I was blown away. I didn’t think it would be that much. When I got the letter to say I had been granted the full £3,000 I was in tears - happy tears, of course. It turned a very dark time just a little bit brighter for me.
Every year, we produce this report to explain how we’ve performed against the standards you can expect from us. You can find out what we’ve been doing well, where we’re making progress, and where we’ve got more work to do.
We’ve involved customers in developing this report. Thank you to those of you who took part in our focus groups and survey.
We’d love to hear what you think about this report. Please give us your feedback by completing our online form or calling us on 0800 432 0077 and you’ll be entered into a draw to win one of three £50 vouchers (terms and conditions apply).
Thank you for reading!
Did you know…?
- We are a housing association – providing a range of homes for 69,000 people across London and southern England.
- We have a social purpose – we put 100% of our profits back into building new homes, improving and maintaining existing properties and developing services for our customers.
- We make a positive difference by investing in community programmes, delivering care and support, and creating affordable homes.
In this report
We are customer-led.
We decide what to do based on what makes things easier for you, and your feedback drives this. This is how we deliver good value for money.
We are easy to deal with.
We strive to make things simple. We want interacting with us to be straightforward and effective. We will listen to you, treat you fairly and with respect.
We offer channel choice.
You can use our online services to find the information and help you need, quickly and easily. We’re at the end of the phone when it’s easier to talk things through.
We deliver on our promises.
We want you to trust us to do what we say we will. When we don’t meet expectations, we will recognise this and put things right.
We want you to feel safe, and be proud of where you live.
Our community programmes make a real difference to the lives of many.
Here is a snapshot of last year’s performance. Further below, you’ll find detailed information and learn how we calculate figures.
We want you to access our services quickly and easily, and for issues to be resolved effectively.
Last year, our overall customer satisfaction score was 81.9%, in line with our 82% target. This was higher than the 78% average recorded by the UK Customer Service Index (score as at January 2022). This index provides a benchmark across a number of industries.
Our overall score is the average of the ratings you gave us for our contact centre and responsive repairs services.
In addition, 87% of people who bought a new home from us through our FABRICA by A2Dominion brand said they would recommend us to others.
Who gives us these ratings?
We continually invite feedback from customers as part of our survey programme. Surveys, typically by phone or text,* are completed after residents have used our services. Last year we had feedback from 16,984 customers. Each month we share feedback results across the organisation to build into action and improvement plans. You can find out about some of the ways we’ve used your feedback on our website.
Your safety remains our biggest priority.
Last year, we inspected 100% of our tall buildings over 18 metres to identify which need repairs and to agree a schedule of works. We’re now inspecting buildings between 11 and 18 metres in height, with this work to be completed by December 2022. We’re keeping customers informed via email and letter updates.
We continue to keep up-to-date with changing government guidance. This includes the implementation of the Building Safety Act that gives greater protections and new legal rights to leaseholders. You can find lots of useful information about fire safety on our website.
Fire Risk Assessments
We carry out Fire Risk Assessments (FRAs) on a regular basis in all our eligible buildings. Risk assessments look at how likely a fire is to start, what the consequences would be if a fire did start, and what needs to be done in the building to minimise the risk of a fire. Our goal is for 100% of our homes to have a current FRA. However, we’ve experienced issues with arranging access to some properties. At the end of March 2022, 97.5% of our properties had a current FRA. We are working on all properties requiring a new assessment as a priority. Find out more about Fire Risk Assessments on our website.
Gas compliance
We arrange gas safety checks in our properties every 12 months to ensure the gas supply and gas appliances are safe. Last year, 99.46% of our homes had an in-date, accredited gas safety check, against a target of 100% and compared to 99.85% the previous year. As with our fire risk assessments, we have some properties where residents have not been able to give us access to their home. We are working to ensure overdue properties are booked in for a gas safety check as soon as possible.
Decent homes
99.9% of our homes meet the Decent Homes Standard, compared to 98.89% last year. The standard sets out the government’s guidelines on the minimum requirements that all social housing homes should meet.
When something goes wrong, we work hard to put it right as quickly as we can and learn from your feedback.
Last year, we:
To improve our performance, we’ve increased our resources to support complaint handling and we’re delivering additional training for teams who are the first point of contact for customers.
Other actions we took last year included:
- Rolling out our Customer First training programme to help us improve the way we communicate with you, resolve your query the first time you contact us, and reduce complaints.
- Launching a new project, Housing for the Future, to analyse and address the key issues that drive complaints in the first place.
You can find out more about ways we’ve used your insights on our website.
Support for you
Our Tenancy Sustainment Team is on hand to help you if you’re struggling financially. In 2021/22, we supported over 2,300 customers to access £6.3m in available funding.
Last year, 3.29% of our customers were behind in paying rent, slightly above our target of 3.2% or less. This level was the lowest recorded within the G15 group of London’s largest housing associations.
We know cost of living increases are affecting many of our customers. If you’re experiencing financial difficulties, please get in touch with us as soon as possible. You might be surprised by the many ways we can support you. You can also find useful information and tips on our website.
Emma-Jane's story
Tackling anti-social behaviour
We're committed to tackling anti-social behaviour (ASB) to ensure our neighbourhoods are safe and peaceful places to live. ASB includes things such as noise nuisance outside of reasonable hours and aggressive behaviour. Last year, we resolved complaints of ASB within 46 days on average, quicker than our target of 90 days. Cases that are more complex, often involving legal action, can take longer than 90 days to get to a resolution.
We’ve also set up an ASB Resident Focus Group to help improve our service by understanding what residents want from us, what works and what doesn’t work. Some of the actions that we’ve taken as a result include providing clearer information about ASB for customers on our website and more training for staff.
This year we’ll be expanding the membership of our focus group and developing our mediation service, with residents’ input.
You can find out more about ASB on our website.
Fly-tipping
Last year, the cost of clearing fly-tipping from our estates was £915,728, an increase from the previous year’s spend of just over £700,000. We believe this relates to more people being at home and a reduction in free local authority bulk refuse collections.
Fly-tipping removal costs are covered by service charges. We encourage you to report any incidents of fly-tipping, or dumping, so that our housing teams can take action against alleged perpetrators such as tenancy enforcement action. We continue to raise awareness of how waste should be disposed of responsibly and the options available to remove larger household items.
Neighbourhood Improvement Fund
Last year, we awarded £140,000 in grant funding for projects that enhance local places and improve community safety. This funding supported 34 improvements, benefitting 1,000 customers. Play areas, bike sheds and CCTV were just some of the examples of the work funded.
Service charge
Every year, we send you a service charge estimate explaining how much we expect it will cost to provide services in your building. This can include cleaning of shared areas and maintenance of communal spaces, lifts and door entry systems. We go through a competitive tendering process for our service contracts to ensure value for money.
We want our service charge information to be accurate and transparent for you. Last year we made improvements to our service charge booklets to provide clearer explanations and include frequently asked questions.
If you have a query about your service charge, we aim to provide you with a detailed response within 30 days. Last year, our average response time was 7.2 days, ahead of our target and faster than the previous year’s average of 17.1 days. In total, we received 1,244 queries from customers. If you need any help with your service charge, please contact us.
Care and support
We provide vital services that enhance independence and quality of life. Last year, our care and support teams worked with over 2,500 people. This included:
Across our 7 extra care housing schemes, we were awarded Good ratings by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). In its report, the CQC stated: “People experienced caring relationships where staff treated them with kindness and compassion in their day-to-day care”.
We also won an award for Excellence in Engagement at our young persons’ scheme Bramlings House, in Newbury, at the TPAS (Tenants Participation Advisory Service) Awards 2021.
James' story
The support provided by Mel has been life-changing and extremely positive and helpful. Without this support my life would be difficult.
Community investment
Every year, we invest in local communities with our work focusing on reducing health inequalities, increasing financial capability and supporting customers to achieve their goals.
Last year, 5,500 customers benefited from our community projects, which included employment, training and wellbeing support. We’re proud that we worked with our customers to achieve £10.98m in social value*, 37% higher than our £8m target.
* Social value is a way to measure the impact of our projects and ensure we deliver effective services. The social value calculator, used across the housing sector, enables us to quantify things that are not inherently quantifiable (such as wellbeing and mental health) and measure the unseen financial value to the people and communities who have used our services.
Cherelle's story
I’m so happy because my dream is to scale-up my business beyond London. The money will help fund transport costs, social media marketing and kitchen hire.
Building new homes
Last year we built 971 new homes, with 560 of these being affordable. We have a further 3,300 homes in the pipeline over the next few years. We invest all the profits we make from our private sales back into creating more housing and delivering services to our communities.
Our key priorities for the year ahead:
We’d love to know what you think of this report. Please complete our online feedback form by 15 December 2022 for your chance to win one of three £50 vouchers (terms and conditions apply). You can also call our contact centre on 0800 432 0077 to give your feedback over the phone.
If you’d like to find out more about our services, you can search a wide range of topics in the Help section on our website, speak to your Neighbourhood Officer or contact us by phone. And if you know anyone who’d like to receive this report in a printed or alternative format, this can be requested by calling us on our freephone number 0800 432 0077.