Improving our services to you

As you may know, once a year we ask you for feedback on how we’re doing with the services we deliver to you. From the responses we’ve received, we can now review our service provision and implement changes for improvements.

We’ve partnered with an external business, Acuity Research & Practice Ltd, to help deliver the telephone survey. For more information on the partnership, please click here.

With the launch of the Social Housing White Paper, the government describes how housing providers should carry out their services with residents at the forefront. As a result, we’ve made some changes to the survey. The White Paper ensures that residents in social housing are safe, listened to, live in good quality homes, and have access to redress when things go wrong. We’ve explored the White Paper and have made sure our surveys include questions that help capture information that the White Paper recommends.

Below are some questions that have been amended in keeping with the White Paper:

How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the overall quality of your home?
Thinking specifically about the building you live in, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you that we provide a home that’s safe and secure?
How satisfied are you with our actions to keep communal areas clean and safe?
How satisfied or dissatisfied are you that we listen and take notice of you?

We need your help to improve our services. You can have your say by taking part in the calls and giving your feedback. However, if you’d prefer to opt out, just let us know by emailing citeam@ccha.biz, or tell the researcher when they call.

What is the Social Housing White Paper?

At the heart of the White Paper is the Charter for Social Housing Residents. The charter sets out seven commitments that residents should expect from their landlord

To be safe in your home.
To know how your landlord is performing, including on repairs, complaints and safety, and how it spends its money.
To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly, with access to a strong Ombudsman.
To be treated with respect, backed by a strong consumer regulator and improved consumer standards for tenants.
To have your voice heard by your landlord.
To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in, with your landlord keeping your home in good repair.
The government will ensure social housing can support people to take their first step to ownership.

This charter echoes many of the commitments housing associations are making in the Together with Tenants charter, particularly on tenant voice, relationships, accountability, quality, and complaints.

For more updates on how we’re following the White Paper, keep an eye out for our Annual Report coming later this year.

For an opportunity to find out more about the White Paper, the Regulator of Social Housing (RHS) is holding a series of webinars. In the first webinar on 15th July 2021 you’ll hear about how regulation in the social housing sector works at the moment and the changes the White Paper is introducing, as well as opportunities coming up to engage further with the RSH. The aim of the session is to provide a clear picture of how regulation works and to equip residents with the knowledge they need to fully engage in the conversations about regulatory change. You can sign up here and if you’re unable to attend on the day, you can register to receive a recording after the event.

Thank you to those who’ve taken part in the survey so far. In the next edition of connections, we’ll have more data to show you. For now, there are a few snippets below.

Data from our survey

Satisfaction with internal communal cleaning

We’re really pleased to have met this target and hope our contract with Chequers remains strong.

Satisfaction with communal gardening

We’re really pleased to have met the targets above and hope our contract with Chequers and Acorn remains strong.

Satisfaction with opportunities to get involved

The pandemic has prevented resident activities and events over the last year. We hope that by the end of 2021, we’ll be able to plan some new activities. You can read more about getting involved here and here.

Overall satisfaction with how we handle repairs and maintenance

Starting the contract with Axis at the beginning of the pandemic has proved difficult. It led to a backlog of non-urgent repairs that couldn’t be carried out because of safety issues to residents and operatives. Resources have also been a big issue for our operatives. We’re working closely with them to ensure this is brought up to a much better standard. You can read more about our plans for this here.