Service Standards Handbook

Service Standards

www.swan.org.uk

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At Swan, we strive to deliver an excellent service to all our customers at all times.

To help us do this it is important that our customers know the standard of services they can expect to receive from us, and our staff know the service they are expected to deliver.

Here you will find what these standards are. We will check we are meeting these standards through regular audits, mystery shopping and surveys.

These standards have been designed around the regulatory framework for social landlords’ consumer standards and are divided into the four sections.

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CONTENTS • 01 Customer Care Standard

– Communication

– Complaints and compliments

– Equality and diversity

– Resident involvement

• 02 Home Standard

– Lettable standard

– Repairs and maintenance

– Improvement and adaptations

– Health and safety

• 03 Tenancy Standard

– Your tenancy

– Managing your tenancy

– Paying your rent

– Allocating homes

• 04 Neighbourhood Standard

– Estate services

– Communal areas

– Anti-social behaviour

– Community involvement

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01

CUSTOMER CARE STANDARD When delivering services to you, we will: Communication • Be professional, polite and deal with your enquires as soon as we can.

• Be consistent, fair and respectful, treating you as an individual, providing you with a fair and equal service and take care of your personal information.

• Use plain, jargon-free language.

• Provide you with consistent and accurate information.

• Let you know how we have learnt from your complaints.

• Publish information on the complaints we have received and our performance against our targets for complaints.

Equality and diversity

• Respond to your letters within 5 working days of receiving them.

• Deliver our services in a way that does not discriminate against anyone on the basis of sex, age, race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, or pregnancy and maternity.

• Respond to your emails and telephone calls within 2 working days.

• Make our offices accessible to all our customers.

• Provide you with an out-of-hours number to report emergency repairs and antisocial behaviour.

• Treat everyone fairly based on their needs.

• Answer 90% of all calls to our 0300 number within 20 seconds.

• Be sensitive about religious or cultural dates when visiting your home.

• Communicate with you in a way that best suits your needs.

• Publish an Annual Residents’ Report to tell you how we are performing.

Resident involvement

• Carry out regular customer satisfaction surveys and publish the results.

• Offer different levels of involvement so you can influence our services, policies and strategies depending on what you are interested in and how much time you have to spare.

Complaints and compliments

• Support resident associations or groups in existing communities and regeneration projects through practical and/or financial help.

• Make it easy for you to tell us when something has gone wrong and when we have done a good job.

• Acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days.

• Work with you to enable you to scrutinise our performance and get involved in service reviews.

• Resolve 90% of complaints within 6 working days.

• Work with you to develop local offers for service delivery in your area.

• Keep you informed if we cannot give you a full response in 6 working days.

• Make it easy for you to understand the impact that your involvement has had upon services.

• Apologise when we have got it wrong.

Swan Service Standards published January 2020

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02

YOUR HOME STANDARD When delivering services to you, we will: Lettable standard • Ensure your new home is safe and secure, clean and in a good state of repair.

• Provide you with a contribution towards decorating if we have assessed your new home as being in a poor decorative order.

• Keep you informed about any delays to your repair.

• Aim to decorate the outside of your home every 7 years.

• Provide you with a choice when carrying out planned improvements to your home.

• Aim to relet our empty homes within 15 working days.

Repairs and maintenance • Make available to you a copy of our Repair Standards, which sets out tenant and landlord responsibility.

• Carry out your repairs in the following timescales:

- Immediate – 4 hours.

- Emergency – 24 hours.

- Standard – 15 working days.

- Planned – 45 days.

• Provide a range of ways for you to report a repair.

• Provide you with an appointment time and compensate you if we do not attend at the agreed time.

• Aim to complete your repair ‘right first time’.

Improvements and adaptations • Consider your request for permission to carry out an improvement to your home within 15 working days, if we refuse permission we will provide you with a full explanation why this is.

• Pay you compensation if you move on and the improvement you carried out meets the qualifying criteria.

• Carry out minor adaptations to your home if you need them.

• Help you to arrange major adaptations if you need them.

Health and safety • Check shared areas regularly to ensure they meet health & safety standards.

• Remove and dispose of any items left in shared areas and take appropriate enforcement.

• Offer you a range of appointments to carry out your annual Gas Safety check.

• Service and maintain any equipment we have installed in accordance with legal requirements and good practice.

• Ensure your home exceeds the Government’s Decent Homes Guidance.

• Ask you to identify if you have any specific requirements before we commence works to your home.

Swan Service Standards published January 2020

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03

YOUR TENANCY STANDARD When delivering services to you, we will: Your tenancy

Allocating homes

• Offer you the most secure tenancy we can based on your circumstances and our Tenancy Policy.

• Let our homes in a fair, transparent and efficient way.

• Explain your rights and responsibilities before you sign your tenancy.

• Make sure any service charges you pay reflect the cost of providing the services you receive.

Managing your tenancy • Help you to understand your responsibilities as a tenant and to access the services you need.

• Let you know who you need to contact.

• Consider any request from you to change your tenancy within 10 working days of receiving it.

• Take into account your housing needs when assessing your transfer application.

• Offer you financial support if you want to move into a smaller home.

• Provide you with an online transfer and mutual exchange service which is free to access.

• Assess your transfer application within 5 working days of it being submitted.

• Make sure you have a chance to view any home offered to you and give you information to help you decide if it is the right home for you.

• Consider any appeal against decisions about your transfer application or offer of a home within 10 working days.

Paying your rent • Offer you a number of convenient ways for paying your rent and other charges.

• Give you a minimum of four weeks’ notice of any changes to the charges you pay.

• Assist you to maximise your income.

• Make early contact with you if you fall into arrears and be clear about the action we will take if they are not repaid.

• Assist you to claim benefits and provide advice on debt management.

• Provide you with regular rent statements.

Swan Service Standards published January 2020

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04

YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD STANDARD When delivering services to you, we will: Estate services

Anti-social behaviour

• Remove racist, sexist, homophobic or similarly offensive graffiti within one working day and other graffiti within 5 working days of receiving your report.

• Take all your reports of anti-social behaviour seriously.

• Provide a regular cleaning service for inside and outside shared areas.

• Aim to recycle 100% of our green waste.

Communal areas • Maintain communal gardens and planting areas to a good standard.

• Invite you to monitor the standards of cleanliness with us through estate inspections.

• Remove items that have been dumped and take action against those identified as responsible.

• Arrange an appointment within 5 working days from receiving your report or 24 hours if serious.

• Make sure those involved or affected by anti-social behaviour receive appropriate support and advice.

• Work with other agencies to resolve cases of domestic abuse and hate crime.

• Work with other agencies to prevent and tackle anti-social behaviour in your neighbourhood.

• Make sure we use all the tools and legal powers that are available to us.

Community engagement • Work together with you and other partners including your local authority to make your neighbourhood a great place to live.

• Help arrange estate based activities for local residents.

• Support you to get involved in your community.

• Support you to build your capacity and meet your goals.

Swan Service Standards published January 2020

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Delivering effective services, enterprising solutions and exemplary homes and communities.

www.swan.org.uk

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