ombudsman who will review Newlon’s handling of the complaint. Only one case was reviewed by the Housing Ombudsman in the past year. Newlon was criticised for not having a clear policy on residents paying for lost door entryphone fobs and then denying a resident access to the complaints process when they were unhappy.
1. 1. Tower Hamlets Community Fun Day 2. Newlon Fusion’s conference on youth unemployment 3. Barnsbury Community Fun Day 4. Hackney Community Fun Day 5. Barnsbury Community Fun Day 6. Community Sports Event
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6. 1. Community gardening project at Barnsbury 2. Barnsbury Community Fun Day with Student@Home 3. Outward’s Volunteer Club 4. David Lammy MP at Newlon Fusion’s conference on youth unemployment 5. Hale Village Community Fun Day 6. Hale Village Community Fun Day
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Your neighbourhood We work with our residents to inspect the estates where they live to ensure they are maintained to a high standard.
Estates graded as being in good or excellent condition
Newlon Fusion - Working with our residents
2011/2012 90%
Newlon Fusion is our community regeneration charity. The team works with Newlon residents and in the communities where we have housing to;
2012/2013 87% Last year 87% of our blocks and estates met a good or excellent standard. The main reason our performance dipped slightly is that one particular estate needed improvements. We are tackling this in partnership with residents on the estate and improvements are gradually being made.
Satisfaction of residents with the way their AntiSocial Behaviour (ASB) complaint was dealt with
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Support people into employment and training.
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Help residents to set up their own businesses.
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Support residents who need advice on benefits, changes to benefits or in managing their finances.
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Support residents to live energy efficient lifestyles.
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Manage three local community centres which act as hubs for a wide range of local support services such as crèche and nursery provision and lunch clubs for older residents.
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Help residents become digitally enabled and skilled ahead of the Government’s ‘digital by default’ agenda.
2011/2012 43% 2012/2013 65% During the past year we set up a new team to deal with ASB and this has significantly improved how quickly and effectively we are able to deal with reports of ASB. We were able to keep those experiencing ASB better informed, which helped us improve satisfaction. Overall satisfaction improved from 43% before the team was set up to an average of 65% by the end of the year. The new team concentrated on improving the way we deal with cases and we were able to resolve a lot more than in previous years. At the beginning of the year we had 77 open cases of ASB and this was reduced to 44 by the end of the year. We know we have more to do and in the next year we will be working on improving the way we deal with noise nuisance, especially in older street properties. We have also invested in additional IT to set up a new electronic case management system which will help us to track cases of ASB and liaise more effectively with residents and partner agencies.
If you want to find out more about any of these initiatives, or want help and support with looking for employment, workplace volunteering or are interested in finding out about an apprenticeship you can find out more at www.newlonfusion.org.uk or you can ring the team on 020 7033 4605.
Newlon Fusion – helping our residents become digitally engaged Did you know that Newlon Fusion is working in partnership with Student@Home to provide residents without computers with high quality reconditioned PCs donated by local businesses? Student@Home also provide free technical, support and IT training for our residents and a free computer repair service. If this is of interest to you contact Newlon Fusion using the e-mail address or number above.
Visiting you Last year we carried out over 1,800 visits to meet residents. This included visits to elderly tenants and new tenants who had just moved into their homes. These visits are for us to check that you are happy with your home and with the elderly or vulnerable to see if any minor improvements or aids and adaptations are needed to assist them to stay in their home.
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Value For Money How we compare Housing management costs per home Newlon £447.29 Median for London Housing Associations
£520.74
Total repairs cost per property Newlon £791.27 Median for London Housing Associations
£848.51
Satisfaction that rent provides Value For Money Newlon 74% Median for London Housing Associations
70%
Value For Money (VFM) is very important to Newlon as we want to ensure that we can provide services for our residents that are of a high quality and are cost-effective and that we can continue to invest part of any surpluses in developing new affordable homes for people in housing need.
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Meeting housing demand and contributing to community regeneration within the boroughs where we provide homes.
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Easing pressure on local housing markets, promoting community cohesion and helping to stimulate the local economy.
In 2012/13 we spent £52 million on developing new homes and received social housing grant of £20.3 million. Because the amount of government grant for building affordable housing has been reduced in recent years we have been looking for new ways to securely finance providing new homes for people in housing need. As a result we have sought and been awarded a credit rating and independently raised £100 million from a Private Placement with UK and overseas investors to invest in building new affordable homes.
Newlon’s financial well-being Spending on repairs and maintenance In the last year we spent £4.4 million on repairs and planned maintenance.
Turnover
2013 2012
We have a number of key VFM objectives which include:
£’000 £’000
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Turnover
64.600 62,301
Surplus
6,376 3,268
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Providing good quality services to gain higher than average satisfaction from our residents without spending more than the average amount spent by comparable organisations on housing management costs. Supporting our residents to find employment or training so that they can improve their life opportunities and contribute to their local communities.
Planning and monitoring VFM In August 2012 our Board approved Newlon’s VFM strategy and from 2013 they will receive an annual assessment as part of our compliance with the Homes and Communities Agency’s regulatory code for social housing providers. This is part of our approach to ensuring that we use the rent we collect from our residents cost-effectively and where it is most needed to support providing excellent services. The Board also receives annual presentations showing how we compare in both financial and housing management performance to comparable organisations, allowing them to make informed decisions about where best to invest resources to improve services for residents.
New homes Maintaining Newlon’s ability to develop new homes to help meet the continuing demand for affordable housing is central to our VFM strategy. By maximising our development capacity we are responding to the needs of our local communities through: l
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Providing greater opportunities for our current residents to move. Increasing housing options for potential future residents.
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Turnover is the income Newlon receives as rent and any money we receive from the sale of Shared Ownership properties. For 2012/2013 our turnover was £64.6 million. Surplus means that we received more money than we spent on maintaining homes and in investing in services and new homes. As a ‘not for profit’ organisation any surpluses are reinvested in providing services to current residents or to help build new affordable homes for people in housing need.
Outward – providing care and support At Newlon we work with Outward, our specialist care and support partner, to look after many of our residents as well as individuals in our communities who need extra help to live their lives as independently as possible. This ranges from people who may need a small amount of weekly support with life skills such as budgeting, to residents living in elderly care schemes or adults on the autism spectrum. Outward runs an award-winning Volunteer Club for people with learning disabilities and provides a number of apprenticeship places every year. They also have a rural retreat in the East Sussex countryside called Nutley Edge, which provides a wide range of options for people with care and support needs. If you, or a member of your family could benefit from the services Outward provides why not visit their website – www.outward.org.uk to find out more?
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3. 1. Outward Service user Conference 2. Gospel Oak Court – our new Extra Care for the elderly scheme 3. Barnsbury Community Fun Day 4. Volunteer Club 5. Volunteer Club 6. Gospel Oak Court resident
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5. 1. Queensland Road 2. Isobel Place 3. Isobel Place 4. Queensland Road 5. Hale Village 6. Hale Village play area
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Looking after your home Providing new homes
Number of homes improved through stock improvement 2011/12
298
2012/13 153 At Newlon we pride ourselves on ensuring all our homes meet the Government’s Decent Homes standard. Each year through our stock condition survey we identify homes in need of major refurbishment works. These works typically include fitting new kitchens and bathrooms, new windows and doors, or new heating. In 2012/13 we spent over £1.7 million on improving our residents’ homes.
Newlon’s mission is to provide decent and affordable homes for people in housing need in north and east London. To achieve this we divide our activities between maintaining and managing our existing homes and building new housing. In the past year we have completed over 400 new homes, making us one of the main developers of new affordable housing in London. This includes completing all our rented and Shared Ownership homes at Hale Village in Haringey, where we now have 542 homes spread between four schemes at the heart of this major regeneration programme.
We also aim to redecorate the outside and common parts of all the buildings we own every 5 to 7 years. In 2012/13 we spent £344,000 on these cyclical redecorations.
Works were also completed at Gospel Oak Court, a new state of the art Extra Care scheme for the elderly based in Camden, providing 35 homes to help older members of the community to continue to live independently.
We write to residents in the stock improvement or cyclical painting programme early in the year to inform them about the upcoming works and wherever possible we seek to involve residents in the choice of products, colours and finishes.
211 new homes have been completed in Queensland Road, adjacent to the Emirates Stadium and a further 141 are now nearing completion, in what will be the last part of the Arsenal Regeneration Programme.
Making homes more energy efficient Increase in energy efficiency – average SAP rating for Newlon homes during the year 2011/12 76 2012/13 77
Works are also being finalised on another major development of 109 new homes behind Tottenham Town Hall in Haringey and we have a number of schemes of varying sizes underway at sites across north and east London. The need for affordable housing in the communities we serve is greater than ever, with private rents at record levels and high house prices meaning that many people cannot afford to buy their own home. To help people find the housing they need we have ambitious plans to provide at least 2,000 new homes over the next 10 years.
Newlon is committed to making our housing stock as energy efficient as we can. Making our housing more energy efficient will help to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. Equally importantly it helps our residents stay warm more easily and save money on their energy bills. Our stock improvement programme includes works like installing loft insulation, double glazed windows and energy efficient modern boilers. Our most inefficient properties tend to be our old Victorian street properties, where we are often limited in what we can do to improve their energy performance. Nevertheless we aim to make every property as energy efficient as we practically can. The energy efficiency of homes is measured by a government standard called the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP). Newlon sets a SAP rating of 50 as a minimum target but most of our homes are well above this level.
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Certification No.190444
Newlon House – 4 Daneland Walk – Hale Village – London – N17 9FE T: 020 7613 8080 E: info@newlon.org.uk www.newlon.org.uk
Newlon Housing Trust is a charitable housing association Group Chief Executive: Mike Hinch Chair: Sarah Ebanja Newlon Housing Trust is registered with the Homes and Communities Agency L0006, Inland Revenue charity no. X21906/1, Industrial and Provident Society 18449R. Access Homes HA Ltd is registered with the Homes and Communities Agency SL3605, Industrial and Provident Society 24992R. Outward Housing, trading as Outward, is a company limited by guarantee – company no. 2151434, registered charity no. 800529. Newlon Fusion is a company limited by guarantee – company no. 4000022, registered charity no. 1119673 NewlonBuild Ltd is a registered company – company no. 7884092 Finsbury Park Homeless Families Project is a company limited by guarantee – company no. 2879813, registered charity no. 1030970. Designed and produced by Glendale Design Consultants Ltd www.glendalecreative.com © Newlon Housing Trust 2013. All rights reserved.