Services that make people's lives easier
In 2023/24 we introduced a new approach to ensure we engaged with, listened to, and acted on residents’ feedback, with more focus on making sure we prioritise the things that matter most.
This included the introduction of ‘Neighbourhood Explorers’, holding more community events and estate repairs days alongside our repairs Contractor Gilmartins in both London and Hertfordshire while continuing to closely monitor the performance of our services.
Taking on board this feedback, we looked to improve our performance based on resident involvement and ensure that resident voices shape our services. Despite challenging conditions, overall satisfaction remained steady at 62% in 2023/24, close to the London average of 65%. We compare our performance via Housemark and this shows our year end position on overall satisfaction compared to our London benchmark to be in the top 25%. We want to do better and will continue to respond to resident feedback in improving our services.
Improving our repairs service
Our main repairs contractor Gilmartins delivered 15,643 routine repairs with 93% completed on time and 2,035 emergency repairs with 96% completed in target - with 85% satisfaction.
We've done lots of work to ensure our residents are kept more closely informed of their repairs. When you report a repair, you’ll now get an SMS message to allow you to track the status of your repair, the location in real-time of the Gilmartins operative coming to do the work and the ability to message and re-arrange repairs appointments, amongst lots of other improvements.
What we’ve been working on to improve
Since launching the ‘Origin Oath’ in 2021, we have continually invested in customer service training, with a renewed focus on respect and fairness in 2023. We also worked to make it easier for residents to get support, thanks to innovations like our award-winning ‘Basil Bot’, launched in 2020. By upskilling customer resolution advisors and improving our communication in 2023/24, we’re able to resolve queries more efficiently.
We’ve made some big steps in improving how we handle complaints, we listened to feedback and knew we had to bring in changes to how we worked.
Our refreshed Resident Engagement Strategy, the ‘Together Strategy,’ has helped us stay more closely connected with our communities and the residents within
them allowing us to work better ‘Together’. We’ve done lots to ensure we are more available and more visible to our residents; relaunching our Neighbourhood Management roles with regular walkabouts to offer more opportunities to interact in person. We’ve also ensured we have continued our Neighbourhood Action Plans to address any issues and keep people informed about what we were doing to improve them.
Our Estate Services Team improved in 2023/24 regular estate inspections using the new Housemark App and better monitoring of our contracts, we’ve also been working more closely with the police and community safety teams in key areas where residents are experiencing anti social behaviour.
The Repairs Service also saw improvements, with a new contract shaped by resident input launched in June 2023. 85.4% of our residents were satisfied with their repairs —3.7% above the top quartile benchmark in the sector.
We are proud of the progress made through our Support Hub, helping over 260 people this year, and our Care & Support teams, which secured a new 3+2 year contract for the Camden Young Peoples Pathway. We also completed the first phase of our retirement housing review, ensuring continued excellence in our services.
Spotlight on scrutiny
In 2023, we launched a new approach to resident scrutiny. This led to 15 recommendations being approved and implemented throughout 23/24, with our residents directly involved in improving our services. We worked closely with the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) to help guide these efforts, ensuring residents have a say in key decisions, including the development of policies like our damp and mould policy.
Learning from complaints
We seek feedback on our services through monthly satisfaction surveys and encourage residents to let us know if we have got things wrong so that we can put them right. Our centralised complaints team has been key in identifying, recording and finding solutions to, concerns raised by our residents.
We are proud to have achieved 99.5% response rate to stage 1 complaints in line with the Housing Ombudsman Code.
In 2023/24, we received 920 stage 1 complaints and 113 stage 2 complaints, which is higher than the benchmark average for housing associations in London, so we’ve been planning what we can do to ensure we improve.
We're proud to say we're handling complaints more efficiently. Satisfaction with our complaints process is up 19% from 29% in 2022/23 to 48% in 2023/24 showing the positive difference our team is making.
While we’re improving how we handle complaints, our focus for the coming year is on getting things right the first time, so residents won’t need to complain as often.
Celebrating 100 years: Edith Neville
Edith Neville was one of the original members of St Pancras House Improvement Society. Daughter of a judge, she dedicated her life to voluntary work in social welfare. She gave her time to support the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Soldiers’ Families Association, and the Social Services Association among other organisations.
Edith was involved with running the society from the very beginning, at which time she was the secretary of St Pancras Council of Social Service and
the warden of Mary Ward Centre. Edith, Father Basil Jellicoe, Father Maryon-Wilson, Nora Hill and other local people met in 1924 to talk about starting a society to tackle Somers Town’s slum problem.
She, Father Jellicoe and some other clergymen also ran two local public houses: The Anchor and the Tavistock Arms. Often committee meetings were held at The Anchor and the pubs were included in Royal visits of the society’s work.