Tenants and leaseholders annual report 2023-24

Contents

- Welcome

- How we performed

- How we are looking after your home

- Responding to feedback

- Supporting our communities

- Upgrading your home

- New homes

Welcome

A word from Cllr Arthur Coote, Portfolio Holder, Housing and Equalities

"By working together, we can make effective change and provide you with the best quality services"

Dear Tenants and Leaseholders

This annual report is an important document. It highlights our performance as your landlord and how we are managing the services that we provide - significantly, it shows what we are doing to make improvements.

You will find in this report the results of the most recent Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey. We are pleased that 81% of you are satisfied with the overall service we provide - however, we know there are always things we can do better. That is why it is important for you to continue to share with us your views and experiences. By working together, we can make effective change and provide you with the best quality services.

One of our main foci over the past year or so has been to look at the way we handle complaints. We recognise the importance that this mechanism plays in enabling you to give us your feedback and as lead member for housing I am working with officers to build a positive complaints-handling culture.

Finally, we are committed to providing high quality services to you, and we know a well-maintained home is essential for your comfort, safety and quality of life. Starting in April, we will be moving to a new repairs and maintenance model which is a significant step towards achieving that goal. We look forward to working closely with you to make it a reality.
 

How we performed

In October and November 2023, many of you took part in an important survey. The survey was carried out by telephone and online by an independent market research company. We combined the results from this survey with management data to build a picture of how we are meeting our responsibilities as a landlord.

The survey focussed on how happy you are with the way Uttlesford District Council maintains your home and provides key services. It also collected the Tenant Satisfaction Measures as required by the Regulator for Social Housing.

We appreciate the time everyone took to complete the survey. The findings help to flag up the issues tenants are most concerned about, and informs our future strategic and operational planning. 

We were pleased that 81% of you were satisfied with the housing service we provided, and we will continue to work hard to do even better.

When compared to other similar local councils nationally, we came out in the top 33% in all the tenant perception questions in the survey, and most of the management questions.

The way we handled complaints also improved from the year before, up from 27% to 44%. However, whilst this was a significant increase, we know that we still have a long way to go. We have already started to take actions to deliver better results - see pages 8 and 9 to see how we're responding to your feedback.

Read the full results of the Tenant Satisfaction Survey 2023.
 

How we are looking after your home

Keeping our tenants safe is our highest priority, and there are a series of checks that we carry out to ensure that this happens.

It is our responsibility to provide you with a smoke and carbon dioxide detectors. If you haven't got one or yours has broken, please get in touch with repairs immediately.

We also carry out a service on your gas boiler every year. This is an important check that keeps you safe in your home. It is important that when you receive a letter saying that your boiler needs checking that you book and keep your appointment.

It is recommended that you test your smoke alarm once a week to make sure it is working properly. Don't overload plug sockets or plug in multiple extensions and make sure you have a clear escape route, should the worse happen. Other things you can do to ensure you keep safe is avoid leaving burning candles or cooking unattended.

Last year we surveyed the condition of your homes - we would like to thank you for your assistance with this project.

From the information gathered from this project, we have built a comprehensive programme of future works, so plans are already in place to ensure your home is safe and remains in a good standard.
 

Responding to your feedback

We are grateful for all the feedback you give us - whether it's good or bad.

Some of the many ways in which we gather your views include running surveys, face-to-face visits and telephone calls, visiting your community as part of the neighbourhood roadshow, and through the Tenant and Leaseholder Panel, amongst others.

This lets us know how we are doing and importantly helps us to identify where we need to improve so that we can take actions to deliver better services.

For example, we have been looking at the way we handle complaints to try and improve the service we provide. Every year, we must complete a self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman's Complaints Handling Code and, whilst we meet the code in many aspects, we've found some areas where improvements could be made.

We will be:

• extending training to all staff who deal with complaints to build a strong, positive culture
• putting a formal compensation procedure and framework in place to assist with how we liaise and calculate compensation offers and remedies for all our residents
• working to improve the way we collect information so that we can have a record of our learning from complaints.

We have also set up an officer-led complaints improvement panel to put these improvements in place. The next stage will be to promote formal tenant scrutiny and have commissioned a specialist resident engagement consultant to support this and other work.

In addition, we have appointed a councillor to take lead responsibility for complaints to support a positive complaint handling process. The new member responsible is Cllr Arthur Coote, who is also the Portfolio Holder for Housing.

We now publish an annual complaints report. The annual complaints report gives more information on how we have learned from complaints.

You can also take a look at our self-assessment against the complaint handling code .

Find out what the Complaint Handling Code says on GOV.UK.

Don't forget - whether your feedback is good or bad, we want to hear it. Find out about complaints, compliments and feedback on housing services.
 

Supporting our communities

Our neighbourhood roadshows have been going since 2016 and since then it's gone on to visit almost 60 destinations across Uttlesford.

In 2023, the roadshow went to Ashdon, Birchanger, Dunmow, Elsenham, Felsted, Hatfield Heath and Stansted.

The organisations represented were: Active Essex, Citizens Advice, Community Agents, Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, Essex Library Services, Essex Police, Neighbourhood Watch, NHS Talking Therapies, Peabody, Spangles Family Hub, Touchpoint, Uttlesford Community Action Network, Uttlesford Foodbank and United in Kind. Uttlesford District Council officers were also on hand to give information on benefits, housing and communities, as well as members of the tenant and leaseholder panel.

They provided lots of information and advice on all sorts of topics and issues, as well as making referrals to a wide range of support services - from magic mindfulness sessions for children to wellbeing and safeguarding, gardening support to befriending, and much more.

Our handyman also took care of all those little jobs, from fitting a new door lock to adjusting a toilet seat!

For more information, call 01799 510510 or email tenants@uttlesford.gov.uk

Support for sheltered schemes

We hosted regular resident meetings at every one of our sheltered accommodation schemes to keep in touch with the residents and pick up on any issues. This led to lots of small but important jobs being carried out within the schemes.
 

Upgrading your home

As part of our commitment to maintaining high-quality housing, we conducted comprehensive stock condition surveys of our properties. We would like to thank you for your cooperation with this important project.

We're using the results to develop a detailed stock investment programme, ensuring that your home remains safe and well-maintained for years to come.

Based on the survey data, we are creating a masterplan that covers short, medium and long-term objectives. This will guide our investment and maintenance strategies. In the first instance, we aim to publish an initial five-year plan. This will provide you with clear information about our intended actions and improvements for your home and community.

We believe in transparency and value your input. Therefore, we will be actively communicating and consulting with you throughout this process. Your feedback will be essential in helping us prioritise and refine our plans.

Energy efficiency

We have successfully secured significant funding through the government's Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to improve the energy efficiency of 276 homes

The first phase of the project will upgrade 184 homes to a minimum EPC rating of C, which means better insulation, more efficient heating systems, and other improvements that will reduce energy consumption. These upgrades will not only help us reduce our carbon footprint by over 1 million kg of CO2 per year but will also result in lower energy bills and more comfortable living conditions for our tenants.

We're appointing experienced contractors to carry out these improvements, ensuring high-quality work that will benefit our community for years to come.
 

New homes

"I was overjoyed to be given the keys to my new apartment on the Dunmow Grange development" - Stuart King, tenant

Uttlesford District Council took possession of 19 new flats at the Dunmow Grange development to let to local people on the council's housing register. The homes, mostly one-bedroom flats, were purchased from the developer Barratt David Wilson Homes using Right to Buy receipts. Nine of the flats were acquired in the first phase in July 2023, and the other 10 in May 2024.

Stuart King moved into one of the nine flats that were acquired in the first phase, in July 2023. Stuart says: "I was overjoyed to be given the keys to my new apartment on the Dunmow Grange development. I'm very grateful to be given the opportunity to live in a council home and to be able to build a life close to my family and in such a nice place as Dunmow."

In addition, 90 affordable new build homes were completed by registered providers (housing associations) and were let to those on the council's housing register. A further 39 new-build shared ownership properties were completed to assist households seeking to purchase an affordable home ownership property.

A new affordable four-bedroom house is nearing completion at Wimbish and a new affordable two-bedroom wheelchair accessible bungalow at Thaxted is under construction and due for completion later this year.

Elsewhere, the new-look sheltered accommodation scheme at Walden Place was completed in the spring after an 18-month redevelopment. The focus of the project was to separate the grade-II listed Georgian house from the sheltered housing flats and to provide much-improved communal facilities for the tenants, as well as two new flats.

Lynn Hardcastle, one of the residents, said: "The re-opening of the new part of Walden Place is what we all needed and have thoroughly enjoyed it."