“There comes a point where the soul of who we are just disappears”
“Our staff get hammered on the phones every single day and it’s always about repairs”
“We’re experiencing the highest churn rate I’ve ever known. Staff turnover is currently 20%”
The cost-of-living crisis is coming home to roost. Our government is trying to get prices under control and now it’s our turn.
We’ve created a dedicated web page to help you stay up-to-date with the latest developments and find out what HQN is doing to help, including: • Topical briefings • Expert opinions • Relevant events and training.
Welcome to the November edition of Housing Quality Magazine and what’s to be my last as editor.
I’ll soon be moving onto pastures new but hope that the magazine continues to grow as it has done over the past two years. Thank you to everyone that’s taken the time to read the editions and provide feedback – we couldn’t have done it without you.
In this edition our main focus is resilience. With the economic landscape uncertain and the cost-of-living crisis only worsening as we enter winter, the social housing sector knows there will need to be cuts to survive.
Our message on this is simple: build resilience; support residents.
The cover feature is a bumper one this month, containing the views of chief executives, finance directors, younger housing professionals and, most importantly, residents. We’ll look at the issues of high staff turnover, the trade offs needing to be made and what housing professionals are doing to deliver a first-class service.
Elsewhere, we speak to Grenfell survivors about their hopes and fears for the future as the long-running public inquiry finally comes to an end.
Our usual Evidence special is also in this month’s edition, with thanks to our partners CaCHE and HSA. This time we look at the latest research on rent caps, the cost-of-living crisis and the mounting pressure in the private rented sector.
Our views section contains various interesting reads, from how housing providers can better use technology during the cost-of-living crisis to the Housing Ombudsman’s column on its recent noise nuisance report. We’ve also got two residents’ perspectives on the importance of engaging older residents with technology and an outside perspective on how social landlords can do better when it comes to tech.
Finally, our spotlight section does exactly that and shines a light on the people that make the sector tick. With a Day in the Life of our Housing’s Next Generation 2022 winner Tom Leon-Grimes to a CEO’s self-reflection on regrets, achievements and lottery wins, there’s plenty to get stuck into.
I hope you enjoy the edition and I hope you continue to support the magazine.
Mark Lawrence, Senior Content Editor, HQN
“I find as a matter of fact that the development of Awaab’s severe respiratory condition which led to him going into respiratory arrest was entirely due to the prolonged exposure he had to mould in his home environment,” Ms Joanne Kearsley, HM Senior Coroner North Manchester
We’ve had Lakanal, Grenfell and now the tragic death of Awaab Ishak. How can we put a stop to this?
As the leading solicitor Giles Peaker says: “The problems are certainly more widespread and deep-rooted than just at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, and go further than the CEO’s leadership…”
Where do I begin?
Well, there are grounds for optimism. First and foremost, we have in Richard Blakeway a vigilant Ombudsman. He’s holding landlords to account on damp and mould as well as other failings. Single handedly he’s stopped landlords blaming damp and mould on tenants’ lifestyles. Richard gave evidence to the coroner at the hearing about Awaab. Following the Ombudsman’s advice will save lives.
And the return of Michael Gove bodes well. The Coalition ditched inspection but he’s bringing it back. Thank goodness for that. The quality of housing management fell off a cliff when too many boards thought no one was looking.
On top of that, George Osborne’s four-year rent cut from 2016 made matters worse. There was a lot less cash for repairs. Computer says no – was all that tenants heard.
This time around Michael Gove’s 7% rent cap is the best deal anyone could have expected given everything. So, it’s another positive step from the minister.
His removal of the CEO at Rochdale was straight out of the New Labour play book. Ed Balls called for the sacking of the director at Haringey Council after Baby P and Michael Gove has done much the same here. That will send shock waves around boardrooms.
In the face of a conveyor belt of exposés from Kwajo, ITV and the Ombudsman, I have to ask myself: what’s the point of governance? Is there something inherently flawed with our approach? Everything seems to come as a great surprise to boards – even those top rated by the regulator.
Michael Gove is asking for us to come clean on damp and mould. At the same time the regulator is starting to gather data on safety. This will trigger a flurry of self-referrals to the regulator. Which again is proof positive of being asleep at the wheel.
We all make mistakes, so only a fool gets on a high horse in the modern world. The basic answer is to check our homes carefully and listen to what frontline staff and residents are telling us. It won’t catch everything but it’s a start. Why don’t we do more of this? I’m anxious that managers put in so much effort servicing boards these days that it squeezes out the time for more important work. Do we ever stop to think how many hours we’d save if we weren’t grinding out 500-page board papers? We could get a lot done.
I welcome much of what Michael Gove and Richard Blakeway are doing. Will it bring change? I’ve got a few lingering doubts.
Worryingly, everyone is telling me that staff are leaving and it’s tough to find replacements. That means we need to find a way to make the jobs a lot more attractive. The Ombudsman is calling for a strong local presence. I agree but where will we get the people to do this?
When you walk around estates from the 1960s and ‘70s, and even the ‘80s, it’s obvious that they need regenerating. Who will pay for this? The era of cheap money is over. And the get out of jail cards from New Labour of stock transfer, ALMO and PFI are long gone. Michael Gove will need to come up with a Plan B to bring about real change. If he doesn’t, we’ll be chasing our tail with one-off repairs.
In the meantime, what will happen to Rochdale? The regulator’s usual remedy is to use mergers to make troubled associations disappear. Does that always bring about improvements? I’m not so sure. Moreover, who will want to take over a service that could be a risk at any future inspection?
Last point – never forget there are many fine people working at landlords in difficulty. Act quickly, or they too will leave.
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the amount average bills would be reduced by under a £7bn retrofit plan (IPPR)
times more likely for BAME communities to be in relative poverty (Runnymede Trust)
of parents have cut back on the quantity of food they buy to afford essentials (National Energy Action)
of complaints were related to property condition in the latest Ombudsman insight report (Housing Ombudsman)
of low-income households considering washing school uniforms by hand to get by during the cost-ofliving crisis
providers have invested in major capitalised repairs between April and June, the highest ever for a first quarter (Regulator of Social Housing)
has been made available to the social housing sector to apply for through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund second wave
Tenant Satisfaction Measures confirmed in the final consultation response by the RSH
“The Housing Quality Network provides a great opportunity to hear about what other registered providers are doing and share experiences. The more we can learn from each other and collaborate the better.”
The latest research and analysis – in plain English
In this issue:
Welcome
Housing professionals’ roles in tackling social housing stigma 12 Rising pressures on the private housing market 13 Does the return of in-work sanctions on welfare benefits make any sense?
The relationship between economics and politics is complex, and has been revealed as surprisingly delicate in the recent UK government turmoil. Markets can be spooked like a herd of wildebeest, or calmed Dogs Behaving Badly style by this week’s Graeme Hall of the Treasury.
Housing should be a solid, dependable counter to all the fluctuations yet it has proved anything but. In this edition Professor Kenneth Gibb from the University of Glasgow and John Perry from UK Housing Review give their assessments of the plans to cap or freeze social rents in different parts of the UK.
That will bring pain to the sector as it tries to grapple with investment decisions and support tenants. But homeowners, and especially those looking to buy, face equally difficult choices. In a further extract from UK Housing Review, Peter Williams assesses the shape of the markets this winter.
There are service cuts in prospect across
Issue 39 | November 2022
14 The cost-of-living crisis and social sector rents 16 Freezing and capping rents 17 Research roundup
departments as the Westminster government attempts to balance the books. Welfare is always an easy target, but one new measure has so far attracted little comment. It’s the government’s plans to sanction people already in work for not trying hard enough to get more or better quality jobs. We review the existing research.
And amid all the fast-moving political events, one thing sadly has changed little. It’s the deep rooted stigma that people living in social housing experience in many aspects of their day-to-day lives. Dr Mercy Denedo and Dr Amanze Ejiogu from the Universities of Durham and Newcastle offer solutions based on their survey of tenants and other sector stakeholders. It’s going to require some radical rethinking by landlords to increase accountability and a culture shift to get back to the core social mission the sector should espouse. No better place to start than here and now.
Janis Bright Editor, Evidence
Mercy Denedo and Amanze Ejiogu report on the findings of their latest research.
In July 2021, we published our report “Stigma and Social Housing in England”, which was summarised in Housing Quality Magazine, Issue 7, January 2022 edition. We highlighted how people living in social housing are negatively impacted by a deep-rooted and prevailing stigma in almost all aspects of their day-to-
day lives. Our report explored how the bias towards social housing and its residents has been constructed over the years, considering how tenants, politicians and government policy, social housing providers and the media have all contributed to reinforcing stigma, and how tenants have, as a result, been affected for the worse in their lives and life chances.
To drive the social change desired by our study’s participants, we sought to give impetus to the national conversation on stigma. We invited diverse stakeholders including policymakers, housing providers, advocacy groups, trade and professional bodies, and social housing residents among others to respond to our study by providing their views on some key questions.
The responses were substantial and wide-ranging. The analysis of these responses led us to author another report, titled “Stigma and Social Housing in England: feedback on the consultation responses” and, additionally, a policy briefing titled “Reducing social housing stigma in England: recommendations for the housing sector” to provide a route forwards for decision-makers in the sector.
Below, we focus on key issues and recommendations identified, as well as the implications for housing professionals in tackling and challenging social housing stigma.
First is that the stigma from social landlords cannot be challenged without the presence of a strong tenant voice within the organisation. Tenants highlighted the power imbalance between the housing associations and themselves, which often results in stigmatising behaviour that leaves them feeling unwelcome, undervalued and feeling unable to speak out for fear of repercussions on their tenancies.
The consultation responses highlighted a lack of meaningful local engagement with tenants. Tenants believe that it would be beneficial for housing providers to embed tenants’ voices in their organisational culture, similar to the way they embed value-for-money in their operations. Doing so would ensure that tenants are heard, and their opinions are taken into consideration when making decisions. Going further, tenants could then co-design decisions and practices with their housing providers, empowering tenants to be directly involved in making those difficult choices and ensuring that services can deliver what they need to.
Tenants also highlighted the need to be heard and consulted at every level – from board down. Tenants want a say in policies and procedures and crave genuine interactions with decisions-makers without it being a box-ticking exercise. This implies that housing professionals have a role to play in ensuring that tenants’ voices and experiences are taken on board when making the decisions that will affect their lives.
Housing providers need to establish clear lines of communication between their tenants and the board.
Tenants want a more robust and user-friendly system of communication that would encourage them to openly discuss issues without fear of losing their tenancies. In addition, tenants would like to see more action taken by their housing providers and not merely be told that “someone is dealing with their issue” without any substantial evidence to show that their complaints were being dealt with.
The consultation also highlighted the need for housing providers to ensure transparency and clarity to all, including their tenants, in their decision-making and future planning. This, many tenants claimed, would promote a co-design culture, and see issues acknowledged and quickly tackled. Both tenants and housing professionals felt that such action would help tackle the internal stigma and establish a culture of trust, accountability and inclusion. This, in turn, could enable perspectives and experiences to be better shared and valued — and subsequently enable housing providers and their tenants to jointly celebrate the successes that could emerge from such engagements.
Second, our respondents also alluded to the power that a strong tenant voice at the regional and national levels may have in influencing policies and providing counternarratives to challenge stigmatising rhetoric. The lack of an effective tenant voice thus far means that tenants have lacked the power, mechanisms and resources to lobby, control or even challenge housing policies and regulations. Nor have they been able to effectively demand accountability from housing providers. Our respondents overwhelmingly emphasised that this needs to change.
Having tenants’ voices heard at the national level would itself be a significant driver to ensure they’re heard within their housing associations and can hold the power to influence the decisions and behaviours of their social landlords. A national tenant voice (NTV) organisation would provide a good opportunity to build a forum through which to drive such change. Importantly, the NTV needs to be established and run by the tenants, to ensure that power and voice are directly placed in the hands of the tenants and not with any third parties.
Third, there’s a need to revisit accountability arrangements in the sector. Several respondents voiced a need for enhanced accountability when it comes to service delivery. To establish this, tenants should be included in setting service standards, assessing landlord performance and in agreeing a sanction regime which imposes meaningful penalties on landlords. While the new approach to consumer regulation is a step in the right direction, it doesn’t go far enough. A more robust system of regulation which has a significant element of tenant involvement will encourage landlords to
embrace a more tenant-centred culture and improve their service delivery.
Finally, one of the issues which featured strongly in responses was the sense that social landlords had lost sight of their “social mission” and had become more focused on making profits than on challenging politicians and government to improve the lived experiences of social housing residents. Putting profits before people, tenants felt, had contributed to poor services and continued stigmatisation. Furthermore, it had also meant that those socially aware social landlords had been reluctant to speak out against housing policies which held stigmatising effects on their tenants. There were clear indications that as social landlords became bigger, the mission drift became more pronounced.
What’s required now is a culture shift within the sector which places its social mission at the core, so that social landlords are required to focus on the impact
their actions, or inactions, have on local communities, and that the right balance between social purpose and size of organisation is maintained.
Stigma in social housing is complex and deep-rooted. To challenge it, we must all act together and focus on removing the structural and other inequalities which create and drive stigma. We hope that our reports serve as a call to action and that the conversations which have been ignited will lead to the necessary and fundamental change.
Dr Mercy Denedo is an Assistant Professor in Accounting at Durham University Business School. Dr Amanze Ejiogu is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting at Newcastle University Business School. Enquiries can be sent to us via stigmaconsultation@ gmail.com
In this extract from UK Housing Review, Peter Williams says rising pressures from supply shortages, higher interest rates, Covid, war in Ukraine and more have become familiar – and the housing market is no exception.
After two years of buoyant activity, propelled in part by governments across the UK cutting transaction taxes, the prospects for both owners and renters are worsening.
Many first-time buyers and others brought forward their purchases to take advantage of tax cuts. Further momentum came from buyers moving quickly to seal longer-term mortgage deals ahead of rate rises. The upsurge in demand along with locational effects and the ‘race for space’ kept prices rising, despite the pandemic. Sellers upped prices and bidding wars broke out, driving prices even higher.
Some of these dynamics remain but are waning alongside the emerging financial squeeze. Some 40% of mortgage products have been withdrawn from the market, partly because of the volatility of the swap market on which fixed-term mortgages are based. There’s also been a general re-pricing of products to reflect the rise in base rates and gilt yields.
Clearly all data now lag behind market realities as sellers begin to chase buyers: the tables have turned. Price rises appear to be slowing but we await evidence of the almost inevitable market contraction and falling prices – but much depends on buyer segment, property location and type, and, of course, on government and Bank of England interventions. Sales at the bottom
end of the market may fall more rapidly reflecting the surging pressures on lower-income households. Recently announced transaction-duty cuts will stimulate demand – but how far will they offset the negative factors?
Completion prices reflect the market three months ago so are a lagged indicator. The RICS Residential Market Survey for August showed that enquiries, sales and instructions were falling ever faster. Prices were still rising but more slowly, suggesting an imminent halt. Somewhat dated figures show that numbers of approved mortgages and transactions have been falling over the last few months – but, of course, with a shortage of homes on the market, prices have stayed strong.
Without doubt the market (as measured by house prices) has proved to be more resilient than many expected, in part due to limited stock being available and enhanced demand. With sharp interest-rate rises now coming through in mortgage pricing and with confidence plummeting, this will change. Some 80% of borrowers are on two- and five-year fixed rates but when these end, loans will be more expensive. Houseprice indices are starting to point towards monthly nominal price falls.
The trends are reflected in the Treasury’s Comparison of Independent Forecasts. Forecasts for Q4, 2022 range from +12% rise in house prices to +0.8%. The median is +6.2%, whilst OBR had projected +4.3%. Projections for 2023 reveal a narrower, more negative range from +3.5% down to -4.8%. This suggests a significant slowing in the market and real-terms falls in prices. Although mortgage arrears and possessions remain low, the new conditions suggest that more households will get into difficulty.
Stretched affordability is no longer just a feature of London and the South East. Setting aside rising mortgage costs and possibly falling prices, the cost of renting has surged, reducing the capacity of some households to save a deposit. Demand in the PRS has increased in part due to people returning to the cities and from parental homes, while supply has fallen. Evidence suggests that the PRS is now shrinking, partly in response to the policy stance of governments across the UK.
The tightening regulation of the PRS is likely to be accompanied by fewer affordable homeownership opportunities, with the planned closure of the English Help to Buy scheme in March 2023 and less provision of shared ownership by housing associations as they respond to pressures on their finances.
The Financial Policy Committee’s decision to end the interest-rate stress test (which assesses a borrowers’ ability to repay a mortgage) offers some slight mitigation. The FPC’s technical annex suggests 6% of borrowers may have borrowed more without the limit and that around 1% of renters might have been prevented from buying.
Whereas in 1991 about two-thirds of 25–34-yearolds were homeowners, it’s now around two-fifths. Affordability pressures on younger households have increased and the inequalities driven by the housing market, for both owners and renters, are intensifying. While regional levelling-up may help, it’s the UK government’s fiscal policy and its willingness to make some hard choices around property taxation that need most attention. There’s no sign of that.
Janis Bright outlines the history of this controversial aspect of universal credit now being revived.
While the debate on uprating or cutting welfare benefits rumbles on, another requirement on claimants announced in September’s mini-budget has attracted little comment.
It’s the requirement on universal credit recipients who are in work already to look for more or better work – or face sanctions. The government’s September mini-budget spells out how it will apply. Currently, only those recipients who aren’t working or working very few hours are subject to the full work search
requirements of UC. But in September the government quietly drew more people into the full requirements – applying to those working up to 12 hours a week –and from April that will go up to 15 hours a week (or 24 hours for couples). It means that 120,000 more UC recipients could face sanctions if they don’t try hard enough to find more or better paid work.
Not only that, the government says it will also strengthen the sanctions regime “to set clear work expectations – including applying for jobs, attending interviews or increasing the hours”. It adds: “Claimants who don’t fulfil their job-search commitment without good reason could have their benefits reduced.”
Sanctions already exist as part of the UC system, of
sense?
course, but until now the absurdity of fining people, and thereby further impoverishing them, for not having good-quality work seems to have held back successive ministers from fully implementing the provisions.
Nonetheless, there have been attempts to implement strict work search requirements backed by the threat of sanctions for some working claimants. The sixuniversity Welfare Conditionality Project (WelCond), the largest longitudinal study on this topic ever undertaken, interviewed UC recipients in that situation. It found that the requirements just didn’t fit the modern workforce. People on zero hours contracts, for example, are expected to make themselves available for work with the employer they’re already signed up with. They cannot simply take on other work. This is what one interviewee said:
“I go down [to JobCentre Plus] and say, ‘Look, I’m doing 16 hours with more hours promised.’ [The work coach says] ‘Well you’ll have to look for another job’... That’s scurrilous because I’ve got my employer on one hand wants me to do mornings and would like me to do an evening shift, you know. I never get told what day I’m working. So, I can’t go to another employer and say, ‘Look...I can probably fit in another 20 hours work a week but I don’t know when I can work for you.’”
There were problems too with the type of work people do. A cleaner working early mornings and late evenings cannot take on another similar job during the same hours. In retail, the greatest demand is for Saturdays, not generally other days of the week. This is what the project found:
“For those claiming UC in work, it was often a struggle to meet conditions to attend JobcentrePlus appointments, attend training courses or seek increased hours or multiple jobs. UC conditions often conflicted with work commitments such as shift work, commitments to recovery or childcare.
“‘The lady was saying to me, ‘Well, you can get another job’, well, I can’t get another job because I work evenings and I work in the day on this job, so I haven’t got time to get another job’.”
Some people responded by disengaging from the welfare benefits system altogether although they would have been eligible. This left them deeper in poverty. “Rang them up to say that I couldn’t come in because I was working full time. So they said that was all right. Then I got a letter saying I’d missed my interview and they’ve taken me off UC. So I thought, you know what, just stuff you. I can’t be bothered with them anymore. Mostly I’ve struggled because I just can’t be doing with them. Just going in there for them to look down at you... Basically, I’m living off 20 hours for the past couple of months and I’m paying full rent.”
In addition, working recipients reported to the project that struggling to attend JobcentrePlus appointments and increasing their hours or work or number of jobs was ineffective in moving them out of poverty or improving the quality of their work. Many people bounced between low paid work and unemployment throughout the time of the study.
The WelCond Project ran for five years to 2018. A subsequent study in 2019 by former WelCond member Katy Jones from Manchester Metropolitan University and colleagues looked at what employers think to the conditionality policy. This, of course, was before Brexit and the Covid pandemic.
The study found once again that rigid expectations on employees to increase their hours were at odds with the modern labour market. Employers didn’t think having individual employees increase their hours would increase their firms’ productivity, and they intended to continue with their existing business model of keeping labour costs low. Employers in lowpaid industries tended to stress the need for flexibility in their workforce.
The team concluded that the challenge in times of low unemployment (as currently) isn’t getting people into work, but “ensuring that, where appropriate, UC claimants are supported into decent and productive work where their skills and capabilities will be developed and used effectively”. Anyone in government listening?
September’s mini-budget gave little extra help to poorer families apart from its pre-announced support for fuel bills, writes John Perry in this edited extract from UK Housing Review Autumn Briefing Paper. And even the benefit uplift announced in the Autumn Statement will leave many households struggling.
Social landlords are debating how best to respond to the cost-of-living crisis, with many having hardship funds and other mechanisms to assist tenants.1 A key issue is whether to raise rents in April 2023, and if so
by how much. In Scotland, there’s now a rents freeze until at least March, with suggestions that it might continue into 2023/24. Northern Ireland has seen a freeze on Housing Executive rents this year although housing associations are so far unaffected. Wales has announced a 6.5% cap on increases.
Debate in England focussed on the government consultation paper with options to limit rent increases, which have since been capped at 7%.2 The CPI+1% limit which applies in 2022/23 replaced a ‘10-year’ policy set in 2015/16, which subsequently suffered several changes. The current one, in turn, is about to be breached after the November announcement.
While CPI inflation is running at 11%, social landlord cost increases are estimated by Savills at similar or even slightly higher figures, with lower salary costs offset by higher contractor and utility costs. Costs of new borrowing have also doubled in the last year. Social landlords will now need to cap their income at less than inflation but, unlike energy companies, receive no government compensation. Nevertheless, there appears to be consensus that rents simply cannot be raised by CPI + 1%, given the intense cost-of-living crisis faced by the one-third of tenants whose rents aren’t covered by benefits, and the sector is relieved that the government-imposed cap is 7% rather than an even lower figure.
neatly illustrates the strong case for recycling housing benefit savings that result from a rent cap back into the sector, both to maintain investment in the stock and to sustain the funds used to mitigate tenant hardship.
Supported housing providers are particularly challenged by rent caps because escalating costs potentially make schemes unviable, prejudicing their future. They argue that practically all supported tenants receive benefits anyway, so get no advantage from a rent cap. Fortunately, the government decided not to impose a cap on rent increases in this part of the sector.
The effects on sector finances will still be considerable. Compared with an increase that fully covers inflation, Savills estimated the impact of the previously forecast 5% cap on annual income as up to £500 million for councils and up to £1 billion for associations. Local authorities have tighter margins than housing associations, but in general they welcomed the consultation as it facilitated some rent increases when there might be local political pressures to freeze rents completely. However, one large housing association indicates that even the 7% cap means a 21% cut in new build, while 3% would have ended threequarters of new development and required pulling out of existing contracts. Longer-term impacts depend on how policy is framed beyond 2023/24.
There’s major concern about the effects on investment in the existing stock. While fuel costs escalate, there will be enforced delays to energy-efficiency programmes often aimed at the worst stock. One landlord calculates the difference in heating bills for their worst compared with their best homes at about £2,000 annually. This
1 See CIH’s cost-of-living bulletins for examples (www. cih.org/policy/cost-of-living-crisis-briefings) and HQN’s Building Resilience page https://hqnetwork.co.uk/cost-ofliving-crisis/.
2 See www.gov.uk/government/consultations/socialhousing-rents-consultation
Finally, a huge issue for low-income tenants continues to be restrictions in the benefits system such as the overall benefits cap, inadequate local housing allowances and the ‘bedroom tax’, all of which were set in a different environment. While they’re helped if rents are held below inflation, recipients would be helped more by revision or abolition of these restrictions on their benefits. Unfortunately, the government appears to be set on a course which will increase hardship rather than ease it, notwithstanding the welcome uprating of benefits and of the benefits cap. One landlord’s assessment of tenants’ precarious household finances led them to comment that many families with children could be left completely destitute, even if rent rises are now held well below inflation. Limits
Kenneth Gibb from the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence and University of Glasgow ponders the unenviable choices facing the sector.
The energy price crisis, evidence of unaffordable rents, rising interest rates and the wider cost-of-living crisis are combining to create unprecedented financial pressures for many millions of British households in the coming months. Governments in different parts of the devolved UK are now proposing broad brush rental sector measures to both curb the growth in rents and provide struggling tenants with certainty about their housing costs.
In England this is mainly taking the form of a proposed rent cap for social sector rent increases in the new financial year starting in the Spring of 2023, and Wales has also announced a rent cap. In Scotland, emergency legislation is being rushed through to create a rent freeze till the new financial year, alongside a winter evictions ban (except for criminal and ASB reasons) across all rented housing (private rented sector, social housing and student accommodation). At the same time the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments are developing plans for long-term models of rent control for their private rental sectors (see reports by CaCHE on rent control and further work to come out in November for the Scottish Parliament CPG on housing).
The experience of major temporary interventions during the pandemic has clearly influenced the minds of policy makers, such as in the Scottish Government. At the same time, the UK government has previously capped (or reduced) rents, in part to save on housing benefit. We note that in Scotland, the actual impact on rental income for most landlords will be zero because rents are already set and, for social tenants receiving housing benefit, there’s no gain from curbing higher rents.
The period beyond this financial year is the current area of most controversy for the social housing sector. The rent cap in England will be 7%; what will it be in Scotland? The legislation merely says a decision will be made in consultation with the sector ‘in due course’. Social landlords need to set their rents for 23-24 in the next few weeks, so they do face considerable uncertainty. And, as has been thoroughly rehearsed in the recent debates in Holyrood, rent uncertainty undermines social landlord business plans that would use rents they invest in the housing stock, contribute to achieving net zero and towards building new homes – all key policies of the Scottish Government. Until now, Scottish Governments have not in the past interfered with rent-setting in a sector that’s managed to keep rents at lower social levels.
Not surprisingly, most of the debate in the PRS has
been about the opposed interests of tenants facing rapidly rising rents in Scotland’s cities versus those of landlords facing multiple financial challenges, and indirect but multiples sources of mounting evidence that landlords are exiting the sector. While very much aware of the affordability burden on vulnerable households (and noting the UK government’s ongoing discussion about the real value of critical benefits as even a 10% increase fails to keep up with inflation), policymakers do need to think systemically. Scottish social housing new build is slowing down because of the economic difficulties we face, not to mention the future rent cap, so just where are people to go in the short to medium term if rental markets shrink? A smaller PRS in the long term may well make sense but there needs to be much more additional social and affordable housing to compensate.
There are clearly major and unenviable trade-offs between the short run and the long term, between affordability now for vulnerable households and the resilience of key long-term housing policies. These rent caps and freezes are blunt instruments, redolent of the measures during Covid-19 – they had both foreseen and unforeseen negative consequences then, and interventions like the freeze and cap will do so, too.
Is the Westminster government on track to meet its manifesto commitment to “end the blight of rough sleeping” in England by the end of this Parliament?
The report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group inquiry into the government’s progress tackling rough sleeping.
Housing allocations and the vacancy chain: How coordinating chains can better meet housing needs and tenant choice
This report from the Smith Institute is an exploration into the factors influencing vacancy chains in London’s social housing – the analysis is focused on how different types of letting do and don’t release new social housing bedspaces, and how different stresses in allocations policies and lettings quotas influence the length of chains in social housing lettings and categories of housing need being met.
Housing unaffordability and mental health: Dynamics across age and tenure
This paper examines changing trends in housing affordability in the Netherlands and its link to mental health across tenures and age cohorts. It finds a clear link between living in housing that’s unaffordable and poorer mental health scores, and this association is particularly strong among renters and younger people.
Drivers of housing (un)affordability in the advanced economies: A review and new evidence
This Housing Studies journal article provides an overview of some of the major drivers of the housing affordability crisis in the advanced economies and spans a wide range of factors, including welfare state retrenchment; land, construction, and other development costs; demographic shifts; race and inequality; income and inequality; the financialization of housing; and NIMBYism.
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Despite confirmation of a 7% rent cap providing much-needed certainty to next year’s budget planning, many social housing providers are continuing to grapple with a variety of financial and operational pressures. Over the following pages, we highlight the key themes and concerns that emerged from a series of roundtables that HQN hosted with housing professionals and residents. Jon Land reports.
And breathe. There was an audible sigh of relief from social housing providers as Jeremy Hunt announced in his autumn statement that rents would be capped at 7% for the year 2023/24.
The figure is higher than the 5% recommended in the original government consultation and will no doubt take some pressure off boards and executive teams who had been stress testing scenarios based on 3% and even 0% increases, with terrifying results.
The chancellor’s announcement has been broadly welcomed by the sector. The National Housing Federation said the 7% rise means housing associations “can continue to deliver their core services for residents now and into the future”. It also welcomed the news that supported housing providers would be exempt from the rent cap.
And in a move welcomed by shared owners, the NHF announced that housing associations, representing 80% of shared ownership homes, would increase rents by 7% in 2023/24 in line with the social housing cap.
There’s acknowledgment, however, that the higher-than-expected cap isn’t a panacea to the range of financial and operational pressures the sector faces. The Secretary of State for Housing, Michael Gove, addressed the point in a Commons debate following the inquest into the shocking death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak.
“We have a number of very different things that are operating in tension and that we need to review. First, we need to ensure, at a time of rising prices everywhere, that tenants in social housing are not faced with increases in rents that further add to the difficulties they face,” he said.
“At the same time, however, registered social landlords and housing associations need money
to provide new stock, to pay for repairs when materials are costing more, and to undertake some of the work on insulation and energy efficiency alluded to earlier, as well as, in some cases, the building safety work required in the wake of Grenfell.
“I appreciate the pressures under which they are operating, and my commitment is to work with them constructively to try to ensure we can support them.”
Ratings agency Moody’s underlined the stillprecarious position for housing providers: “The temporary ceiling on social housing rent increases at 7% next year is credit negative for housing associations and local authorities with social housing stock in England as it will constrain their revenue growth while they grapple with high inflationary pressures and the need to spend to address regulated standards on quality, safety and energy-efficiency.”
And what about residents? The 7% rise has been criticised by campaign groups for putting a further financial burden on some of the poorest in society at a time when they’re already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
Social Housing Action Campaign, which had been calling for a freeze on rents, said the increase would “inflict an unmanageable burden on [tenants’] budgets”.
It all adds up to the fact that we still have some difficult decisions to make in the coming months, decisions that will have a fundamental impact on the shape, size and purpose of social housing organisations.
In its latest sector risk profile, the Regulator of Social Housing has identified 17 key risks (many of them multi-faceted) and acknowledges the pressures registered providers are under.
“I appreciate the pressures under which they are operating, and my commitment is to work with them constructively to try to ensure we can support them”
Michael Gove
“High inflation, a tight labour market, and the residual impact of the pandemic on supply chains have increased costs for providers,” it says. “Providers are also facing higher borrowing costs, both from substantially rising interest rates and from widening spreads on debt. At the same time, income streams are facing greater than usual uncertainty, with significant headwinds in the housing market.”
Regardless of the future direction of travel, we know that all housing providers need to show how resilient they are through a combination of good governance and astute financial decision making. But this must be combined with a desire to support residents at a time when they need it most.
To help organisations navigate these stormy seas, and held just ahead of the rent cap announcement, HQN hosted a series of roundtables with a range of housing professionals from across the sector. In the space of a couple of weeks, we heard the views of everyone from frontline housing management and repairs teams to chief executives and finance directors. We also spoke to residents.
Over the following pages, we highlight the key themes that emerged from the roundtables and some of the key quotes from those that took part.
Resilience was a theme that came up again and again in the roundtable discussions. Chief executives and finance directors generally referred to it in relation to their business and how they intended to balance the books over the next few years. However, many also referred to the resilience of frontline staff and the need to help residents stay resilient through the cost-ofliving crisis.
There were those who were despondent about the prospects for their organisation and the wider sector:
“The numbers are looking horrendous. As an
accountant I can make them add-up, but I worry about our customers. I’ve been in housing for 25 years and I don’t think I’ve known it as bad as this,” Housing association finance director
“There comes a point where the soul of who we are just disappears. We don’t like what we will then become, especially when merger is the only realistic outcome and for some it will be,” Housing association finance director
“The sector is going to look very different after this,” Housing association chief executive
However, despite much talk of mergers and further consolidation of the housing association sector, some are reluctant to go down that route: “I don’t think mergers necessarily do what they say on the tin. There may be, perhaps, an immediate overheads reduction but over time I’m not sure they deliver and some of the stuff we’re seeing come out of the big organisations fill you with dread with those organisations not knowing what’s going on in some of their properties” Housing association finance director
Amidst the doom and gloom, others saw it as the responsibility of the leadership team to stay positive, especially when talking to the wider workforce:
“It’s knowing there’s 1,000 people looking at us to see how we’re reacting and if they see us panicked or looking like we don’t know what we’re doing, that’s what creates real nervousness
“There comes a point where the soul of who we are just disappears. We don’t like what we will then become, especially when merger is the only realistic outcome and for some it will be”
Housing association finance director
amongst the team. So, part of this is about us being resilient and getting across the message that as an organisation we’ve been through worse. We dealt with Grenfell and our 40 blocks. This is nothing we haven’t seen before and, ultimately, I’m glad it’s the government making a decision on our rents rather than waking up one morning with one of our tower blocks on fire. This is just the government playing politics and we deal with that, and we carry on,” Housing association chief executive
Some are taking a pragmatic approach:
“Resilience is about stopping more going out than coming in. What do we mean by that? Well, I’ve got to stop more homes going out than coming in because, even in these economic times, I’m losing properties every week through Right to Buy, right to acquire and shared ownership staircasing. We’ve got to stop staff leaving – that’s another big thing. And if they do leave, where are the new staff going to come from? We also need to make sure more money is coming in than going out. And that also applies to our tenants. If I’m honest with you, we need to take a really hard look at those services where there’s more going out than coming in and, ultimately, if there’s a drain on the rest of the organisation, we’ll need to decide if we can continue,” Housing association chief executive
Concern was also expressed about the resilience of employees:
“The nature of the job requires resilience and we have historically recruited the sort of person who can cope with whatever is thrown at them. But I think from 2020, the cumulative impact of the last two years has just literally broken even the best, strongest people,” Local authority income services manager
Across the housing sector, finance directors, boards and executive teams have been crunching the numbers to see if they can make their business plans stack up. The lack of certainty around the rent cap forced them to model and stress test a range of options, and many will be relieved at the 7% outcome.
The roundtables revealed that, regardless of the rent cap level, cuts to some activities were inevitable but there was no real consensus on where the axe would fall. The majority agreed, however, that the situation in 2022 is different to the previous rent cut ushered in by George Osborne.
“I think the context we face now is very different to the one we faced back in 2015 [with the rent cut]. Back then we had a government telling us to stick to the knitting. Whereas now we have decarbonisation, extra compliance pressures, more investment in existing stock and the supply crisis. So, we’re trying to refocus.
“For me, it’s about trying to strike a balance of how we mark time for a year, maybe two, until a settled picture starts to emerge again. So, is it about stopping doing specific things or paring back on lot of things? What we don’t want to do is cut ourselves off at the knees and leave us having to rebuild teams and activities further down the line.
“The short-term problem for us is interest rates. Like others, quite a few are fixed, but even so we need to modify our cashflow so
“We’re experiencing the highest churn rate I’ve ever known. Staff turnover is currently 20%. It tends to be younger people leaving for jobs outside housing and then more experienced staff being poached by others in the sector, or just deciding to retire early” Housing association finance director
that’s slowing down the decarb work or pausing development. That will help for the first year or two, then in the longer term we’re going to need some cost reductions to balance out the lost rental income,” Housing association finance director
“The biggest difference between 2015 and now is that we didn’t have 10% RPI in 2015. And that’s almost the more dangerous part for us. As much as we’re modelling through the nuances of the rent increase, for the business plan we took to board over the past year, we had assumed 7% RPI.
“The reason that causes us an issue is that back in 2015 we talked to staff and said we can either go down the multiple redundancies route, or we can all sign up to a pay freeze of 1% each year for four years (which is what we did). But they’re not going to do that now if RPI is at 10% or 11%.
“Given this is a problem specific to the sector, there’s going to be other jobs elsewhere they can go to. We’re now a high employment state and, frankly, if we offer them 1%, they will simply walk away. And if you can’t afford to retain the person, you can’t afford to replace them either,” Housing association finance director
“We’ve done a significant piece of work looking at our actual cost increases compared to the inflation figure and we’re at 14.9%, baked in for next year that we have absolutely no control over, and that’s without looking at energy or staff pay.
“Last time, with the rent cuts, we were pretty comfortable with anticipating what our costs were going to be year on year. But I don’t think inflation is going to go away. Those 10%, 15%, 20% increases we’re seeing will probably be short lived but our intrinsic costs of running the business aren’t ever going to come back down,” Housing association chief executive
The majority of chief executives and finance directors who took part in the roundtables agreed that cutting or reducing core services was
not an option this time around:
“Some have referred to an inevitable fall off in service standards. I don’t think that will be acceptable. I think it’ll create a real issue with residents, the regulator and government. The expectations of tenants have really been raised since 2017 and I think the regulation bill and the TSMs will be full steam ahead with Michael Gove back as secretary of state,” Housing association finance director
Across all the roundtables we hosted, the number one issue raised was around staff recruitment and retention. Ever-increasing demands on the workforce, particularly those in frontline roles, combined with a desire for better pay, is leading to thousands of staff changing roles within the sector or leaving housing altogether.
“We’re experiencing the highest churn rate I’ve ever known. Staff turnover is currently 20%. It tends to be younger people leaving for jobs outside housing and then more experienced staff being poached by others in the sector, or just deciding to retire early,” Housing association finance director
is really difficult, and it means there are gaps all over the business, which
“Recruitment
“There’s always a massive difference between what the board and executive say they’re doing and what the residents say is happening. You do wonder if managers aren’t telling the board exactly what’s going on – maybe they just want to hear good news?”
Housing association resident
results in everyone having to work harder, and because they are under increased pressure, they’re struggling,” Housing association finance director
“We’ve been plotting where people are going. Some have changed careers completely and decided to get out of housing and find something they’ve had a passion for – quite a lot have retired early, particularly from senior posts. As for care, I’ve got people oozing out everywhere to any job other than care – into supermarkets, setting up cleaning businesses, you name it.
“I’ve got a bizarre situation going on where, during Covid, the care staff stuck with us. But as soon as we came out of it there’s been a mass exodus. We’re in a situation where we need to decide whether we continue with the care side of the business anymore,” Housing association chief executive
“We’re seeing the same things as other people. Turnover is higher, people are leaving, particularly in the frontline teams such as the call centre and digital media, they’re going elsewhere. The job is bloody hard at the moment, they are getting inundated with stuff.
“We’re also seeing a change in the sector. We’re losing experienced colleagues to other places because agile working means location isn’t as important, and they’re paying £3,000 to £5,000 more. Can we still recruit? Yes, but then there’s a training gap and familiarisation gap before you get people up to speed.
“We’re experiencing the highest staff turnover we’ve ever had. HR say they’re getting a notice
nearly every other day. We’ve not been able to compete on salaries. That then impacts on the culture, and we’ve seen that in residents. When you have colleagues struggling with their own bills it becomes harder to help others,” Member of HQN’s Next Generation group
At least one CEO saw an upside to the situation: “The one advantage of that is that we don’t have to look at redundancy because we can reshape teams due to the high turnover rate. This has helped to provide staff with some certainty,” Housing association chief executive
The cost of living has already had an impact on the daily lives of many residents. And while benefits being uprated in line with inflation is welcome news, this will be tempered by the 7% rise in social housing rents. During our roundtable discussions, it was interesting to note how committed organisations are to supporting residents by maintaining investment in hardship funds and other direct financial support alongside community development activities.
“As an organisation we’re taking the view that this is the time to make sure that the services and solutions that are supporting customers are bolstered and not reduced.
“Just looking back over past performance, some of those services have been cut previously because they’re not ‘core’ landlord services, but actually they’re more crucial in the current environment than ever before.
just refreshed our business plan; I’m
“We’ve
“When you walk out of your front door, do you ever see somebody from your landlord in your area? They’ve lost that interaction with people. They don’t know their tenants” ALMO resident
sure others have. It’s been more about looking at our programmes and not stopping investment, but maybe slowing things down a bit.
“We’re finding more customers are getting engaged with us and reaching out for help. For example, our customer voice panel started with 80 residents – it’s now up to 150. This has helped us to co-create solutions and it’s something where we’re really focusing our energy.
“What’s quite interesting to me is the interest from residents in sustainability and renewables, very much linked to ‘How am I going afford to heat my home?’. We thought it was going to be hard work getting people engaged in this conversation, but we’re finding that people are really interested because bringing their running costs down matters to them,” Housing association chief executive
“We’ve seen a big increase in the number of residents asking what their EPC rating is, can they have solar panels, what other energy efficiency measures are there. While it shows how worried people are about their energy bills, it does make our retrofit job a lot easier in terms of engagement,” Environmental sustainability business partner and member of HQN’s Next Generation group
“We’ve been lucky enough to have a wellbeing fund for the last two years, which means our customers can apply for essential support –basically things like school uniforms, food bank vouchers, energy vouchers and things like white goods.
“We know that not having a washing machine or tumble dryer means that they might not be washing their clothes properly, not drying their clothes properly. It could lead to things like condensation and mould in their homes. Having a washing machine will make a massive difference to them. Having a cooker or freezer, so they can cook, and access to meals, and things like that will make the difference,” Housing association regional neighbourhoods and communities manager
As is often the case, there’s a disconnect between how the landlords see the world compared to their residents. During our roundtable discussion, all residents were grateful of the additional support on offer, but concerns were raised about how the support was delivered:
“In relation to the cost-of-living support, [my landlord] has put together quite a good service for people who are in need during the current economic situation. Unfortunately, 90% of it is online. If they genuinely want to help, they need a fundamental rethink about what they’re doing,” ALMO resident
Lack of communication came up again and again, which many felt was more important than ever in the current climate:
“The main issue I would raise is the lack of communication. It’s been a common theme throughout every resident meeting. A lot of people won’t be aware of the White Paper or the new legislation that’s coming. As a member of the scrutiny panel, I have a fair idea of what’s going on, but for other residents they simply won’t have a clue.
“There’s always a massive difference between what the board and executive say they’re doing and what the residents say is happening. You do wonder if managers aren’t telling the board exactly what’s going on – maybe they just want to hear good news?” Housing association resident
Concern was also expressed about the lack of a landlord presence on estates
What tenants see as priorities for landlords
• Support with cost-of-living pressures where possible
• Talk to residents/contact them – do as much as you can to listen and help
• Know your tenants and take a personalised approach – you can’t help them if you don’t know them
• Be transparent about rents and service charges
• Digital is important but not the ‘be all and end all’
• Face to face very important, especially post-Covid.
and the perceived failure to return to face-toface visits post-lockdown:
“When you walk out of your front door, do you ever see somebody from your landlord in your area? They’ve lost that interaction with people. They don’t know their tenants. During Covid, the housing managers worked from home and, even now, they seem to be staying at home. They have not got back out onto the estates. They’re not passing on information face to face. In your local area, you need to know who your housing manager is, that they are there and approachable,” ALMO resident
One resident said that tenants don’t really ask for much, they just want the basics done properly:
“There’s a difference between wanting and needing. Tenants need to know that they’ve got a comfortable, safe, warm place to live. I might want to have a swimming pool in the garden, but I don’t need one. I just want to know that my home is safe and warm and comfortable to live in and when I do need a repair, it’s done, and it’s done properly,” Council tenant
If there’s one area of housing that dominates the housing debate – from politicians and the media to finance directors, CEOs, frontline staff and residents – it’s the poor state of many social housing properties. Shocking cases of tenants being forced to live in squalid conditions dominate the headlines and damage the sector’s reputation on an almost daily basis. The problem for many landlords is that they’re struggling to keep on top of repairs. The majority of housing professionals we spoke said rising costs, labour shortages and the backlog caused by the pandemic had all played a part in the deterioration of their service.
“The 7% rent cap won’t help – repairs and maintenance inflation is around 20%,” housing association chief executive
“We had a programme to do a certain amount of kitchens and bathrooms but we’ve had to scale that back. We were doing boiler replacements but now that has stopped and changed to a reactive service rather than a proactive one. We can’t do storage heater replacements. That’s been stopped fully so we have people with old expensive heaters. It feels like we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Resident liaison officer and member of HQN’s Next Generation group
“We’ve experienced a huge staff turnover in our property services team, which then impacts all the other parts of the business. Work takes much longer, and we’re experiencing more complaints as a result,” Aftercare and quality manager and member of HQN’s Next Generation group
“Our staff get hammered on the phones every single day and it’s always about repairs. It’s a constant struggle and staff are leaving as a result. No-one ever phones to say thanks. Part of this is that customer expectations are much higher now, especially coming out of Covid. But the national media attention means we’re all seen as useless and get spoken to like dirt,” Housing association contact centre co-ordinator
But on a more positive note:
“We’re in a different place to a lot of other people and feel quite positive about repairs. Our new CEO has come in with lots of fresh ideas and it’s got the blood running round everyone’s veins quicker. Despite the rent cut, we’re planning to increase investment in planned maintenance by three in 2023 and by five over the following five years. We’ve been piloting smart technology and it’s worked – we’ve not had any disrepair claims from properties where the tech has been installed.
“We’re also increasing investment on voids and raising the spec of our voids standard with the aim of being more proactive. If we can sort issues out at the void stage, it should prevent further repair work down the line,” Housing association head of assets
“Our staff get hammered on the phones every single day and it’s always about repairs. It’s a constant struggle and staff are leaving as a result” Housing association contact centre co-ordinator
Last month, HQN brought together housing professionals from across the sector to discuss what organisations are doing to protect themselves and residents from the impact of the rent cap and the cost-of-living crisis. In this roundtable, we talked to housing management and estate services staff about what they are seeing on the ground and the pressures they face.
Attendees:
• Lydia Dlaboha, Deputy CEO, HQN
• Elizabeth Ddamulira, Income Services Manager, Stevenage Borough Council
• Sean Ellam , Head of Neighbourhoods, South Lakes Housing
• Derek Streek, Head of Communities, Standards and Partnerships, Vivid Homes
• Lorraine Chastanet, Estate Services Manager, Wandle Housing Association
• Donna Lilley, Neighbourhood Team Manager, Ipswich Borough Council
• Clare Greensall, Regional Manager – Communities & Neighbourhoods, Platform Housing Group
• Rob Duhig, Community Warden, Clarion Housing Association
• Debbie Larner, Associate, HQN
• Rebecca Cullen, Head of Housing Management, Stockport Homes
• Emma Langstaff, Estates & Neighbourhoods Manager, Soha Housing
• Valerie Billing, Tenant and Estate Services Manager, Bassetlaw Council
• Judith Mullineux, Housing Services Advisor, Six Town Housing
Lydia Dlaboha (LD): During Covid, housing management and estate services were the ones on the frontline and they still are. So, what’s your approach to the cost-of-living crisis and how useful have previous situations been in shaping your current thinking?
Derek Streek (DS): We discussed this in the senior leadership team and the first question we asked was – how is this any different to the situation where we had a rent reduction for a number of years? It was explained by our finance people that interest rates are significantly different – and that has a direct impact on the financial position overall. Every organisation is going to be starting off from a different position.
In terms of what we’ve learned from previous situations, one of the key points is in relation to how we talk to people.
It’s about being kind to each other and kind to customers. We’ve signed up to the sector’s commitment to no evictions. We’re also trying to find different ways of encouraging residents to pay their rent and not go into arrears when we know there’s not much money around.
We’re also effectively putting some things on hold, such as recruitment. We don’t want to add to our costs. This is the usual time of year that we’re looking at budgets, anyway.
board were, I think, impressed with our response to Covid. In the past, some of our services might be regarded as ‘discretionary’ and possibly the first thing to cut. But there’s recognition that this is a situation in which customers are suffering, and therefore tendency sustainment and welfare funds are a priority.
Sean Ellam (SE): One of the lessons learned from the previous rent cut is about the social heart of the business and what we’re actually here for. The conversations that we’ve been having around business plans come with the
LD: Do you feel there’s a value being attributed to your service? If anything, the Covid situation was probably quite positive for housing management and estate services, because you were the eyes and ears of the organisation.
Clare Greensall (CG): Very much. So, I look after all of our tenancy sustainment services and the
caveat that it’s not just the decisions that we make that are impacting on people. It’s the increase in fuel costs, it’s all the other pressures that people are under in terms of the cost of living, and the price increases linked to CPI.
We already have people asking for their gas to be capped or looking for alternative, possibly less safe, sources of energy.
We’ve also got staff who are worried about their pay and jobs and are struggling themselves.
The response to Covid very much put our services more at the forefront of people’s mind in terms of the ability to react and support customers so that’s probably worked in our favour.
Valerie Billings (VB): We’re trying to do a lot more engagement with our customers. During Covid, we couldn’t do a lot of tenancy support visits due to the restrictions. But now we’re going
“We’ve got such a high staff turnover. The nature of the job requires resilience and we’ve historically recruited the sort of person who can cope with whatever is thrown at them. But I think from 2020, the cumulative impact of the last two years has just literally broken even the best, strongest people”
back out to customers’ homes, we’re finding a lot of people are in very difficult situations –in terms of the conditions of the property and the way they’re living. They haven’t always been reporting problems or calling us the way they should.
The other challenge that we have is our housing officers are in a situation where they feel like they are social workers and not housing officers, so we’re doing a lot more referrals to our partners in health, social services, the fire service, hoarding services, mental health services. And we see the issue that two years plus of not being allowed inside people’s homes, how much more vulnerable they are now – general needs as well.
LD: In some ways Covid has been good because it’s highlighted the importance of housing management and support services, but it’s also meant that you’ve got a backlog of issues to deal with, which you need to think about when it comes to possible cuts or reducing services. How receptive are your partners and stakeholders to investing more resources at a time when they’re also cutting back?
VB: We try to work quite closely with our partners like you all do. But the resource isn’t there. We currently have lots of anti-social behaviour issues and the police aren’t intervening. In my location, the police are asking the landlord to move individuals. It’s an easy way out for them but from our point of view, you can’t just keep moving the problem around.
We’ve got the tools to deal with certain situations, such as mediation and community orders, but the criminal aspects of these issues are not being dealt with, such as drug dealing and county lines. We need the police’s support and they just don’t seem to have the resources available. We’re not enforcers, we’re trying to sustain tenancies.
Our housing officers are becoming more vulnerable because criminal elements in the community aren’t necessarily respectful of housing. If they aren’t respectful of the law,
they’re not going to be respectful of housing officers. But our people are expected to be out on their patches alone and often put in difficult situations.
CG: One of the things we’re getting a bit of grief about from our councillors and MPs is around this idea of whether we’re still providing a local service for local people. Since the pandemic, we no longer have any offices, so customers can’t come and see us. They can’t walk in anywhere and talk to us.
If I look back 10-15 years, they’d have offices on every estate, but life has changed. We’re trying to encourage customers to contact us in different ways. We are making ourselves more available, so rather than coming to see us in the office, we’ll go and see them at home.
But we’re also trying to encourage them to sign up to the customer portal, use those digital self-service options, and for some customers that’s fine. But we’re also aware that lots of our customers aren’t able to access digital services – they might be digitally excluded, financially excluded – so we’re really looking at doing things differently and what works best for them.
We’ve also been lucky enough to be able to have a wellbeing fund for the last two years, which means our customers can apply for essential support, basically things like school uniforms, food bank vouchers, energy vouchers, and things like white goods.
We know that not having a washing machine or tumble dryer means that they might not be washing their clothes properly, not drying
“One of the things we’re getting a bit of grief about from our councillors and MPs is around this idea of whether we’re still providing a local service for local people. Since the pandemic, we no longer have any offices, so customers can’t come and see us”
their clothes properly. It could lead to things like condensation and mould in their homes. Having a washing machine will make a massive difference to them. Having a cooker or freezer, so they can cook, and access to meals, and things like that will make the difference.
Debbie Larner (DL): I’m hearing a lot through the Health and Safety Network and the Asset Management Network about the issues around gas capping, unblocking fireplaces, Calor gas, and the safety implications of all that. And the other issue that’s been picked up on is the link between not using heating or washing machines and damp and mould. So, it’s the impact on the property as well as the people that we’re seeing.
Lorraine Chastanet (LC): Our main issue seems to be illegal fly-tipping. We remove it, it comes back, we remove it, it comes back. We can’t cope. The last bill for one months worth of fly-tipping was – wait for it – £18,000. That’s the thing we’re dealing with the most. Some of it is our tenants, and some of it comes from outside – people just offloading trucks and lorries because they know we’ll remove it. You can have one mattress in the bin store then, all of a sudden, there’s 25 more.
Rob Duhig (RD): I was really interested in what Lorraine was saying about fly-tipping and that cost of £18,000 a month. I get a lot of fly-tipping problems as well and I wonder how you pay for it? Do you service charge that cost back to residents?
LC: Yes, it’s service charged back to the residents.
RD: So, we had a fly-tipping problem on an estate in Ipswich, and in the end we re-introduced weekly rubbish collections. Instead of having refuse collected one week, and recycling the next, they now have refuse every week and recycling every two weeks. We have to pay extra for that but it’s more than compensated itself because we don’t have so many fly-tipping problems.
LC: That’s not something we’ve looked at because we work across a lot of London boroughs and many have moved to recycling once a week. Wandsworth Council have said no to extra collections because they want people to recycle in the right way. We don’t really have a problem with general waste – it’s when people are dumping large amounts, when clearing houses or whatever.
There are maybe 30 or 40 flats on the estate and we do a weekly drive-by to clear the flytipping but the residents seem to believe that more CCTV is the answer to everything. It’s not. They [fly-tippers] put their biggest hats on or hide their number plate. They’re not telling everybody ‘look at me’. They’re doing it in disguise, so you can’t catch them.
LD: Talking about services, have any of you looked at your service agreements with a view to renegotiating terms? Maybe scale back on some of the things that you’re doing for tenants, or do more? Or even just look at ways of providing the service but in a different way?
SE: That’s just something that we do naturally. We’re just going into a new contract with a call monitoring provider in terms of care calls and we’re very much challenging them on value for money and getting the best service for the customer.
The Lakes is a bit of a micro economy. So, in terms of getting contractors, attracting staff, even supplies and materials – it’s all more difficult to come by in rural areas. If you’re using local contractors on a smaller scale –for example, we have a subsidised gardening
“We already have people asking for their gas to be capped or looking for alternative, possibly less safe, sources of energy”
scheme – we’ve had quite a few issues with that this year in terms of engaging with the contractor and he probably regrets taking it on because of the distance he’s got to travel, the cost of fuel and everything else associated with working in a rural area.
we can support.
Just a couple of other things I picked up as people have been talking. Fly-tipping is a big issue and I suppose that’s why I was on here today, so to see if there’s any good advice right now.
LD: What about technology? Any good ideas or good examples of how organisations have used technology to help?
Rebecca Cullen (RC): During Covid, because we couldn’t do the same number of tenancy visits, so we used technology to stay in touch, like WhatsApp. Things like allocations and mutual exchanges all continued throughout Covid, and we used video to show that the property was in good order, but we didn’t do the normal checks that we would have done previously so we did see that as a bit of a risk area.
We were still going out, doing emergency jobs, so our teams were checking on people as well as properties. We’re undertaking tens of thousands of repairs each year and we wanted to make sure that operatives were not challenging or questioning the customer, because they’re obviously not best placed to do that, but certainly feeding back and setting something up if there were any concerns.
During Covid, we were making more calls to customers, so we did have the contact, but we weren’t doing the actual visit, and we’ve done some analysis of that. And actually we do recognise the importance of doing those tenancy visits with customers to identify how
We do have a really good system called Sweep Up, so I suppose that’s the technology we’re using, where caretakers can take photographs of fly-tipping and then they’ve got the ability to be able to share that with the housing officers if they need to do follow up work. We can then look at CCTV and identify who might have flytipped, or if we’ve got anti-social behaviour or vandalism then it’s a really good tool to improve communication.
One of the big things about the cost-of-living crisis is that it’s everyone’s responsibility to keep an eye out for customers. I’ve just delivered a session along with the customer finance team for our housing officers about the things that they can pick up and give some basic advice without it having to be an official referral, and we’re really trying to skill up the officers.
Energy efficiency is another big thing for everyone. You know, getting people to come up with ideas and take responsibility. Downsizing, for example. People might have been able to manage before but can they afford to stay in a large house? How can we support them? Not only would it free up the accommodation but would also see a reduction in bills for the customer if they move to a smaller property.
Judith Mullineux (JM): Our biggest problem at the moment is trying to recruit. The housing
“Our housing officers are in a situation where they feel like they’re social workers…so we’re doing a lot more referrals to our partners in health, social services, the fire service, hoarding services, mental health services. And we see how much more vulnerable customers are now – general needs as well”
world has become quite unattractive. We’re losing people who are very experienced and very good. And when you get new people in it’s difficult to train them quickly in what can be quite technical roles. People are leaving housing because of the pressures and what they’re having to deal with mentally.
They’re bringing incentives in to try and keep staff and we’re working on initiatives to look at how we better protect staff from what’s going on out there. We talk a lot about mental health but our customers’ needs are becoming more and more complex. Over the last three months, we’ve had about six or seven fires in our properties, caused by candles – so, linked to the cost-of-living but also mental health. Someone set fire to a neighbour’s property and the knockon effect in terms of costs, materials and the inconvenience caused to the resident is huge.
We don’t have any answers sometimes, we’re just lurching from one thing to another, and it’s just getting bigger and bigger, and certainly the local authority and the police don’t have any resources to assist. The other day, the police asked us what we’re doing about the drug dealing on our estate!
Elizabeth Ddamulira (ED): We’ve got such a high staff turnover. The nature of the job requires resilience and we’ve historically recruited the sort of person who can cope with whatever is thrown at them. But I think from 2020, the cumulative impact of the last two years has just literally broken even the best, strongest people.
And it’s not just the increase in complex cases, but the level of complexity. It’s no longer just a 10-minute phone call – they’re now more like 20 minutes, followed by an hour of followup work, trying to do signposting, trying to deal with everything else. And then, of course,
they’re expected to have answers to everything that’s happening, and very often we don’t.
LD: Finally, what’s your number one current concern?
Emma Langstaff (EL): The viability of our contractors. As some of you have said, recruitment is an issue and their costs are soaring so it’s how viable they will continue to be.
ED: For me, it’s staff retention in the current market but the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and energy bills [are making things much worse]. We’re trying to reach all the residents who are in buildings that have communal heating and trying to explain to them that their bills might increase because they aren’t protected, so that’s a worry. The reaction is going to be quite interesting.
And then it’s about rents and service charges and how we communicate this and collect them.
DS: I’d say something similar. The cost-of-living crisis and the impact it’ll have on our properties as well as the customers. The increased fire risk from the use of candles and people potentially trying to open-up old fireplaces, the damp and mould that will come in those properties, and the increased pressure that we’ll get as a result.
SE: From a bigger perspective, I think we mobilised really well as a sector prior to the previous rent cut in terms of putting pressure on central government. My fear is that there’s way much too much apathy around what’s going on. We don’t see the leaders of our sector mobilising in a way that’s going to have any great impact on the decisions that are being made.
“Over the last three months, we’ve had about six or seven fires in our properties, caused by candles – so, linked to the cost-ofliving but also mental health”
At HQN’s stress testing event earlier this month, two housing finance experts shared their thoughts on the prospects for the UK economy in 2023. And while there’s no doubt there are still tough times ahead, they believe there are reasons to be cheerful about inflation and interest rates.
Adrian Jolliffe, Director of 2Tix Consulting and social housing treasury management expert“I am looking at things from a glass half-full perspective. There’s little doubt that we’re seeing a combination of rising inflation and slow growth – in the 1970s this was known as stagflation – but we need to be sceptical about people saying inflation and interest rates will continue to soar in 2023, because the evidence tells us that they won’t.
“The current estimate is that 5% or 6% of the current 10% CPI inflation figure is due to the higher cost of imported commodities, such as oil and gas. This explains why the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee appears so laid back – they’ve deduced that a large chunk of current inflation won’t respond to higher interest rates and monetary policy will have little effect in the short term because interest rates take up to two years to reduce inflation. There seems little point in the Bank of England pushing up rates quickly if the intended outcome takes too long to have an effect.
“There are grounds for optimism. Gas prices have fallen dramatically lately. What’s happened is that other countries have stepped up to fill the gap left by Russia. What’s also happening is that Russian gas sold cheaply to China and India is displacing gas that would have been bought from the Gulf and is being released back to Europe. This means there’s no less gas available, which is why prices are coming down.
“Shipping costs also went through the roof during Covid but recently they’ve fallen sharply. Equally, retail food prices have been hit by high inflation but wholesale prices are now on the wane. Key food stuffs, apart from cereal, have started to come down in price.
“The Bank of England seems to be slow in reacting to inflation. It’s been warning of a recession in 2023 but it’s also
looking at core inflation, when you take energy costs out of the equation. The Bank of England’s logic is that if energy prices don’t rise any more, inflation (which is calculated over a 12-month period) is going to fall rapidly next year without any intervention on their part. Their concern is that second-round inflation will rise as energy prices fall away and will be sustained for longer.
“There’s room for optimism:
• Inflation will come down but it may take three of four years to get back to 2%. Nevertheless, we should expect inflation to fall quickly next year down to about 5% by the end of 2023, thanks to a combination of falling energy and commodity prices, an increase in trade, and a government easing its fiscal policy ahead of a general election in late 2024
• The Bank of England says the market is too pessimistic in its predictions for interest rates with many experts forecasting 5% or 6% next year when they estimate they will peak at 4%
• For the pessimists, there’s going to be a recession but if this is the case, interest rates are likely to fall anyway.”
“I’m an optimist at heart and I’m going to echo Adrian’s view. S+P forecasts that CPI will fall next year with an average through the year of 5.8%. However, for the last quarter of 2023, we forecast CPI inflation will be at 1%, so in our view it will come down quite quickly. For the following two years, we’re forecasting 1.6% and 1.7%.
“We expect interest rates to peak in 2023 at 3.5% then heading down to 2.5% for the following two years.”
By Lydia Dlaboha, Deputy Chief Executive, HQN
Whether it’s around issues of safety, complaints or general good practice, the importance of this joined-up approach between housing teams across all parts of an organisation cannot be understated.
One of the keynote speakers at HQN’s recent ‘Joining the dots’ event was Ashling Fox, Deputy Chief Executive at Peabody. She spoke openly and honestly about the tragic case of Shelia Seleoane, a Peabody tenant who died in her home two years before her body was found.
Keen to learn from the case and share the lessons with the wider sector, Ashling outlined how there were many failed attempts and missed warning signs. One of the key areas of learning was around siloed working and not spotting the “bigger picture”, with many staff members and departments following their own procedures but not joining things up. This could have meant them acting sooner and giving more information to the police service.
She also focused on the need to change the terminology used by the sector. For example, phrases such as ‘general needs’ weren’t helpful and needed a rethink. And while Covid-19 was not a main cause of the delay, it did add to it. Ashling reflected on the need to look at the impact of the pandemic and how behaviours have changed after such a fast move to digital services.
The other key themes from her presentation were around identifying and understanding the needs of all tenants. For example, ensuring that there are no “silent sufferers” in our homes – those that need support but don’t make themselves visible.
There was also a need to identify those residents whose circumstances had changed so they could be suitably supported. The report commissioned by Peabody into the case highlighted some other key themes:
• Culture – the need for everyone to “see, say, do”
• Targets – be mindful that these don’t encourage the wrong behaviours by creating blinkered vision
• Change – make sure everyone knows about changes, that the full impacts are considered across all services, and that staff are fully trained to deal with a range of scenarios
• Neighbourhood patch sizes – the importance of the ability for staff to “know” their patches and spot trends
• Insight and data – its importance and how to use
it effectively to build a strong working picture
• Policies and processes – making sure they aren’t operating in silo but working across, and linking together, different services
• Stakeholders – have closer links and relationships with partners, including the local council, police and other agencies.
Ashling also talked about the wellbeing dashboard Peabody are developing and the need for business intelligence teams to be working closely with operational teams so that they had the right information and really did understand “what was happening on my patch”.
In the second session, Rebecca Reed from the Housing Ombudsman Service underlined many of Ashling’s points. She spoke about the importance of data, saying “you need to know your properties and be proactive”. This is needed for organisations to predict the likely problems and prevent them from occurring.
One in 12 Ombudsman cases had an issue related to how data is handled, Rebecca said, with organisations not knowing enough “about the demographic of complainants as well as who isn’t complaining” being another key issue.
Frequent issues related to:
• Filing breaches – data either being inputted wrongly, badly used or held in the wrong place
• User errors associated with data handling
• Not identifying the data sets that are required
• Lack of exception reporting on “bad data”.
Five-and-a-half-years on from the Grenfell fire, survivors talk exclusively to Danielle Aumord about their hopes and fears for the future and whether, now that the public inquiry has ended, the loss of 72 lives will result in meaningful change to safety issues in high-rise towers and the way that social housing tenants are treated.
I’m a disabled survivor of the Grenfell fire and I can still remember that night like it was yesterday. We heard sirens just after 1am and my partner Luke saw the fourth floor reflected in the windows of the school next door. The flames were getting bigger and bigger. When another fire engine arrived, we knew we had to get out.
Out on the landing, smoke was already coming up through the vents. I have arthritis and I knew that there was no way I’d be able to make it down 20 flights of stairs, so we ignored safety advice and went straight for the one lift that was working. We were moving on adrenalin so we didn’t think about whether we’d be trapped. There was no other escape route for me.
I was furious to find out at the Grenfell Inquiry, that the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) failed to prepare evacuation plans for disabled residents in the block. My neighbour Ed Daffarn described them as institutionally indifferent.
I feel extremely lucky that one lift was working that night as I probably wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t. I’ve since been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder but I’ve been told that my therapy sessions, provided by a private therapist organised through my solicitors, will be ending this month. I don’t know how I’ll cope without them. My therapist says I should be okay by now but I’m not.
These cuts resulted in the closure of 10 fire stations and the loss of 14 fire engines, and since then fire response times in London have increased. I believe we would have stood more of a fighting chance to get more people evacuated from Grenfell if there had been more firefighters.
The government hasn’t implemented any of the recommendations from the phase one inquiry report, including those on personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) for disabled and vulnerable residents living in tower blocks. When Lord Greenhalgh said that the implementation of PEEPs could bring “excessive costs” to the taxpayer and hinder able bodied people in evacuating in the event of a fire, it was a kick in the teeth for me. I’m planning a legal challenge to government about this.
It’s nice to hear that Hammersmith and Fulham Council have been implementing PEEPs. If they can afford it, why can’t other local authorities also voluntarily prioritise the safety of their residents?
I feel extremely let down by the government. It upset me to find out that as Grenfell Tower was still smouldering, the government were already planning this inquiry. The last five and a half years have been full of anger and tears for me.
The inquiry counsel accused organisations involved in the building’s refurbishment of spinning a “web of blame”, admitting it had been a “merry-go-round of buck-passing” and companies passing on responsibility. But I feel like we also need to point the finger at politicians. I get so angry when I think of the £29m in cuts that Boris Johnson made to the fire service in 2013, when he was Mayor of London.
The country’s in a mess and this is about the larger picture. There are private buildings that have the same highly flammable cladding as Grenfell and there are still thousands of buildings between 11 and 18 metres high that still have cladding, which needs to be removed urgently. I fear for the lives of these people.
I’d like to see flammable cladding removed from all buildings under 11 metres high – schools, hospitals, hotels. People who stay in hotel chains often don’t realise that they’re probably sleeping somewhere where there’s dangerous cladding.
Grenfell and many other housing stories nationwide reek of neglect. Even before that fatal night, stories of mould, damp and even mushrooms growing through ceilings weren’t uncommon here.
“When Lord Greenhalgh said that the implementation of PEEPs could bring ‘excessive costs’ to the taxpayer and hinder able bodied people in evacuating in the event of a fire, it was a kick in the teeth for me”Nabil Choucair
Every time I shut my eyes, I’m haunted by the image of my family’s home – on the 22nd floor of Grenfell Tower– going up in flames. It still feels very raw because I lost six family members in the fire.
I can recall rushing to the tower to meet my brother Hisam – to try to find our family. We planned to push our way into the tower to rescue them but I was warned by the police, “If you do that again, you’ll be arrested”.
It would be weeks before I was formally told that my mother, my sister, my brother in-law and three of my nieces had perished.
Grenfell was a crime. More people died than in any terrorist attack on British shores. Forty people have been interviewed under caution but I’m asking, why no arrests?
I’m fighting for the tower to stay up until the criminal investigation is completed. It’s a reminder of our loved ones, we don’t want them to disappear just as quick as that. We also want everyone who’s been impacted by the Grenfell fire to take part in a commission to give feedback on what they would like as a fitting memorial for our loved ones that have passed.
I’m obviously hoping for prosecutions, but I feel like the criminal investigation should have taken place before the public inquiry.
In my mind, this inquiry has been a whitewash.
I made a request for a module to be included on institutionalised racism in the terms of reference, and to scrutinise whether racial stereotyping and unconscious prejudice affected the actions of the local authority and the way firefighters responded to the inferno that night. But it was rejected.
I’m hoping for amendments to be made to the Inquiries Act 2005 because the government hasn’t as yet implemented any of the recommendations from the phrase one report of the inquiry.
Amendments need to be made so it can become law that recommendations from public inquiries automatically become legislation. That way we won’t also have to fight to get them through Parliament.
I’m appalled by the thousands of leaseholders that are stuck in unsafe homes that they cannot sell. I fear for their lives. The government is putting money over human life and I don’t want them to go through what we’ve been through. It’s not acceptable for them to have to pay for someone else’s mistake. The people who put the cladding on, they are responsible. It’s between them and the government to foot the bill.
I understand a new national regulator for construction projects is being set up to oversee a more effective constructive products regulatory regime. But I’m questioning in my heart, will this
new regulator truly confront poor practice and provide vital market surveillance so that safety concerns can be spotted and dealt with earlier?
What I’m really hoping for isn’t just a regulator set up by central government but a truly independent regulator so the building industry can truly be kept in check and people won’t be living in dangerous homes anymore.
The Grenfell recovery rolled out by those who are being investigated for the fire has been highly questionable. Both local and central government didn’t have a plan in place for a disaster of this scale and the support services for those impacted by Grenfell are now coming to an end.
I can see that the mental health fall out from this for the Grenfell impacted community will be massive because of the lack of ongoing support.
The Grenfell fire was like a cash machine for many. Many got jobs in the name of Grenfell but I can’t see much fruit from the recovery programme and we don’t know exactly how the finance for this programme was spent.
I hope that local and central government will consider how they might put an effective response plan in place in case of any future disasters, that will operate better than the one that was thrown together last minute in response to the Grenfell fire. It’s been a completely chaotic and badly organised response to the crisis.
The Grenfell fire was the deadliest structural fire on British shores since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster – and the worst residential fire since the Second World War – but, in my mind, government officials still seem to be sleepwalking. Potentially, if they don’t pull up their socks, we could have another Grenfell on our hands.
“I’m obviously hoping for prosecutions, but I feel like the criminal investigation should have taken place before the public inquiry. In my mind, this inquiry has been a whitewash”Nicholas Burton
I remember the night before the fire. I was out walking my dog and saw cars parked in front of the entrance to Grenfell Tower. I said to myself:
“Look at those idiots over there parked by the main door. If there was a fire in the tower, how would the fire truck get in?”
Then came the fire. I called 999 several times because my wife Pily – who suffered from dementia – wouldn’t be able to make it out without assistance. Eventually we were rescued by two firefighters who were searching for one of my neighbours, Debbie Lamprell.
Debbie holds a special place in my heart. She fled to the 23rd floor but if she’d stayed on the 19th floor, the firefighters wouldn’t have rescued us.
My wife never really recovered from the fire and, following a stroke seven months later, became the last of 72 people to die as a result of the disaster.
I’m campaigning for justice for my wife and the 71 other victims. But also for changes to housing market conditions, which I feel contributed to the Grenfell tragedy.
As a way of lobbying for these changes, I took on a role in a new film, Push, which follows the work of Leilani Farha as she travelled the world as the UN’s special rapporteur on adequate housing. At the heart of Push is a philosophy that the marginalisation of individuals and the prioritisation of commercial interests is a global phenomenon in the housing market, one which begets human suffering, of which Grenfell was just one example.
But I often ask myself, will anyone actually listen?
We heard at the inquiry that the legally required fire assessments hadn’t been carried out at Grenfell before the fire by the KCTMO. Also that there were failed fire tests on highly flammable aluminium composite (ACM) material – tests that were then buried for 13 years.
As a result, this ACM ended up on Grenfell
Tower – which in itself caused the rapid spread of the fire that fatal night.
Currently, the police are preparing a bundle of evidence to hand over to the Crown Prosecution Service. But they won’t be handing this over until 2024 at the earliest, which will be seven years after the Grenfell fire and then we probably won’t see criminal proceedings in court until 2025.
The lengthy process is both disappointing and tiring for the Grenfell-impacted community. My fears are that nobody will be held to account; that the government won’t implement serious policy recommendations to keep people safe. It’s upsetting that corporations seem to think that this is too expensive.
After the Lakanal House fire in 2009, it was uncovered that the government suppressed information about the combustibility of cladding used there. If the recommendations by the Lakanal House coroner had been followed, the Grenfell fire wouldn’t have happened. That’s why I often say that lessons haven’t been learnt yet.
If our complaints about refurbishment at Grenfell had been listened to, then the fire wouldn’t have happened. I’m hoping for a change in culture, at the heart of both the government and the building sector, where social housing tenants are actually listened to.
“My fears are that nobody will be held to account, that the government won’t implement serious policy recommendations to keep people safe. It’s upsetting that corporations seem to think that this is too expensive”
By Carl Makin, PhD Researcher at the University of York
The latest insight report from the Housing Ombudsman Service paints a stark picture. Between April and June 2022, the Ombudsman found full or partial maladministration in almost half (48%) of cases.
The removal of the so-called ‘democratic filter’ through the Building Safety Act 2022 reduces the barriers faced by tenants wishing to escalate their complaints. The Ombudsman clearly expects an uptick in the number of complaints it receives, given its recent recruitment campaign in search of 30 additional adjudicators.
The Ombudsman has made moves to share examples of good practice and points of learning that providers should reflect on. Larger providers will likely have members of staff dedicated to dealing with customer complaints or governance that will have time in their busy schedules to sit, read and digest the important messages being put out by the Ombudsman. Others may struggle to find the bandwidth within their organisation to take full advantage of these materials.
To put meat on the bones of the ‘best practice’ guidance, using data kindly provided by the service, HQM spoke to three providers with low rates of upheld Ombudsman determinations, as compared with similar providers and the wider sector. This means that although some of their tenants have escalated their complaints to the Ombudsman, very few (if any) resulted in a finding of maladministration or service failure.
Between the three providers we spoke to, there was a variety of principles, approaches and outcomes. Every provider will face completely different challenges and will have a completely different starting point, but we have distilled five key takeaways that seemed common among our high performers.
Provider profiles: Thirteen Group is a 35,000-home housing association based in the North East and Yorkshire. In 2020-21, the Housing Ombudsman issued eight findings relating to Thirteen. In one of these cases a service failure finding was upheld.
Broadacres Housing Association is a 6,000home largely rural housing association operating across Yorkshire and Teesside. In 2020-21, the Housing Ombudsman issued four findings relating to Broadacres. None of those complaints were upheld.
Karbon Homes has just under 30,000 homes spread across the North East and Yorkshire. In 2020-21, the Housing Ombudsman issued 10 findings relating to Karbon. In one of these cases a service failure finding was upheld.
The structure of the complaint handling function is largely determined by organisational history. The providers described key points when their complaint handling systems were completely reinvigorated: the publication of the Ombudsman’s code; following the appointment of a new chief-executive; or when they conducted an internal review and realised they needed to take action. Each provider structures their complaint handling function in a different way, but there are some key decisions to be made that determine where this function sits within the organisation, the power it has and its relationship with the rest of the organisation.
One key question facing providers seems to be whether to centralise or de-centralise complaint handling. In a centralised system, complaint handling sits within a specific team. At Broadacres, complaints sit within their customer engagement and communications executive, where those handling complaints are seen as an “independent challenge” to other functions within the organisation.
By contrast, Karbon Homes has a welldeveloped de-centralised model, where individual teams deal with complaints that fall within their own remit. There’s a small central team with some staff dedicated to complaint handling, but the view is that learning from complaints flows throughout the organisation. The role of the central complaint handling function here is to build capacity, skills and knowledge so that wherever a complaint lands, it’s dealt with effectively.
As a result of mergers, Thirteen Group inherited a dispersed and decentralised structure that they were struggling with. They felt that by bringing the complaints team into their customer relations department, ensuring everything relating to residents was in one place, they could “look at the situation factually and say what’s gone wrong and what needs to be put right”. Thirteen have found that having an independent complaint handler in the middle helps prevent operational teams responding defensively to complaints about their work.
Both centralised and de-centralised systems appear to have distinct benefits in how complaint handling fits within each organisation, but a strategic decision is needed at the outset to develop an overall complaints architecture. Without this vision, it’s almost impossible to create clear pathways for complaints to flow through and change policies, processes and behaviours.
In a robust system, complaints should never fall between two stools. As the Ombudsman’s recent report on the complaint handling failings at Clarion shows, poor complaint handling often has two limbs: poor procedures and poor administration. Yet, the providers we spoke to have grasped the nettle and focused on the detail of their complaint handling.
Of course, one might point out that the scale of complaints handled by the organisations featured here are on a completely different magnitude to those faced by the likes of Clarion, but the strength of processes must be proportionate to the organisation’s size, and the regulator has repeatedly told us (and the DLUHC Select Committee) that Clarion has the right systems in place to deal with the challenges it faces.
Broadacres took early steps to get their procedures and administration right. Complaints are seen as a top priority, with directors and heads of service meeting monthly as part of their ‘lessons learned’ programme. They have processes to track complaints, and to create a space in which directors can constructively challenge how complaint management is being embedded across the association. During these meetings, they also take a deep dive into some of the complaints to make sure that any actions agreed, or lessons learned, have been implemented on the ground.
Similarly, Karbon makes use of a cross-team case review process where complaints are reviewed using four lenses: • Policy and procedure – did we get this right, according to our policies?
“Both centralised and de-centralised systems appear to have distinct benefits in how complaint handling fits within each organisation, but a strategic decision is needed at the outset to develop an overall complaints architecture”
• Culture and behaviours – did we behave in an appropriate way with our residents?
• Accessibility – are there any equality or accessibility issues that we haven’t thought about?
• Quality – does the decision made represent high-quality decision-making?
The overall message here is that complaint handling needs to be well thought out. Your organisation won’t develop a gold-plated system for dealing with complaints without a root and branch approach to tackling service issues.
The ‘golden thread’ of information is an important but perhaps overused phrase. Realistically, your information cannot possibly be a golden thread if it’s stored in an incoherent mess across different spreadsheets, archaic IT systems or in a file on a member of your team’s desktop. If your organisation engages in any of this retro data handling, it’s very much out of fashion. As the Housing Ombudsman, Richard Blakeway, explained in our September edition of HQM: “Strong record keeping practices are core to good services and will be the focus of a future systemic investigation by the Housing Ombudsman, with the aim of making recommendations and sharing learning across the social housing sector.”
The key questions providers with a system that isn’t terribly outdated but could do with some TLC should be asking themselves are:
• Does our system enable us to manage the complaint journey and not miss deadlines?
• Can the system collect the data we need if a complaint is escalated to the Ombudsman?
• Is the system able to provide us with the right information so that we can see what’s going on at both the headline and the granular level?
Both Broadacres and Thirteen were able to work with their existing systems but have had to make some changes so that they can respond to complaints in line with their policies. Wendy Graham, Assistant Director of Customer Service at Karbon, explained: “We recognised that things weren’t all we wanted them to be and the system was one side of it.
“One of the things that we were struggling with was to be able to report on whether we were closing complaints within our timescales or not, but also the system didn’t allow us to have management oversight, so that management could look at the cases their team were dealing with. So much of what we were doing was manual…”
Even with their shiny new complaints handling
system, Wendy said it can sometimes be difficult to provide the level of detail needed by the Ombudsman.
The key to dealing with this, all three providers agreed, was making a judgement as early as possible as to whether the complaint is going to be complex and whether it might be one that you struggle to resolve without it reaching the Ombudsman. Where this was the case, all three providers had a system of beefing up the information they collect on a particular issue and preparing detailed case files whilst a complaint is progressing through internal stages.
Implementing new IT systems can cause headaches for organisations of any size, but a review of complaints data quality and integrity, as well as a wider review of whether the system does everything that you need it to do, is an essential part of any complaint handling strategy. The Ombudsman’s message is clear: good housekeeping is not optional, and poor systems and record keeping easily lead to substandard complaint handling.
As well as developing and finessing policies, procedures and systems, all three providers talked about the need for cultural and behavioural change. You can have the best systems in the world, but without the right people residents will not receive the best service.
Broadacres, for example, found that a corporate restructure and the reshaping of senior job descriptions provided an opportunity to get the colleagues with the right skills acting as complaint champions. As Rebecca Sedgwick, Head of Communications at Broadacres, said: “There are people you don’t want to deal with complaints…They might be fantastic at doing what they do, but they’re not the best at speaking to people. So why give them a complaint to deal with?”
Of course, training can help, but Rebecca is completely right – get the right people in the right places to deal with complaints and the whole system will work better. However, it’s also important to set down some clear rules on customer interaction. Here, Karbon have developed a set of “customer behaviours”
“Your organisation won’t develop a gold-plated system for dealing with complaints without a root and branch approach to tackling service issues”
setting out clear dos and don’ts for colleagues engaging with tenants.
The cultural shifts that the three organisations described also led to operational changes that have made a difference. Both Thirteen and Karbon have found that offering a more personal and responsive service has improved resident satisfaction. One element of this new approach is a genuine attempt to engage with residents that have a complaint; to pick up the phone and have a chat about the issue and how it might be resolved.
Bobby Usher, Customer Experience Manager at Thirteen Group, explained: “You can’t convey tone in a letter or e-mail. We make sure we call tenants to try and see if complaints can be resolved in a conversation. If the customer has something they’re unsure of, they can ask it there and then.”
Similarly, Wendy Graham at Karbon pointed out that calling residents is an important part of conveying a genuine apology and, once the complaint has been closed, making sure everything has been resolved to the tenant’s satisfaction. Otherwise, letters sent to tenants “become a formality, rather than a positive way through which we communicate our message.”
Broadacres take this personal approach further. At Stage 2 of their complaints process, their Director of Customer Experience tries to visit tenants and sit down and have a brew with them in a real attempt to resolve the complaint. This is a prime example of how seriously these organisations take resident complaints, how serious they are about putting things right and how they treat their residents with respect and courtesy.
The three providers have clearly built solid foundations for good complaint handling, and cultures focused on listening, learning and respect. At this point, there’s a risk providers can begin to put their feet up and become
complacent. Every organisation has a limited amount of resources, and Blakeway recently expressed concerns that the “immense financial pressures on landlords” could lead to a deterioration in complaint handling.
Providers need to be proactive in at least two ways: staying ahead of developing trends and issues within their own complaints workload and keeping up to date with regulatory expectations.
All three organisations have focused on developing their cultures around learning from complaints and using data to understand the direction of travel. Karbon holds regular ‘customer experience action meetings’ to analyse their data and get ahead of potential issues. Broadacres uses its lessons-learned approach to create and implement stringent action plans on the back of complaints, but it combines this with technology on the frontline to try and pre-empt complaints.
They’ve brought in the Rant and Rave Dashboard so they can react in real-time to resident feedback. If a resident gives a poor rating after a call, the customer experience team immediately follows up to understand what went wrong. Being responsive is paramount to any organisation that has a strong culture of learning and continuous improvement.
Mixing it all together…
Complaints need to be taken seriously by every department and all levels within an organisation – including boards or councillors and executive teams. Having senior colleagues in the room talking about what’s going wrong on the ground keeps complaint handling alive and, ultimately, ensures building better services for tenants is a top priority.
To support members and promote best practice in complaints handling, HQN has teamed up with complaints handling experts John Goodwin and Dave Simmons to create the Complaints Hub.
Members will have access to regularly updated resources including a complaints policy checklist, templates for commonly used letters/forms, and regular drop in sessions with John and Dave so you can get your questions answered.
“Realistically, your information cannot possibly be a golden thread if it’s stored in an incoherent mess across different spreadsheets, archaic IT systems or in a file on a member of your team’s desktop. If your organisation engages in any of this retro data handling, it’s very much out of fashion”
the cost-of-living crisis heads into the tough winter months, HQN and Mobysoft
Tackling the cost-of-living crisis will be a defining moment for housing providers as they feel the weight of incoming consumer regulation and face questions around their purpose, residents’ trust and their effectiveness to deliver.
As the country heads into winter, the scale of the problem will start to become clearer. How many people are going to cut back on heating altogether? What will the knock-on effect be? Will there be job losses from businesses unable to afford the utility bills? How will this further impact those who are unable to afford rents and service charges?
Housing did a lot of great work in identifying and working through solutions with those at most financial risk during the pandemic, and it’ll be needing a similar response to this latest crisis. In this roundtable, we sought the views of different housing providers to get a sense of what’s happening on the ground and how we can maybe solve or mitigate these problems.
Janette Pearce, of Thirteen Group, explains the early impact on her organisation.
“We know our customers have a lot less money now and many are on partial universal credit,” she said. “We work across 35 different local authorities, and they all have different criteria for household support.
Participants
• Chair: Jon Land, HQN
• Janette Pearce, Group Director of Customer Services, Together Housing
• Derek Streek, Head of Communities, Standards and Partnerships, VIVID
• Andy Sage, Head of Customer Services, settle
• Craig Tyldesley, Head of Revenue Services, Bolton at Home
• Jonathon Brownbill, Director of Customer Success, Mobysoft
“Navigating that with staff is really challenging and having teams trained up and seeing what’s available in each area takes up a huge amount of time and resource.”
She also spoke about increased costs for the organisation itself: “Utility costs in supported housing and communal areas are far higher than we’ve ever had to deal with and again that makes a challenging discussion around service charges.
As
ran a roundtable with income collection professionals to get a sense of the big challenges, how they’re being solved and what more needs to be done.
“We’ve not got just rents to think about but also what we do with service charges and what we may have to pass on or swallow here. We know it’s not appropriate to be passing those costs on to customers, so we’ll have to find that money from somewhere in the business.”
Craig Tyldesley of Bolton at Home echoed those thoughts and added: “If we can get the rent covered plus a little bit more, that’s probably where are going to go with this.
“We’ve got all these things we can do, such as working with the council and increasing the hardship fund, but we haven’t got anything that we can do that will really sort someone’s situation out. It’s all a sticking plaster.”
And Andy Sage of settle group says his preparations were hampered by a lack of action from government for months.
He added that difficulties around measuring people’s level of need was also of concern and spoke of developing a furniture offer for residents, with that being the number one cause of instant debt on moving.
But there were also issues with outside agencies: “We’ve found that organisations such as Citizens Advice Bureau are struggling to keep up with the cases we, and other organisations, are sending them. Added to this the people they’re seeing are coming to them with far more problems and the solutions just aren’t there.”
All of the participants talked of increasing the hardship
funds they had available, and many talked about the impact they were seeing on the ground from residents.
Andy Sage said: “One issue that’s growing is disconnection of prepayment meters and compliance. We’re encountering issues around compliance with disconnections and meters that have run out of credit. That’s a hot potato that we’re dealing with now.”
Derek Streek added to that point: “We’re hearing that people are using the microwave instead of the oven and that people are going to bed when it’s dark. As we go into the winter, that’s not going to be sustainable.”
And on the issue of staff resilience and mental health, how are providers coping with the increasing demands put on frontline staff?
Craig Tyldesley says it’s all about having a strong wellbeing offer.
“We’re very focused on support, like we were during Covid. We wanted to make sure they have the resilience to do the job most effectively.
“A big focus has been on the enforcement side who are starting to see the hoarding, the disconnection of the prepayment meters, and more. Keeping their wellbeing high is going to be important. What we’ve said we’ll always do is protect our frontline services.”
And Bolton at Home are currently exploring an early pay increase to help staff see themselves through winter. It’s an approach Derek Streek is also taking at VIVID.
He said: “We’re looking at whether we bring forward our pay offer which is usually offered around April time in a bid to retain our staff. There could be an effect in April later if they don’t get another rise. With the rate of inflation higher than the cap that will be imposed, there will be a gap and we’ll have to fill that somehow.”
For Andy Sage at settle, the issue they’re grappling with is around staff experience.
“You’re relying on relatively inexperienced colleagues looking at incredibly complex caseloads. That has an overall impact on the offer, with the expertise more stretched than we would like it to be as we’re recruiting people who have little or less experience than we may have wanted to.”
And if those issues weren’t enough, the government has introduced a rent cap for social housing. How do the participants see that impacting the organisation? It all comes down to priorities.
Craig Tyldesley Derek Streek“You’re relying on relatively inexperienced colleagues looking at incredibly complex caseloads. That has an overall impact on the offer, with the expertise more stretched than we would like it to be”
“We’re hearing that people are using the microwave instead of the oven and that people are going to bed when it’s dark”
Derek Streek says that VIVID were in “a strong financial position with a surplus of 41%”, which has allowed the organisation to not take any drastic decisions. Instead, it looks likely that housebuilding will be vastly reduced.
And while there was agreement that any cuts cannot impact residents, Janette Pearce said efficiencies will need to be found.
“We must be mindful that any cuts we do make are not at the cost of the customer. We need to find a way of doing things more efficiently.
“We need to look at making the systems take the strain so that the people we employ can get on and do the job to help residents.”
And while the sector has long grappled with technology, Janette explains how the work Together has done in this area has now led to efficiencies and more targeted resources.
“We’ve always been data rich in terms of assets, but we had to catch up on resident data. That’s taken a bit of time. What we’ve done with that is to tailor services around it and target specific streets and households that need it.
“Having that indicator was really important and helps us drive that efficiency we need and target our resources in the right way.
“We’ve got a data scientist working in our organisation and what that gives us is a rich picture of the whole organisation and means we can be efficient in how we deal with our customers and make sure that every contact counts.”
And as we draw the roundtable to a close, the participants are asked about their big priorities over the coming year.
Derek Streek said it was about three strands – tackling the cost-of-living crisis, developing an anti-poverty programme and making better use of community centres.
On the latter, the organisation has been speaking about using these community centres as “warm hubs” and making the best for all in the wider community.
For Janette, it’s about ensuring that the organisation sticks to its morals.
“We may need a rethink about how we achieve some of our goals. We’re committed to carrying those on, but we need to do that in the most efficient way possible.
“I think we must have a good look at KPIs. We’re going to have a look at what is right for Together, what’s not right, and how we compare with other organisations who have benchmarking tools. We could meet all targets but evict 100 people and that’s not what we’re about.
“Our turnover is reducing constantly, and it’s about sustainment of tenancies and keeping evictions low. We want to make sure we stick to that.”
• Identify vulnerable customers early – communication with all residents key
• Gather as much data as possible on payment trends
• Be aware of changing behaviours – disconnecting from mains, refusing access to properties, switching from DDs to standing orders
• Ensure your housing management systems link up with your CRM systems
• Work with some residents on a one-to-one basis
• Increase hardship funds where possible
• Explore partnership opportunities in the local area –council, charities, community hubs
• Use communal buildings as ‘warm hubs’ – also a way of driving engagement
• Protect staff on the frontline by ensuring they have mental health support
• Train staff effectively so they can deliver for residents
• Consider an early cost-of-living pay offer for staff before winter sets in
• Look at where adopting technology can help save money and resource
• Join HQN’s Rent Income Excellence Network for peer-to-peer support, best practice groups and all the latest briefings and advice.
“We’re encountering issues around compliance with disconnections and meters that have run out of credit. That’s a hot potato that we’re dealing with now”Andy Sage Janette Pearce
As the cost-of-living crisis continues to hit households, many are struggling to afford rising and unexpected costs – with over 15 million people in the UK facing financial hardship, and many not knowing where to find support.
While there are hundreds of providers of support across charities, local councils and other organisations, over half of people are not aware of grants, benefits and other support they may be eligible for – with over £15 billion left unclaimed.
Whereas people know the big-name charities, hundreds of charities that provide grants to support different groups of people based on their location, characteristics (such as age or gender) and past or current occupation, go under the radar. Similarly, there is little awareness of support schemes available from local councils, or social tariffs that can help people save money on their utilities and phone, TV and internet bills.
Some people are also put off by the perceived stigma of seeking help, while others have misconceptions that they are not eligible for support (even though additional support is often available both for those on benefits, and those who don’t qualify for benefits).
The process for finding and applying for financial support can also be fragmented, challenging to navigate and hampered by lengthy and complex paperwork for each application completed – meaning people don’t get support quickly enough (or don’t finish the process altogether).
This is where Lightning Reach comes in. Founded during the pandemic, we aim to enable people in financial hardship to find support quickly, easily and securely.
In 2021, in collaboration with a group of grant making charities and other organisations, we built a free online portal for individuals to find and apply for financial support from different sources all in one place. By answering a short questionnaire, people are matched to all support they are eligible for –and in many cases can apply directly through the portal.
We have already helped facilitate more than £1.5 million in grants and helped over 15,000 people access support.
One person we helped was Millicent, a single
mum of three who found herself struggling with high rent and rising costs. Working part-time and studying, Millicent’s income simply could not cover her expenses. Thankfully, she received an email from Lambeth Council about Lightning Reach – and received a £500 grant.
“I thought there wouldn’t be anyone who can help me…I found it really straightforward to fill out the form. My situation was difficult and this (Lightning Reach) made it easy,” she said.
Using modern technology, we’ve simplified the process for individuals applying and demonstrating their eligibility for support – incorporating the option for document uploads and open banking, which is more secure than sending personal information by post or email.
For organisations giving support, having a grant or support scheme on the portal improves efficiency of internal grant making processes – with some organisations saving an average of 1.5 hours per application. By having someone complete an application on the portal, providers can deliver support quicker by having a simpler process with minimal paperwork, can check eligibility before applying and reach those who may not already be aware of their services.
We already have a range of notable support providers on Lightning Reach, including the Royal British Legion, Lambeth Council, and the Teaching Staff Trust – and we are constantly adding new support. Once someone completes a profile, even if they are not initially eligible for support on the portal, we will keep them updated when new support is available.
The Lightning Reach portal is available to everyone who needs financial assistance, no matter your circumstances. Visit the portal to find what support you are eligible for at www.lightningreach.org/application-portal
If you are a support worker or organisation with clients in need of financial support, you can signpost your clients to the Lightning Reach portal – or assist them in completing a profile and application.
quickly, easily and securely
As the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite – and, in some cases, deepens – as we head towards Christmas, HQN highlights some of the good work being done by providers across the country.
With low-income families now four times more likely to be digitally excluded due to the cost-of-living crisis, Clanmil Housing has become the first housing association in Northern Ireland to supply free mobile data for customers who need it. Using a partnership with the National Databank UK, the organisation provided SIM cards for up to 20GBs of data and unlimited calls and texts free for 12 months on either Three, 02 or Vodafone.
Tai Tarian’s Money Mentors training programme is upskilling staff to enable them to help tenants who are struggling and have money worries. The idea is that as many members of staff undertake the training as possible so that residents can be supported at any time by any member of staff they come into contact with, and that staff can identify what support is most appropriate for the situation they’re facing.
After the merger between Riverside and One Housing, the Riverside Foundation received £2.5m to help with residents’ needs. During the cost-of-living crisis, that money has been used in a variety of ways. Frontline staff have been empowered to use small grants to help those at crisis point, and money has also been ringfenced for community projects. On top of this, the remaining money will be used for other projects such as tackling fuel and food poverty.
LiveWest have put forward £850,000 to help combat the cost-of-living crisis. The money will go towards reducing the rent of tenants who are living in less energy efficient homes and adding a specialist energy officer to its team of 24 tenancy sustainment officers. The South West organisation is also providing £460,000 to help with tenancy sustainment for those struggling to pay bills, while increasing hardship funds.
Wheatley Group launched its ‘Here for You’ campaign which will support 20,000 residents through the cost-of-living crisis and beyond – building on the support offered to residents during the pandemic, including helping residents claim more in benefits, distributing fuel and food vouchers, helping tenants into jobs, and upcycling furniture to make them free for residents.
Partnerships are the name of the game for North Star Housing Group. Through a partnership with a local furniture recycling company, they’ve been able to extend their hardship fund and offer affordable white goods and furniture to residents. On top of this, they’ve also agreed a partnership with Citizens Advice to offer specialist debt advice especially for North Star residents, giving them the opportunity to access free expert guidance at any time.
Midland Heart is helping with the provision of food bank vouchers, gas/electric top up vouchers and much more during the cost-of-living crisis. After working out that 80% of referrals to its money advice team related to difficulties with the increasing prices, they’ve also created a more holistic approach by having the gas safety team assisting customers with large gas debts. This has allowed the organisation to build up a better picture of what help is needed where, and use staff from other departments to make these important calls.
Under a banner of ‘Affordable for All’, Flagship Homes has launched several initiatives to help residents. On a financial level, they’ve used the Warmer Homes Fund to provide vouchers to help residents afford heating and have created a discretionary fund for other household items or support that’s needed. Offering grants to community groups has also been key, with food banks being supported in the local area. Finally, the creation of a tenancy support and wellbeing service provides free counselling support for residents that need it.
The G15 group of housing associations in London have set out the ways they are helping residents, with a further £5.8m being committed to help. For some providers, the amount of help they’ve provided through fuel and food vouchers etc. has increased by over 1,000%. And the organisations have done this in a number of ways, from Hyde’s Universal Credit Helper tool to Peabody’s Economic Inclusion Service. Overall in 2021/22, the organisations have calculated they secured £44m of financial gains by accessing social security support and other budget boosting measures.
Noise is a major cause of complaints but, unlike repairs, is debated less despite its complexities.
Its impact is both human and financial, affecting residents’ mental health and costing landlords in protracted, multiagency interventions.
Our latest Spotlight report examines the issues based on hundreds of complaints and insights of over 400 landlords and residents. Despite the economic pressures, it sets out why strengthening the sector’s response to noise nuisance is essential.
Crucially, there’s a fundamental unfairness in the sector’s approach: most noise reports concern household noise rather than antisocial behaviour (ASB), yet most landlords handle it under their ASB policy.
This is unfair to both the complainant and complained about for the noise to be treated as something it’s not; and harder for the landlord to make consistent and reasonable decisions if it doesn’t have the right framework for all types of noise reports.
That our maladministration rate is 62% when the noise is non-statutory underscores this need.
The treatment of noise in the Decent Homes Standard is also limited and not reflective of modern living, and the ongoing review of the standard could address this gap.
Landlords’ immediate focus should be on prevention by updating the void standard to ensure that carpets aren’t routinely removed, but hard flooring is when there have been reports of noise; and fitting anti-vibration mats under white goods. The difference this would make shouldn’t be underestimated.
Next, landlords should adopt a proactive good neighbourhood management policy, distinct to the ASB policy, with clear options for maintaining good neighbourhood relationships.
This should include mediation, an approach that should work better but lacks confidence amongst residents because it can
be deployed too late and under an ASB label.
Landlords should also consider their presence on estates given how effective it can be, and housing associations should be given the same information by councils, as they do to their management arms, to identify and mitigate any issues.
Our report also recommends ways to strengthen ASB policies too, but it is disappointing that half the cases of maladministration involved poor records. Alongside better communication, good record keeping is something the sector needs to grip.
Lastly, where a resident isn’t afforded respect, neither are their complaints.
While I didn’t find evidence of actual bias in our investigations, residents’ anxieties about their reports being dismissed did come up.
This perception arose because of their age or having previously complained; and we did find maladministration in some of those cases because the landlord hadn’t taken action or thoroughly investigated.
Separately, we found noise report handlers may not be routinely listening to noise recordings submitted by residents.
Our lives are changing and our built environment is becoming denser.
Our recommendations are practical and cost-effective; despite the pressures, it’s critical landlords prioritise developing their approach.
By Doug Sarney, Resident Voice Index project lead and solutions principal at MRI Software
Since Summer 2021, we’ve been surveying UK social housing residents for our Resident Voice Index™ initiative to gain an understanding of their thoughts and feelings about the issues directly affecting them.
Throughout the surveys and subsequent reports, we have seen clear themes emerging of issues that communities across the UK need support with.
A core tenet of the project has always been to empower communities and out of this has come the desire not only to report the data we receive, but to communicate tangible actions that communities are doing to counter the worst of what we witness. Our Community Action Plans will showcase the problem-solving power of communities in partnership with citizen-led organisations.
With the rising cost of living leaving people with the lowest amount of spare money in almost five years, the issues that have been consistently cited by Resident Voice Index™ survey respondents only look set to worsen. From rising debt to choices around heating or eating, there’s no time left to wait for wider societal solutions. Communities are tackling these adverse circumstances by building something for themselves.
Working in partnership with community-led organisations, our Community Action Plans describe a community’s solution to local issues in a step-by-step guide. The plans break down what the project does and the issue it’s tackling, the steps to setting it up, how it’s run on a weekly basis, and the outcomes it achieves.
By adopting these guides, we hope other communities and organisations can also take some control over seemingly uncontrollable circumstances and harness the power of their neighbourhood to improve the lives of those within it.
The lack of access to healthy, affordable food is a topic that’s often emerged across numerous surveys - from mentions of people skipping meals or using food banks, to suggestions that communities work together to grow more communal food.
Created alongside St Ann’s Food Hub, our first Community Action Plan looks at one community’s response to food poverty and insecurity. St Ann’s set up their food hub during the first Covid-19 lockdown when mutual aid groups were springing up across the UK. The food hub buys wholesale produce with a network of volunteers to bring healthy and affordable food to the community. They do this by assembling boxes of produce that are sold and can also be donated to members of the community unable to afford them.
These boxes give far more value than that available in supermarkets and are paid for by members of the community, allowing for collective buying power to help the community’s own households and those of their neighbours.
Each box costs just £10 (for paying members of the community) and St Ann’s put together on average 60-80 boxes of fresh produce for their community each week, giving away almost 40 of those to households in need.
The Food Hub Community Action Plan is out now. Find it here to get a food hub started of your own! Visit residentvoiceindex.co.uk for more Information.
As housing providers continue to share distressing stories about the financial choices their customers are being pushed to make, they, too, are being pushed to make difficult decisions.
Income forecasts are being amended to account for financial pressures, including the rent ceiling and spiralling energy, material and labour costs. Leaders are understandably being asked what activity can be paused or scrapped altogether?
In this climate, it will take both foresight and courage for landlords to continue their investments in new technology and improved data processes.
These are longer-term investments at a time of (hopefully) short-term crisis.
But we must not forget that it’s these projects which are going to reduce inefficiencies in our organisations, create lasting savings and, most importantly, underpin excellent, efficient and effective customer services.
And aren’t these the factors driving conversations in board rooms across the country?
on innovation and technology undone. I’m afraid it won’t simply be a case of picking it back up in a few years, and housing will simply fall further behind other sectors.
And what would it mean for tenants? Many landlords delivered digital and data transformation in record time when pushed due to Covid-19 restrictions. And many experienced higher tenant engagements as a result. We mustn’t lose this momentum.
Yes, this requires upfront capital expenditure investments now, and ideally out of this year’s budgets. But it can make sure your business is in a position to work smarter and leaner, protecting as much as possible against a drop off in service standards.
It’s reassuring to see many senior leaders focusing their attention on how to support their tenants in response to current Covid recovery and the cost-of-living crisis, whilst their colleagues in transformation keep an eye on the long term, structural challenges ahead.
It’d be a crying shame to see the progress we’ve made
It’s a real concern to know that so many people in your neighbourhoods will have to forego phone and internet connections to afford basic survival – food and warmth. And as we know, if those on the lowest incomes have to sacrifice connectivity, they potentially become harder to reach and more isolated.
Digital inclusion is not an ‘add on’ or a nice to have. It’s pivotal to achieving overall business objectives – and a fairer society.
As we face another time of national emergency, we have to think laterally about the solutions. We can’t let progress stall for our organisations, or our communities.
“It’d be a crying shame to see the progress we’ve made on innovation and technology undone. I’m afraid it won’t simply be a case of picking it back up in a few years”
Indeed, it’s a peculiarly perverse policy. Research by the University of York found that shared ownership is more expensive than outright purchase from around year 15 onwards, but with a smaller share in equity, providing poor value for money.
Shared ownership rent caps clearly have unwelcome financial consequences for housing providers; given the cross-subsidy model whereby receipts from shared ownership fund further housing development. So, what’s the argument for rent caps, and do voluntary commitments to cap shared ownership rent rises at 7% in 2023-24 go far enough?
Let’s start with shared owners’ expectations, something that inevitably informs satisfaction ratings. For households to be eligible, their income must be below a specified upper threshold. But there’s no defined lower threshold. Instead, households undertake an affordability assessment.
The Capital Funding Guide makes it clear that: “Applicants must be able to afford their purchase and sustain their housing costs” [my emphasis]. Marketing campaigns emphasise supposed financial benefits of shared ownership as compared to renting privately or outright purchase.
All in all, entrants to the scheme are implicitly encouraged to anticipate ongoing affordability. Yet they’re also obliged to purchase the maximum share they can afford, leaving little wriggle room if total housing costs rise faster than income.
Many shared owners expressed relief at the National Housing Federation commitment – following the Autumn Statement – to cap shared ownership rent increases at 7% in 2023-24 in line with social rent caps. But others remain anxious. Some simply can’t afford a further 7% increase on top of the cumulative impact of previous annual rent rises at a premium to inflation. Some are amongst the 20% of shared ownership households not covered by the NHF commitment.
Worryingly, households who could stretch to only a small initial share are correspondingly more exposed to the cumulative effect of annual RPI-linked rent increases. It’s a vicious circle: the lower their disposable income, the further the prospect of staircasing recedes, the more vulnerable they are to the effect of annual rent increases. Which in turn decreases their disposable income. The ‘upwards only’ rent review policy creates a neverending treadmill.
Will a 7% (or above) rent increase disproportionately affect women (still on the sharp end of wage inequality), single-income households, single parent households and families? Will it be the last straw for shared owners facing ongoing uncapped liabilities for insurance premiums, waking watch and other building safety remediation costs? Many are trapped in an increasingly unsuitable home with no viable exit route. What about households facing unregulated energy bills for communal heating systems?
Of course, temporarily capping shared ownership rent at 7% is preferable to exclusion from social housing rent caps. But it tackles a symptom for some, but far from all, shared owners without actually addressing fundamental flaws in the underlying model. The argument that housing associations depend on shared ownership rental income to develop more affordable housing offers no comfort to shared owners themselves, as their own homes become increasingly unaffordable.
Recent events have shown that reliance can no longer be placed on shared ownership rent as a bottomless pit of funding for future housing provision. The crosssubsidy model never worked in the best interests of shared owners, and it no longer works particularly well for housing associations. Is it time for a radical rethink?
statutory services, such as welfare rights advice, housing support and community-based programmes, which will not only make life harder for tenants but will also create greater pressure on already-stretched services such as Citizens Advice. These significant effects on both the quality and future provision of social housing aren’t balanced by any immediate, material benefit to most tenants, as between 60–70% are entitled to have their rents covered by welfare benefits.
The UK is facing an escalating cost-of-living crisis, and it’s people on the lowest incomes, many of whom will be social housing tenants, who are experiencing the worst of it. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) and our members want to help people who are struggling, but this support must help those in need and not threaten the very structures that exist to protect them.
On 6 October, the emergency Cost of Living (Protection of Tenants) (Scotland) Bill, which includes a rent freeze in the social and private housing sectors until 31 March 2023, with the possibility of extension, was passed by the Scottish Parliament. While the legislation doesn’t affect our members’ current rent period, it’s still having a destabilising effect – which probably comes as no surprise to readers working in social housing in England and Wales, where government rent control is already in place.
SFHA and our members worked incredibly hard, as the bill passed through parliament, to highlight to the Scottish Government and opposition parties why a rent freeze in the social housing sector is unnecessary and, indeed, likely to be counterproductive. While we didn’t want to see even a temporary rent freeze introduced, we were glad to hear MSPs of all parties acknowledging the vital work of our members and calling for a more proportionate approach going forward.
SFHA will continue to make the case as to why this legislation must not continue after 31 March 2023. A rent freeze beyond this date would threaten our members’ ability to build, improve and maintain existing homes and deliver vital support services to tenants.
In the months ahead, we’ll work constructively with the Scottish Government, and other stakeholders, so that Scotland doesn’t see the damaging longer-term consequences of a rent freeze in the social sector. We’re keen to find solutions that work for tenants, social landlords and the government.
With rental income vital for securing private lending for building new homes, there’s concern over reduced lender appetite, and we’re already seeing members halting development plans. We’ve also learned of housing associations that are diverting resources away from decarbonisation programmes to focus on maintaining their existing homes, while others have been forced to cancel plans for kitchen and bathroom upgrades for the next several years due to their projected loss in income. Some members have also told us they will be forced to cut back on non-
“These significant effects on both the quality and future provision of social housing are not balanced by any immediate, material benefit to most tenants”
Today’s cost of living crisis is also a cost of doing business crisis. Housebuilders as well as householders are feeling the crunch of inflation and looking for ways to cut costs, or at least keep them manageable. At United Living, we have a number of mitigation strategies in place. Many of these involve collaborating with our partners both up and down the supply chain. By working together, the industry as a whole can better cope with the pressures of inflation.
Given the weakness of the pound, and the knockon effects of Brexit, one sensible strategy is to write specifications with an emphasis on products and materials sourced in the UK. Wherever we can influence specification, then, we propose sourcing UK goods. We also encourage two-stage tendering, which involves us developing designs during a Pre-Construction Services Agreement phase. This helps keep costs predictable.
Another strategy is to align the period our bids remain open for with that of our supply chain. This means departing from how things are often done in our industry, where there is often an expectation that bids to clients will remain open for three or even six months. Given that our own supply chain partners are now generally limiting their fixed price period to 30 days, this exposes us to the risk that we will be expected to honour prices we can no longer afford. Most clients understand our reasons for limiting the period our bids remain open for acceptance, so we hope this will become recognised as standard good practice.
Meanwhile, our property services business sets great store by partnership contracting. This has at least three benefits when trying to mitigate the effects of inflation. The first is that contracting arrangements tend to be long-term, which means they come with annual price increase mechanisms linked to inflation. Secondly, they give our clients a stake in our continued operational
efficiency and success. This means they are willing to share risks and work collaboratively to agree solutions to exceptional price increases and shortages.
Thirdly, long-term arrangements allow us to provide consistency, continuity and certainty to our supply chain. This in turn allows them to enter into longterm material supply arrangements with their own manufacturers, suppliers and merchants. Everyone benefits from the resulting longer-term fixed-price arrangements. A related strategy is the use of framework arrangements, which give our supply chain partners the confidence to enter longer-term arrangements with us and others, providing time and space to source better price deals.
Finally, at United Living we pride ourselves on being very reliable payers, which means our supply chain partners can offer us their best prices in the certain knowledge they will be paid fairly and on time.
Anchor Housing has recently engaged the skills of Digital Voice to deliver a digital storytelling course for its residents. It helps residents to tell their stories using a range of digital tools, teaching them to do everything from filming to editing the final piece. Two residents, Heather and Terry, spoke to HQM about how beneficial one of the courses was.
HeatherA few years ago it was discovered I had cognitive problems which affect parts of my memory and reasoning.
Fortunately, the dementias have been ruled out. It has, however, forced early retirement on me and a certain loss of self. I find myself asking “What do I no longer remember? Am I a different person to what I was before this?” Most retirees can sit back and recount tales of ‘remember when’. Not so much me.
Each week on the course, the two hours we shared were very informative – a wonderful session of discoveries.
There was a lot to learn and we were happy for a great and patient teacher in Jan Debognies, who developed a real rapport with us oldies! I felt my confidence growing each week.
Before I would just press video on my camera phone and that would be that. I now feel confident I will be able to make, edit and share my own mini videos.
Now I can cut out the boring bits, join different videos together, add text, photos, music, voice over and many many more exciting edits.
I couldn’t wait to start my own project now I have this skill and I will be able to pass on and make the most of the memories I have.
I have actually gone on to create a video guide to digital storytelling to help teach other Anchor residents as a result!
What’s that quote...“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish”.
I didn’t quite envisage what a life-changing opportunity you were getting us into there, but all’s now become clear. An outstanding example of good practice for sure, it’s something to be proud of. It was a very structured and well-thought-out course with competent and considerate mentors.
Thanks so much for being so cool! What a pleasure being led and taught by you. You calmed my nervousness, eliminated my usual fear of being left behind on day one, and with your measured “time for all” got us all the results.
I’ve managed to produce something, totally through your kind efforts, that I would’ve thought, just a short while ago, wasn’t within reach.
And I’m not really referring to the technical side of things. I’m talking of how you’ve inspired us to create something quite beautiful and special – to put our life experiences into a story and film.
The impact and significance of that to me, at this somewhat late stage of my life, is overwhelming. And emotional.
It’s being listened to, as somebody who’s perhaps now worth being listened to. Who has a story to tell. And as somebody that plans to tell more stories from here on in.
So, again, thank you both. It’s been a wonderful experience – the best ever experience.
When I’m asked about how technology in housing compares to other sectors I’ve worked in, I’d say the trend is to follow rather than lead. This is an often-solid strategy, and it still leaves plenty of space for ambition, talent and opportunity to create something special.
So, why do we tend to follow and not lead?
• It reduces risk as the learning is done by someone else further along the risk-reward spectrum
• It can be easier to stick with the technology devil you know.
At the heart of everything we do is the customer we provide housing and other services to. And with all the challenges we must work with, innovating with digital solutions is going to be one of the key tools we have to improve the experiences and lives of our customers.
Looking to other sectors can provide plenty of inspiration. I’ve been in technology roles across retail, travel, telecommunications and government, and there’s no shame in copying or adapting successful ideas from those fields to assist in making things better for our colleagues and customers in housing.
Many in the housing sector will be working with systems and processes first completed manually and then moved to a digital environment. We’re operating within an environment where more and more businesses are benefitting from digital-first thinking. Indeed, our residents will increasingly measure us against the great experiences they have from businesses and organisations across all aspects of their lives.
Of course, we must involve our customers and colleagues –what’s the point of an all-singing, all-dancing digital platform if no one uses it, or if it doesn’t solve their issues? We need to build solutions that our customers want rather than just replicating what’s gone before. settle recently created
a new website, but before we did anything we asked our customers what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it. And the important bit: using Agile techniques. We created a website based on that feedback and tested it with them on their devices before it went live.
We’ve also seen huge success with taking engagement online for our regeneration projects. Whilst we still carry out face-to-face events, online platforms give opportunity to those customers who can’t come and meet us, or simply prefer to give us their feedback digitally. This has enabled us to gather significantly more responses – with the feedback being in many ways richer, as respondents could take their time and be more open with their views.
While by no means perfect, our focus on the user experience and communications to make sure customers are aware of digital improvements and how they will benefit from them, as well as investment in upskilling our people resources, are fundamental.
Across housing we tend to see many different tech solutions being used, each with strengths and weaknesses, and varying levels of compatibility. Variety and choice are positives and should drive innovation. They also make it more difficult to create consistent ways of reacting to the needs of our customers and thus impacting our ability as a sector to deliver the best experience they deserve and we want to create.
We see immense goodwill across the sector and commitment to doing the best we can, together. At settle, we’ve set up innovative partnerships to enhance our work on sustainability. This is a solid foundation to replicate with learnings for our digital offerings.
We’ve a real opportunity to lead the way in innovation here, and we aim for settle’s digital strategy, focussing on the digital home, customer and community, to enable us to do just that.
“I’ve been in technology roles across retail, travel, telecommunications and government, and there’s no shame in copying or adapting successful ideas from those fields”
How can social housing improve on its use of technology?
The council’s pop-up pantries ensured children who normally get a free school meal didn’t go without by providing food for 6,600 children in the October half term.
On yer bike! Wheatley Group
Tenants in communities across Scotland are being encouraged to get on their bikes and help the environment, with the housing association creating 27 new bike sheds across Wheatley neighbourhoods.
A time capsule has been buried by local primary school children at Orbit Homes’ new development. The capsule contains pictures and newspaper reports written by the children about what they think life will be like in 100 years’ time.
Broadland tenants enjoyed a series of social events recently – providing them with a chance to browse pop-up information stalls, entertain the children and meet neighbours over a BBQ or afternoon tea, and, of course, ice cream!
Eggspansion Believe housing
Little Chefs, Big Chefs CIC, which started off as a community pantry, has been able to expand thanks to the work of volunteers and funding from believe housing.
Strong support Leicester City Council
A staff member at the organisation, Heather, rescued these little ducklings after their mother was killed. She fed them through the night before passing them onto the SSPCA.
Aylesbury
Under 9’s Team
their new kit for the coming season, after Fairhive sponsored the team. The grant given to the club includes funding to hire a new pitch and acquire equipment such as bibs and goalposts.
The association has teamed up with ROSPA and partners who work with young families to provide special free child safety packs to families in Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The packs include useful items and plenty of safety tips.
More than 600 residents have attended a Mela to thank them for their support and collectively celebrate the organisation’s achievements since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.
If you’d like to be featured In the Frame, please email your pictures to mark.lawrence@hqnetwork.co.uk
Football fanatics Fairhive Dynamos debuted Garden gatherings First Choice Homes Oldham A new community growing and wellbeing facility, which will offer local people a space to meet, learn new skills and support the environment, is set to open thanks to a little help from First Choice Homes Oldham and partners.1. Tell us about your career and how you ended up in your current role
I’ve worked in housing for nearly 30 years. I started out as a housing officer in Stockport, and it’s my passion for helping and supporting people that’s driven me throughout my career and eventually led me to this role.
I joined YHG as COO in April 2020 at the height of lockdown and was appointed deputy CEO a year later. After our long-standing CEO retired, I knew I wanted to take on the role and lead this organisation.
2. Describe yourself in three words Kind, steely/resilient, funny – I’ve got a real ability to make people laugh!
3. Favourite place on earth?
It has to be home. I’ve been to some amazing places, but for me, my favourite place in the whole world is home. I just love it.
4. What would you change about yourself?
I wish I found it easier to switch off. I’ve got one of those minds that just never stops thinking. It’s not necessarily about work; something to do, somewhere to be.
5. Describe your home
I live in an 1800s period house in the High Peak so lots of green space and fresh air. It’s across four floors so there are a lot of stairs. I’d describe it as organised and contemporary with calm, earthy colours and textures.
6. What makes you angry?
When people talk others down as a way of talking themselves up. During my career, I’ve come across people who think bullying is an effective way to influence and lead people, when we all know bullying is nothing more than bullying and is always unacceptable.
7. Most treasured possession
My sons. My three lovely boys (and my husband, of course!), and not forgetting my lockdown puppy, Dashy Bear, who’s my little work buddy.
8. Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
‘What you permit, you promote.’
Somebody said that to me about 15 years ago, and it’s a guiding principle for me now. It’s about not staying silent, and just letting things go. One of my biggest heroes is Dr Martin Luther King who rightly refused to stay quiet and in fact, no matter what it cost him, he made sure he was heard.
9. If you won £1 million on the lottery, what would you spend it on?
If I had loads of money, there are two things I’d want to do:
1. Help children who need a helping hand, as I was a kid like that.
2. I love all things equestrian – horses and donkeys. So, I’d probably open a sanctuary and muck out to my heart’s content.
10. Biggest achievement?
It always comes back to family and the thing that matters most to me is that I have raised three boys who are great additions to this world, with good, open, honest and diverse hearts. You only ever hear them talking people up, and never down.
11. Biggest regret?
My only regret is not spending more
time with my dad. He passed away 15 years ago, aged just 58. My parents had retired to Spain, so I only saw them a couple of times a year, and that time was often a typical dad-daughter relationship in that if I needed advice, or needed something, I’d go to him, whereas with my mum it was more often quality time, doing things like shopping or going for lunch. I regret not having the chance to spend that kind of time with him. I miss him every day.
12. Most overused phrase?
‘It is what it is.’ It’s like a catch-all –when people don’t want to go into detail about something and want to move on without addressing the learning. Anyway, what is it and is it?
13. Recommend a book
The Front by Mandasue Heller. I discovered Mandasue’s books when I was working in Trafford, after a customer told me about them; that the author had lived in the Crescents in Hulme and her stories were all based on her real-life experiences.
14. The best piece of television in the last 12 months?
Bridgerton: I was glued to it. It’s so brilliant; I even started watching it again when it had all ended.
15. Tell us a secret about yourself
I had a weekend job working in a poodle parlour. It was owned by a lovely lady called Faye. I cleaned away the hair and tidied up after she groomed the dogs. One day, Faye was out, and one of the dogs came in. I thought ‘I’ll just use the clipper and clip a bit off’. I didn’t understand the clipper guards, so I ended up clipping all the hair away. The dog wasn’t hurt at all, but it was a complete disaster – it wouldn’t have been winning any awards at Crufts!
The rent cap, the cost-of-living crisis, and ongoing factors such as the rising cost of materials brings with it a perfect storm for landlords. Our events are the best place you can go to hear from leading experts inside and outside the sector, as they look to help you build your resilience.
From contact centres and the frontline all the way to decarbonisation, resilience is needed across the organisation and we can help you. And make sure you keep your eyes peeled for more events in the coming months.
6 December 2022
Safety and satisfaction – a practical guide to block and estate management
6 December 2022
Building resilience – how can we use digital and data to drive efficiencies and protect frontline services?
18 January 2023
Building resilience in contact centres – how do we improve the customer experience, support residents and protect our teams?
25 January 2023
Resilience, risk and reward –driving the decarbonisation agenda through 2023 and beyond
To see the full list of upcoming events and to book your place visit hqnetwork.co.uk/hqnevents
Employee since: April 2020
Location: Leamington Spa
Previous employment: Senior Project Manager, Citizen
My alarm goes off at 6:15am, much to my dismay. I’m the kind of person who needs 8+ hours’ sleep every night, so I find it hard to wake up and therefore I set the alarm for 15 minutes before I definitely need to get up.
I often work from home nowadays which is great for getting focus time, but I really love going into the office. I think having ‘real’ in-person conversations are important and often unlock more team building and collaboration than conversations over Teams; although video calling is still great for keeping in touch with people who live afar, or work within our other regions!
I check into the office at 8am because I like to have at least an hour of focus time, either responding to emails or preparing for my day ahead before meetings.
Generally, we have team catch ups at the start of the day, either as a whole team, or with individual team members to talk about what’s upcoming, schedule in work, or unblock issues.
Within my team we deliver workstreams to introduce new services to our customers, or deliver improvements with the operational teams within our department. I work with our operational managers and my team to develop the scope to suit our stakeholders; we survey customers and plan the approach and then begin to implement the project.
Having lunch is really important, to re-fuel, take a break from work and get away from the screen. I find that it allows me to reflect on my thoughts and be more refreshed for the afternoon.
In the afternoon is generally when I have regular virtual update meetings with various stakeholders across our teams’ workstreams, such as with our Sussex University partner, our commercial build team and our property safety and investment teams.
I’ve been working condensed hours for the last few months as I’m studying for my Chartered Institute of Housing Level 4 qualification in Housing Practice, so by working my five days in four, it allows me an extra day during the week to complete my study. I’ve also found that working slightly longer during the mornings/evenings allows me much-needed quiet time to focus on emails and think about my work.
My perfect day
Waking up mid-morning having got a good 10 hours’ sleep! The weather would be bright and sunny, and I’d go for a run across the fields near my house. When I returned I’d make some avocado and scrambled eggs on toast, my favourite weekend breakfast! I’d spend the evening socialising with friends over a glass or two of wine in a chilled bar in Leamington!
I’m heading home now after a long and busy, but fantastic day. I always feel more energised after collaborating with colleagues in person, maybe that’s because I’m an extroverted person? On my way home I usually pick up something to eat (I’m not as planned in my personal life as I am at work!).
Negative earthly factors have co-mingled to birth a crucible of monetary sufferings. It’s all about stretching the sterling till it snaps now. Unless you’re rich, of course. Here are some interesting schemes internet-dwelling people have devised to keep afloat, along with one that’s been conjured up…
1. The save after tomorrow
Don’t be a conformist! It’s the ‘normies’, the ‘sheeple’ who rigidly stick to the calendar. So (sort of) claim the authors of this tip: celebrate key events – such as Christmas, Halloween, St Valentine’s Day – the day after they traditionally occur. Highstreet goods purveyors (shops) tend to try and offload their seasonal tat post-climax – which means there are bargains to be had for the willing delayist. As the old song goes, On the day after Valentine’s my true love gave to me, a box of half price teas.
Toilet paper: it’s not cheap and ends up in the sewer. However, is it a luxury we can do without? Yes, it is and, yes, we can, according to one web adviser: other paper forms do just as well – for example, junk mail, bills and old newspapers. Hmm. I’m all for recycling and saving money but this method strikes me as somewhat uncomfortable.
Of course, there are some antique jokes to be made about the, for instance, Daily Express and toilet paper substitution, but surely that’s the limit? Is it really possible to, ahem, clean up with the water bill and a glossy A3 Farmfoods pamphlet?
I may scoff now: this time next year I might be swearing by the paper chaste method.
Most of us bury our tired heads, containing our weary, hopeless minds into a pillow at bedtime. But I bet you’ve not given much thought as to what constitutes your soothing
headnest? Peacock feathers? Some kind of putty? Cheese?
Whatever real pillows are filled with, one internet lunatic suggests stuffing your own – with the floor trimmings from your local hairdressers. Yes, reader, spent human hair, which the scriber of this tip calls “soft, free and biodegradable”, the golden trinity of the ethical saver.
I’m not an umbrella user (too cumbersome) so I’m not up on their typical retail price, but one particularly parsimonious tipster has shared a method for cut price acquisition of said rain barrier technology. Simply present yourself at your local library claiming to have left your umbrella there last week (perhaps while browsing the Petty Crime section) and enquire if a “small, black umbrella” (that’s the commonest type, apparently) has been handed in. Chances are, says our guide, they’ll have a whole heap of the things out back, leaving you to stroll magnificently into the sunset, umbrella in hand, smug grin on face.
One of the many problems of the outside world is the prevalence of
money-spending temptation. Shops are the worst culprits, stuffed with wonders that dazzle and excite, luring us into plucking out our depleted wallets to be further hollowed by a maelstrom of products. But that’s not all: restaurants and bars; cinemas; um…and all the other places where money can be spent.
There is, however, a canny way to avoid all this horror, according to one would-be financial consultant: stay indoors. Indoors where stores and cafés rarely if ever manifest. Excellent. Oh, but be sure, the consultant adds, to stay off the internet, which has apparently begun to be used as a sort of virtual marketplace.
Two of the key expenditures us UKbased humans face, certainly as cruel winter nears, are the twin evils of food and heat, both of which are currently at a premium due to the Tories and Brexit Covid and world events. But have you ever considered that you’re only as cold as you feel; only as hungry as you imagine?
One cyberspacian fiscal counsellor believes deep meditation techniques can assuage the urge to feast, while increasing your body’s ambient temperature. Voila: no more energy bills; goodbye expensive shopping trips.
The introspective tightwad claims to have survived on “a few calories a week” while braving temperatures “of around zero” for “several months”. Sounds crazy but let’s face it: it might soon be the only choice a lot of us have.
Fiction: 6. Higher state of abstemiousness
I was delighted to read news headlines that seemed to indicate the end of the local economic downturn: “Aberdeen property market beginning to boom again after year of growth.”
I reflected on the decline in the Aberdeen oil industry in 2014 and the consequential property value crash of 17%. This was followed in 2017 with property experts confidently ‘talking up the market recovery’. Nothing like the power of positive thinking – but not in the absence of any real tangible actions to control the local economy and the impact on the housing market, given that current private rents are now the lowest of all major cities in Scotland.
Ironically, after years of deliberation over what to do in response to Aberdeen’s overheating property market, in 2017 the Scottish Government announced its proposals for private sector rent controls. This allowed local authorities to apply for areas to be designated as Rent Pressure Zones (RPZ) within which the minimum cap on rents was CPI + 1% (the assumption in the business plans of most social landlords).
Aberdeen currently has approximately 117,000 homes, (57% in owner occupation and 19% in the private rented sector). As a consequence of Right to Buy, Aberdeen City Council’s (ACC) housing stock has declined to 22,000 from over 48,000.
ACC’s housing waiting list now stands at 5,800 applicants (a drop of almost 36% over 20 years), a reflection of the decline in supply of affordable homes, growth of the private rented sector and availability of cheaper mortgages.
Whilst it could be argued that Aberdeen no longer has a housing supply crisis, there’s clearly a mismatch of supply to demand. This is particularly noticeable in the increase in demand for large family-sized houses in all sectors which is driving the recent resurgence in average house prices and, critically, the type of housing available.
In response to the housing supply crisis, ACC embarked on a massive five-year programme in 2017 to deliver 2,000 new council homes by May 2022. However, 800 of the properties completed/near completion to date are mainly flats. This doesn’t include the delivery of a sizeable new-build programme of flats by housing associations during the same period.
Currently, there are 2,800 properties listed for sale in the local property centre of which 1,800 are flats, creating a buyers’ market for flatted properties. In many cases, these flats are being sold below home report valuations.
Whilst the economic crisis created by the pandemic, Brexit and now the energy crisis may actually be the saviour of the Aberdeen economy, with the potential for more jobs to be created in the oil industry and the emerging renewables industry, I’m not sure that it’ll significantly resolve housing market issues. There needs to be a fundamental rethink on how to tackle the mismatch of supply to demand to find practical ways of delivering a more balanced housing market. City centre regeneration, anyone?
Is there a mismatch of supply to demand in Aberdeen?
The last word
“There needs to be a fundamental rethink on how to tackle the mismatch of supply to demand to find practical ways of delivering a more balanced housing market”
We will analyse your current rent datasets and provide you with a detailed analysis showing your compliance and any areas of concern. We will:
Ensure your current rents are calculated correctly and are in line with current guidelines
Ensure annual uplifts have been applied correctly
Advise you of any rents that exceed formula rent levels and how to remedy this
Identify properties below formula rent and advise you on how to rectify it
Advise you on the suitability, and opportunities, for any rent flexibility
Advise on affordable rent levels
Let our experts provide you with assurance To find out more contact Anna Pattison on 01904 557197 or anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk
Examine your service charges and opportunities for additional ones
Provide training sessions for your staff on the rent standard and how to calculate formula rents in your area.
Supporting
Supporting
