Agenda item

Presentation and report to include performance indicators, tenant satisfaction measures and complaints.

The Housing Review Board were presented with the key performance indicator (KPI)dashboard and the compliance dashboard for quarters one and two 2024/25. The performance report encapsulated complaints data as well as tenant satisfaction measures.  The Interim Assistant Director (Regulatory Services) gave a presentation which summarised the performance and actions being taken to improve performance where targets were not being achieved. Targets were set annually and figures were benchmarked against the previous financial years’ performance and HouseMark was used to benchmark performance and set targets for the KPIs against performance of other social housing landlords.

Discussion and clarification included the following points:

·        Income collection – rent arrears as a percentage of the annual rent that the Council should be receiving.  Performance in this area was strong, with the Council above its own target and within the top quartile of landlords nationally.

·        Income lost through void properties – although void loss was significantly higher than the top quartile of landlords nationally the housing service was improving its performance, with void loss figures continuing in the right direction.

·        Properties vacant and not available to let – the management of the turnover of vacant stock to ensure a reduced number of vacant properties were held at any one time.  Performance was below target but continuing to improve in this area.

·        Average days to relet homes – there had been an improvement of 55.71 days in this area since the end of 2023/24.  Over the last 12 months officers had worked through a backlog of vacant properties whilst balancing this with the void budgets and projected rent loss.  There continued to be a positive downward trend.

·        Routine repairs completed in target and emergency repairs completed in target – work was being undertaken with the contractors to reconcile outstanding jobs and completion dates, and ensure robust and accurate reporting. Data validation was needed as the systems were recording different target completions.  Performance so far was around 5% higher than the previous year.  8,736 routine and emergency repair jobs had been completed across both contractors so far this year.

·        Compliance – this area had presented the biggest challenge so far this year, particularly in relation to electrical checks.  There had been a huge improvement in performance following a change of contractor.

The Housing Performance Lead reported that good progress had been made on reducing complaints, mainly due to staffing changes and implementing dedicated resources.  Communication was a key driver in the complaints system and measures were in place to improve this.  There had been an excellent improvement in the response times for stage one complaints from quarter one to quarter two.  However, there was a significant backlog of stage two complaint investigations and responses during quarter two.  This was largely due to the departure of the Property and Assets Service Manager at the end of August.  A task force of senior managers had now been put in place to clear outstanding complaint responses over the next couple of weeks.  Officers recognised the need to continuously improve in complaints handling and meet the requirements of the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.

Tenant satisfaction had been moved from annual to quarterly surveying in order to review and analyse tenants’ satisfaction levels on a more regular basis and be more responsive to any trends.  Although it was acknowledged that there was still much room for improvement in the tenant satisfaction measures, improvement had already been achieved sine the survey at the end of 2023/24.  It was noted that more negative feedback tended to be received during the winter months.

Officers were thanked for the comprehensive report which demonstrated the positive efforts being made to improve performance across all areas.  Restaffing of the housing service with the right people in the right posts would continue to support the service to make good progress.

A request was made for a breakdown of void properties into ward areas to be made available for councillors.

RESOLVED:  that the Housing Review Board note performance at the end of quarter two, 2024/25.