Transparency, influence and accountability housing service standards
What you can expect from us - proposed standards.
We will:
- Write to residents on completion of a major works contract inviting their views on the project.
- Provide a range of payment options for leaseholders to pay for major works, including extended repayment periods for resident leaseholders.
- Send out clear, transparent, and accessible service charge statements by 1 October each year including a summary of costs and a breakdown of the estimated costs for the current year.
- Respond to requests for information from leaseholders, prospective purchasers or their solicitor within 21 calendar days of receipt once the relevant fee is paid.
- State the budget position for the Housing Revenue Account and set out what we have spent our resources on in the Annual Report to Residents.
- Aim to deliver high quality value for money services.
- Deal with our customers with honesty and integrity telling you what we can and cannot do.
- Be clear about what your responsibilities are.
- Seek your views on our services such as repairs, safety and anti-social behaviour through the annual resident satisfaction survey.
- Provide an Annual Report to Residents, developed with resident representatives, to show our progress against service standards and targets.
- Learn from complaints and publish our performance on complaints through the Annual Report to Residents and through our Resident Engagement structures.
- Annually review the performance indicators we report and the targets we set so they remain relevant, challenging, but achievable.
- Offer support, assistance or accessible formats when providing important information to you.
- Support the development of accredited Resident Associations (RA) and seek to increase the number of residents with access to an RA
- Publish and deliver Homelife to all Council properties four times a year and promote the online version. This gives us the opportunity to tell residents what work the Department and community groups are doing.
- Provide a variety of ways for you to tell us what you think about our services.
- Provide support and funding for recognised Housing Community Champions who work for the benefit of their local community.
- Work closely with residents on estates identified for improvement and regeneration to develop preferred options for the future of their homes and estates.
- Comply with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaints code of conduct and work closely with the Housing Ombudsman where issues arise.
- Let you know who will deal with your issue and when you can expect a response if you report a problem to us.
- Regularly review the Resident Engagement Strategy setting out ways in which you can get involved at a level of your choosing.
- Offer options for residents to review our services, which may include mystery shopping.
- Develop accessible housing and make available occupational therapists to ensure residents with additional needs continue to live independently in their homes.
- Consider the impact to residents with protected characteristics when making major changes to our policies and strategies by completing Equalities, Impact and Needs Assessments.
- Train our staff and offer support to ensure that professional standards are maintained and that staff understand the different needs of our residents.