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In the last edition we
reported on the recent
changes announced by the
government and what they
would mean for you and for
us as a landlord. The effect
of reducing your rent by
1% a year for the next four
years means that we will lose
£11m in our income over
that time.
Like many other social housing
landlords we have had to identify
efficiencies and have already
identified some of the non-staffing
related savings we can make to
minimise potential staff losses.
Unfortunately there will be a
need to make savings through
staff cuts across the group at all
levels. We have been consulting
with staff on our re-structure
proposals.
Our priority is to safeguard
services for residents, so to
help save costs we are
looking at different ways of
doing things.
One of the non-staff related
savings identified was on printing
and postage costs. If we
communicate with you via our
website and other digital means
we can save approximately
£13,000 per edition of the echo
magazine.
Therefore this is the last edition of
echo that we will be mailing to
over 16,000 households.
We will still, however, be printing
copies for residents of our sheltered
and specialist supported schemes.
If you are not a resident in one of
these schemes and you wish to
receive a printed copy of echo in the
post, please complete the freepost
card enclosed with your full details.
Changes to the way
we communicate
We will continue to write to you
directly about
rents
and
service
charges
etc., but like most
housing associations we are
moving increasingly towards
digital communications.
For example, we are currently
testing a new
text messaging
facility which will be rolled out to
residents shortly. Soon you
will be able to text us the word
“Bal”
or
“Balance”
and you will
automatically receive your rent
account balance. Or if you
want us to call you back, simply
text us the word
“Callback”
.
Once the system is launched
we will publish our new text
number on our website and
display it in our offices.
While texting will benefit many of
our customers, we understand
that it is not for everyone.
If it is not for you then all you
need to do is let us know and we
will make a note on your
account that you do not wish to
receive texts.
Thank you.
Chris Ashton
Executive Director (Housing)
The residents on our Scrutiny Panel
work hard to ensure that we
perform well against our targets.
They also provide insight to help us
improve services.
The panel recently commissioned a
team of resident Quality Standard
Inspectors to conduct a survey
about complaints. They carried out
phone interviews with residents
who have raised issues about our
services to determine how effectively
we dealt with their complaints.
Jane Churcher
, Chair of the
Communications Special Interest
Group, took part in the survey.
She said:
“I often say that being
an involved resident does make a
difference – and this is one of
those occasions.
“Thanks to the Quality Standard
Inspectors’ work, the Scrutiny Panel
now has a clearer picture about
how the complaints procedure can
be improved.
“I want to say thank you to each and
every person we contacted about
this. You have made a real difference
by taking the time to help with the
survey.”
The Scrutiny Panel will now meet with
our senior management team to
discuss the responses and pinpoint
ways to improve our approach to
complaints.
Keeping
service
standards
high
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WELCOME