Islington Housing Scrutiny Committee

Jon Milburn, Group Development Director

Nahide Cook, Regional Manager

What’s going well and how can we improve

links with Islington?

Going well

• Excellent response and partnership work with Emergency

Planning Team

• Support with residents meetings from Technical reps and

Councillor Ward

• Good partnership work with our ASB team

Work in progress

• Improving joint work between local teams

• Joint approach to tackling fly-tipping

• Agreeing location of bulk rubbish collections

• Improved communication about changes in recycling

• Enabling new housing• Planning

Resident satisfaction

• 79% of residents who rent and 54% of homeowners are satisfied

with our services over the last 12 months.

• Improvements - New Guinness Service Style, complaints

handling, CRM, new Customer Liaison Service

• Housemark satisfaction benchmarking results (Q4 2016) - Amicus

Horizon (99% satisfaction) top rated and Metropolitan (57%)

lowest. There’s lack of consistency in questioning and

methodology between different providers.

• 4 satisfaction surveys by independent research agency Voluntas

on general satisfaction, responsive and planned maintenance.

• Piloted SMS surveying for repairs.

• Text analytics to analyse residents feedback to identify areas of

improvement.

• 8 schemes in Islington and none are in our top 20 complaining

schemes and one has zero complaints this year – Barnsbury

complex

Performance in Islington

Performance Measures Units Target YTD Avg

Number of Available to Let Empty Homes

number

in month 5

Average days taken to turnover Empty

Homes

average

in month 27.5 16

Current tenant arrears as % debit

% in

month 3.50% 3.65

Value of current tenant arrears

value (£)

in month £138,041.05

Anti-Social Behaviour Cases

number

in month 5.7

Gas Safety (408 properties)

number

in month 100% 100

Voids and relets

• 5 empty properties have become available so far

this financial year within Islington.

• 2 of which have been offered to LA nominations and

3 offered to our residents on our transfer list

emergency band A priority.

• We are committed to working to our nomination

agreement.

Rents in Islington

• We allocate our homes in partnership with

local authorities or from our own waiting lists.

If we are not able to allocate in this way we

may advertise directly to the public.

• We are currently converting applicable

properties to affordable rent although within

Islington this is at a maximum of 65% of the

market rent value.

Repairs Performance in Islington

Type Completed

Completed on

time

Average

Days to

Complete Open

Open and

Overdue

Aids and

Adaptations 6 83.3% 15.8 2 0

Cyclical and

Servicing 349 87.1% 14.5 280 26

Planned

Maintenance -

Capital 21 100.0% 9.1 7 1

Planned

Maintenance -

Revenue 19 47.4% 38.6 8 5

Responsive

Repairs 1,983 83.9% 13.1 266 134

Void Repairs 16 75.0% 16.6 17 14

TOTAL 2,394 84.2% 13.5 580 180

Finances and wages

• 2016/17 – £95.9m surplus on £354.4m turnover

• An extraordinary year reflecting profits from two large

development for sale

• Profits covenanted to the charitable parent / charitable

subsidiaries

• 2017/18 – 53m surplus budgeted on £319.7m turnover

• Budget will not be met due to extra maintenance work this year

• This is about “in the middle of the pack” and within our loan

covenants

• We do not have policies on the Living Wage or other pay ratio

Maintaining assets and developing homes

• Over 600 homes in Islington , 66,000 across the country

• Investment prioritised on the basis of building safety

• And then stock condition surveys and resident feedback

analysis determine long term needs

• This year we will spend £71m on maintaining our homes

• And continue to achieve 100% Decent Homes Standards

• We have not sold homes in the borough but we keep our stock

under review.

• We would love to build new homes for target rent in the borough

Welfare Reform changes

• 1400 residents in receipt of Universal Credit (UC)

• Arrears for this group stands at 20%, compared to 4% for those in receipt of Housing Benefits

• Targeted communications with those in receipt of UC and new claimants supported through our Customer Support Team.

• No increase in evictions yet but worrying level of arrears which aren’t sustainable in the long term.

• DHP’s for the shortfall of rent are available for short periods, 2nd and 3rd requests aren’t usually successful

Vulnerable people

• We provide sheltered housing but not in Islington

• National Customer Support Team work to maximise

income to improve financial stability, sustain tenancy

and to find the right external agency if there’s a specific

support need.

• Supported almost 7,000 residents across the country to

apply for benefits securing almost £7 million in benefits

(HB, UC, DHP's).

• Supported those in food and furniture poverty during the

UC waiting period through local food banks, national

furniture re-use organisations and Guinness hardship

fund.

Fire Safety measures for schemes with ACM cladding

• Ongoing communication with residents through door knocking,

meetings, letters and FAQs.

• Person centred fire safety risk assessments for vulnerable

residents

• Daily monitoring of fire escape routes and all communal areas

• 24/7 fire warden service who carryout 15 minute observations

of the entire block

• A full compartmentation survey and carried out additional fire

stopping work

• Repairs to fire doors including flat front doors regardless of

ownership.

• Upgraded the current fire alarm system (communal and in flats)

to facilitate a simultaneous evacuation strategy. Repeater

panels fitted to adjacent buildings to provide early warning of

fire.

Fire Safety measures for schemes with ACM cladding

What’s next?

• Nearing completion of existing structure

investigation works

• Options for re-cladding works to be finalised in

February

• Planning & Building Regulation submissions will

then be prepared and submitted

• Further discussion with suppliers and tender works.

• Once submissions approved works commence.

• Timeframe dependent on supply chain etc.