Tenants’ AnnualReport Summary 2013-14

Every year a team of tenants from New Charter Homes get together to write an annual report that concentrates on the areas of the business which you have told us are of interest.

This year, the team have created a film interviewing both residents and staff who have contributed towards improving neighbourhoods across Tameside.

View the film at: www.newcharterhomes.co.ukTo request your copy of the film on DVD, contact us on 0161 331 2000 and ask for the Resident Involvement team or email RITeam@newcharter.co.uk

This is a summary of the highlights of the 2013/14 Tenants’ Annual Report.

Page 1Tenants’ Annual Report

Who lives in our homes?

Male46.29%

Female53.70%

Transgender0.01%

Under 16s22.38%

16 - 24 13.53%

25 - 44 25.38%

45 – 64 22.56%

65+16.15%

Disabled 3.38%

Black, Minority & Ethnic 6.23%

Religion Otherthan Christian1.03%

Gay, Lesbianor Bisexual 0.59%

This information is linked to the profiling information gathered from new residents. Percentages are from a total of 29,447 residents.

Page 2Tenants’ Annual Report

Resident Involvement

New Charter strive to create sustainable communities where people want to live and stay. For this reason we resource Resident Involvement by providing a dedicated team, finances and equipment.

Key highlights for 2013/14• This year nine new resident associations have been established in our neighbourhoods,

bringing the total to 36

• 372 tenants have attended training at New Charter this year

• The Scrutiny Panel (TMT) completed two scrutiny projects, making nine recommendations.These included improving the New Charter website to make it more user friendly and bringing the communal window cleaning service in-house, which has improved the service and reduced the cost for residents

• The Tenants Panel reviewed three consumer service standards, making 19recommendations for improvement

• The Mystery Shopping programme has been completed regularly, conducting service standard checks on the Connect telephone service. This work has helped New Charter to understand the priorities for callers and has lead to increased staffing volumes over busier times to reduce waiting times

• The Independent Tenant Solutions Panel - who hear complaints after they have exhausted internal procedures, has been joined by Southway Homes, making it now a combination of six landlords

• This year the panel heard and made recommendations on three complaints, none were forwarded onto the Ombudsman

Page 3Tenants’ Annual Report

Great Opportunities - our programme to help people get 'work ready':

Helped 104 people back into workHelped 522 people with trainingSecured nine voluntary work placementsSecured 22 work experience places for schools and collegesHave established 13 work club sessions, all supported by Job Centre staffTrained all front line staff in the Great Opportunities initiative

Environment:

Won a silver medal in the show garden at the RHS Tatton flower show

Health and Wellbeing:

Introduced a new Health and Wellbeing strategy Great Sports community programme was attended by over 15,000young people and adult volunteers

Timebanking - our initiative to share skills on a voluntary basis in our neighbourhoods:

We now have over 250 active members of the scheme who share their skills and give assistance to those in need

Youth Work:

Reached over 700 young people, held over 450 outreach and structured sessions

Over 700 young people have been involved in the Manchester United project

Regeneration

The Regeneration team continue to work across five keythemes: Social Inclusion, Worklessness, Environment,Health and Wellbeing and Community Safety.

Key highlights for 2013/14

Page 4Tenants’ Annual Report

Anti-social Behaviour

Achieved our Anti-social Behaviour Accreditation with HouseMark

Positive behaviour work introduced

Restorative justice has dealt with 74 referrals since its introduction

There are now two Streetwatch operations who conduct regular patrols in conjunction with the police

Keys to your door - our training programme to ensure new tenants have all the skills needed to make their tenancy successful

167 customers completed the programme this year, for 18-39 year olds who have never held a tenancy or have had a failed tenancy.

Tenancy Advice & Support Services

Making your neighbourhoods safe and pleasant places tolive remains our priority.This year the TASS team have extended their work taking on more initiatives.

Key highlights for 2013/14

• Visited 1,541 tenants affected by the bedroom tax

• Visited 1,103 tenants to prepare them for the introduction of Universal Credit

• Completed a vulnerability questionnaire with all those affected by Universal Credit to better understand support needs

• Completed the Universal Tour of our neighbourhoods, spending 42 days talking to 2850 people

• Referred 97 tenants to the Money Care team at New Charter for specialist financial help

Welfare Reform

The Specialist Welfare Reform Advice Team (SWAT) was created to ensure that tenants knew exactly whattheir options were and to help them make a choice.

Key highlights for 2013/14

• 880 interventions from a total of 1,560 expected over the three years have been achieved within the neighbourhood plans. This has resulted in almost 50% of customers reporting an improvement in their neighbourhoods following the launch of the plans

• Star ratings across our neighbourhoods have improved with 5 star neighbourhoods increasing from eight to 15 and 3 star neighbourhoods reducing from eight to three

• HQN Estate Management accreditation renewed

• A Value, Impact and Performance (VIP) system has been developed to enable us to capture and monetise fiscal, social and environmental outcomes across different aspects of the Group’s operations

CleanCare, our caretaking team:

Tipping costs have been reduced again this year as a direct result of improved joint working withthe Local Authority. The service has made savings of almost £170,000 since the HQN Estate accreditation which will be passed onto the customer following the service charge review.

Green Charter, our in-house grounds maintenance service:

Won the Co-Creation award at the Institute of Customer Services

Increased satisfaction rates from 25% when Green Charter took over the service to 92%

On target to save £1million over five years

Page 5Tenants’ Annual Report

Neighbourhood Management

Following the introduction of our neighbourhood plans, considerable progress hasbeen made to improve all our neighbourhoods.

Key highlights for 2013/14

cleancare

Page 6Tenants’ Annual Report

• Complaints received by New Charter Homes: 145

• Number that needed more investigation (Stage 2): 5

• Number where we hadn’t done the best we could to resolve the problem earlier: 99

• Most complained about topic: Repairs

From looking at the complaints, we have learnt that we need tocommunicate better with you and between our teams, particularlyif you’re waiting for a repair to be arranged. We now call a sampleof customers who have made complaints, to find out what theythink we could have done better so they didn’t need to make acomplaint in the first place.

We now have a dedicated team monitoring and analysing customer feedback.

We are actively using this information to improve the serviceswe offer.

Complaints Information

We think complaints are important. They are how we learn what has gone wrong in the past to make sure thesame thing doesn’t happen again.

Tel: 0161 331 2000Email: RITeam@newcharter.co.uk

Denton9 Albert Street, DentonManchester, M34 6ZA

Hyde 12 / 14 Clarendon Street,Hyde, Cheshire, SK14 2EL

Stalybridge63 / 65 Grosvenor StreetStalybridge, Cheshire, SK15 2JN

AshtonHenrietta Street, Ashton-under-LyneLancashire, OL6 6EF

Contact us

facebook.com/newcharterhomes

@NewCharterGroup

Post: New Charter Homes, Cavendish 249, Cavendish Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs OL6 7AT

Visit us at:

“I’m here to help”

Key highlights for 2013/14