The performance reported below is for the whole of Accent as at 31st March 2022. We have reported the things you have told us matter to you, and also what we must report under the regulatory guidance for housing associations set by the government and the Regulator for Social Housing. Customers have worked with us on the content and production of this report.
We have compared figures to those we reported last year where we have them, but we have also reported some new figures this year which we thought might interest you.
If you'd like to compare how we performed in the last financial year 2020/21, please click on the link below:
Annual Performance Report for 2020/21
Residents Report 2021-22
YOUR HOMES
We owned and managed 20,651 homes on 31 March 2022, compared to 20,448 at the close of the last financial year. The number of homes we own and manage can change each year. They can be higher as we build new homes, but they can also be lower. We regularly inspect our homes to make sure they continue to meet the standards we expect, that they are in areas where we can still provide a great landlord service, and that they continue to meet the needs of our customers and their communities. Where they don’t meet those requirements, we may regenerate or rebuild them into something new, so numbers can change. Some customers may also buy their homes from us through shared ownership and outright sales. It is not unusual for this number to continue to go up or down.
Homeowners who have bought their new homes from us have scored us 4.63 out 5 for satisfaction with their home.
All newly built homes can sometimes have defects, and these often need to be resolved quickly. When a customer has reported a defect to us, we have responded within 24 hours.
We are building hundreds more new homes across Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Yorkshire. Our new homes are being designed for 21st century living and to meet the needs of the communities they will form. They will meet our responsibilities under the government’s targets for decarbonisation, by being sensitive to their communities and the environment, and by helping to tackle fuel poverty and the rising cost of living with modern methods of construction, design and technology.
This year, we invested almost £14 million on improving your homes through our planned improvement programme.
Our existing homes will also stay fit for modern standards of living with continued investment and a new sustainability strategy to ‘future-proof’ them for years to come. This will involve us ‘retrofitting’ our homes with new fixtures or technology, and by improving our existing repairs, maintenance and improvement service.
REPAIRS AND MAINTENANCE
|
Repair ‘Category’ |
Target |
2021/22 score |
2020/2021 Score |
|
Day to day repairs completed within our timescales. |
95% |
66.6% |
**Please see below. |
|
Emergency repairs made safe within four hours |
100% |
84.10% |
**Please see below. |
|
Percentage of repairs fixed first time |
90% |
79.8%. |
80.6% |
|
Average customer satisfaction scores for day-to-day repairs |
90% |
82.6% |
78.70% |
2020/21 scores: **Because we are working to improve our repairs and maintenance service and have changed some of our repair responsibilities and response times, these are new scores to report this year. The changes will make our processes clearer and simpler for customers and contractors, and help to make sure repairs are completed to target and to customer satisfaction.
We know our repairs service hasn’t, for everyone, been at the standard it should be over the past couple of years, and we are sorry for this. We want to provide you with the highest quality repairs service, so we continually look at how we perform, and what you are telling us, to make sure we do that.
Our spend on responsive (day-to-day) repairs and voids (empty homes) was £15.7 million.
We have made some good progress this year. We welcomed Julie Wittich as the new director responsible for delivering and improving the service and a new team to help her do that. In October 2022, as part of our plan for improvements, we launched our new technical hub and our new, specially trained team of repair advisors who are committed to providing you with the quality service you have a right to expect. Having the technical hub purposely for repairs has also allowed us to free up time and resources for our existing contact centre, (which is now known as the ‘housing hub’). Our advisors in the housing hub are now busy using their expertise to help those of you who contact us for non-repair related enquiries.
Both hubs are already reporting some great improvements and positive feedback from customers about the changes. We will keep you updated on how we continue to improve your services.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
99% of all homes due a gas service had one (the same figure for past two years).
Our aim will always be to reach our 100% target in this critical area of your safety. Where homes are overdue, it is usually because we have not been able to gain access to carry out the check. We always know the homes concerned and work closely with our customers to make sure a check is carried out as soon as possible.
Your health and safety is always a top priority for us. The detailed work we have done this year, and the plans we are continuing to work on for the future, will make sure all our homes comply with all new building safety regulations. There are changes coming around fire and building safety in January 2023 which we are currently working through and planning how best to inform you about them, so you feel safe, secure and supported in your homes. One of these, for example, focusses on fire doors and how they are maintained and inspected.
By signing up to the Building a Safer Future Charter we are showing our commitment to never compromise your safety.
We are also continuing with any outstanding fire safety improvements we need to make. This includes replacing the cladding, and making other improvements, on two of our blocks in Aldershot, Alexander House and Stafford House. Work started earlier this year and continues to progress well. The contractor acts as the main contact for customers, making sure they are kept up-to-date with what is happening.
YOUR SATISFACTION
We use UKCSI (UK Customer Service Index) to collect our strategic measure of customer satisfaction. Our score this year was 62.5% which is, unfortunately, lower than our 2020/21 score of 66.1% and our target of 70%.
Our UKSCI scores give us the chance to compare our performance against brands and retailers outside the housing industry, but not the chance to compare how we perform across the wide range of services we provide as well as other housing associations.
Our main focus is always on improving your services. This, along with changes in how the government regulates us, has caused us to look at news ways of measuring your satisfaction in the future so we can better understand how we compare to other organisations, and clearly see where we need to improve.
More information on the government’s new tenant satisfaction measures can be found here. The government intends for these measures to cover all kinds of social rented housing in England where the landlord is a ‘registered social provider’ (as Accent is). Some, but not all of the measures will also include our shared ownership customers.
We would like to thank everyone who took part in the UKCSI survey and ask you to continue to respond to future surveys. Your feedback really does help us improve our services.
You may have also received a text or email survey from us after a repair or improvement is made to your home, Feedback from these have recorded a higher satisfaction rate this year and we are well on track to reach our 4.5 out of 5 target next year.
We also recorded scores out of 5 in other areas of satisfaction:
- Customer service (contact centre) - 4.49
- Day-to-day repairs - 4.13.
- Planned works and servicing - 4.39
- New tenants - 4.52
- Complaints Handling - 3.95
We continue to engage with our more involved customers through the Accent 1000, with local groups and with ad-hoc surveys and consultations. We use all the responses to continue to improve our services to you. You can find out what we have consulted on this year under our have your say section.
HAVE YOUR SAY
- 3,905 Responses to surveys (compared to 2,535 last year)
Your Voice is the platform we use to connect to the Accent 1000, our community of involved customers. It offers these customers:
- A chance to take part in surveys and consultations on a broad range of topics.
- Updates on improvements to our services, (often based on customers’ feedback).
- Direct contact with our customer engagement specialist.
- Quicker responses to comments and feedback about our services.
- A chance to compare experiences with other members across the country.
- Invitations to customer feedback events taking place across the business
To make the most out of Your Voice, customers need to create an account, which is quick and easy to do but it is possible to take part without registering.
News & Views, our newsletter, is also a way we keep our more involved customers updated about what is happening in Accent and how what they tell us improves our services.
Also helping to improve your services were:
- 9 surveys and consultations (same as last year).
- 3,905 responses to surveys (compared to 2,535 last year).
- 542 members of the Accent 500, (now known as the Accent 1,000), compared to 475 last year. It’s great to see this number growing!
- The National Scrutiny Group.
Your feedback really does influence and improve your future services, so thank you for taking the time to let us know your thoughts. For more details on what has changed as a result of your feedback visit our 'You Said, We Did' page.
ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
We closed 804 cases of anti-social behaviour in 2021/22 compared to 570 in 2020/21.
The average time taken to resolve a case was 61 days, compared to 76.4 Days in 2020/21 and 43.5 days in 2019/20.
You might ask why these times vary. It usually comes down to the case we are trying to resolve and how detailed that is. Anti-social behaviour takes many forms, and some cases can be very time consuming to resolve, involving witnesses or other parties, and evidence gathering. We will always take your reports very seriously indeed and take the time needed to make sure we get the right result. Your home is your sanctuary, and you have the right to feel safe and secure inside it. We will work as hard as we can to make sure that is the case.
DOMESTIC ABUSE
It’s a worrying fact that the number of domestic abuse cases continues to rise. We continue to be involved with DAHA (Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance) which sees us working with customers, staff and contractors to recognise the signs of domestic violence and abuse, and support anyone who needs our help.
If you are in an abusive situation, or think someone might be, please let us know so we can help. Our staff are trained to support victims and anything we are told will be treated as completely confidential.
FLY TIPPING
Another form of anti-social behaviour is fly tipping. It can be a real issue on many estates, not just ours, and it can also be difficult to stop it from happening or catch those responsible. We work in lots of different ways to try and tackle the problem, such as using CCTV to catch offenders and asking customers to report anything they might see, safely and confidentially.
Our customer partners work closely with customers to try and stamp out this unpleasant issue when it happens. Look out for updates from your customer partner on how they are doing and please report anything you see to us so we can work with the police and the councils to take action.
COMPLAINTS
We resolved 2,387 complaints in 2021/22.
We do not have a direct comparison as we did not report this figure in the same way last year, due to the change in our complaints policy. If you would like to compare the figures we reported last year, please click here.
Our average response time to respond to a complaint was 2.6 days (which more than meets our target of 5 days).
Your satisfaction score for how with how we handled your complaint was 3.98 out of 5 (lower than our target of 4.5 out of 5).
We are working to improve this figure and our new complaints process, which was launched in 2020, is enabling us to respond and resolve your complaints more quickly and efficiently. The number of complaints we receive might seem high, but we always view the figures as positive as, knowing about a complaint, gives us the chance to put things right.
HOW WE SPEND YOUR MONEY
The money you pay us in rent allows us to continue with our reason for being, to provide affordable, good quality homes and services.
This includes building new homes where they are needed, and investing in our existing homes to improve their technology and thermal efficiency to help tackle fuel poverty and decarbonisation. Your rent also covers other costs, including maintenance and management costs. Our information graphic shows how each £1 of your rent is spent.
