Housing Annual Report

The Housing Annual Report (.pdf) (1194KB) (Opens in a new window)  gives a snapshot of the key achievements made by Broxtowe
Borough Council’s Housing Services team, including performance; acquiring new homes; recruiting to additional posts to support tenants and ensuring the Council is able to access funding to improve the energy efficiency of our stock.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Key Facts 
• Where the money was spent
• Your Homes
• Financial Inclusion
• Engaging with Our Customers
• Complaints
• Compliments and Comments 
• Looking Forward
• Housing Contacts

Introduction

A Snapshot of Our Achievements 

We are proud to say that our Financial Inclusion and Tenancy Sustainment teams have worked extremely hard to support our tenants throughout the year, supporting a total of 291 tenants.

A restructure of the Repairs team ensured that they had the necessary resources to deliver service improvements. This included the recruitment of a new Housing Repairs and Compliance Manager, a Voids Coordinator, a Compliancy Manager, three new Team Leaders and a Repairs Customer Services Manager. Feedback received from you highlighted that you were unhappy with reporting repairs. As a result, a new Housing Repairs Customer Services team was set up to make these improvements.

Rent collection as a percentage of rent owed was 100.76%, surpassing our target of 99%.

We have achieved an arrears figure of £155,109 at year end which is a £25,375 reduction in arrears from the arrears figure of £180,484 outstanding at the end of March 2022.

Housing introduced monthly evening meetings that take place around the Borough. Tenants and leaseholders can attend the meeting to hear the latest updates from the Housing department. They can also find out the different ways they can get involved, from joining the Tenant Panel to filling in surveys on the Housing Facebook group.

In January 2023 we were delighted to share that we recruited a new Activities Coordinator. They work alongside the other two Activities Coordinators to provide a range of events and activities within our Independent Living schemes, combatting loneliness, building up health and wellbeing and making sure that living within Independent Living is a positive experience.

A total of 6,669 tenants, family members and friends have attended the 629 activities provided throughout the year.

Adding more good quality homes to our stock is one of our main priorities as per our Housing Delivery Plan 2019-2029. During the year, we purchased back a total of 6 properties at a cost of £1,061,622. During 2023/24, we will be redeveloping 4 garage sites (3 in Chilwell and 1 in Watnall), and a larger site that was a former pub. This will provide a further 24 Council homes.

We have been working in partnership with David Wilson Homes at the Old Mill Farm site in Brinsley to deliver affordable housing, which comprises of 26 Discount Market Sale properties for local people. Discount Market Sale is an affordable home ownership product which gives people the opportunity to get onto the property ladder by enabling them to buy a home at a discounted price, providing they meet certain criteria. This is usually 20% less than the market value. The homeowner is not required to pay back the discount, but the discount remains with the property on all future sales

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Key Facts

Here are some of the key facts as at 31st March 2023

4358 Number of properties the Council Owns

1245 Housing Applications Received

295 Homeless interviews completed

29 Properties sold under the Right to Buy

14,776 Repairs Completed

112 Anti-Social Behaviour Cases Closed

Read more about our Key Facts (.PDF) (204KB) (Opens in a New Window)

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Where the Money was Spent

In 2022/23, Broxtowe Borough Council received £17.2 million in income to the Housing Revenue Account. £15.9 million came from housing rents; the remainder from garage rents, Independent Living management charges and leaseholder service charges.

£7.3 Million Charges for Capital 

£1.8 Million was spent on Capital expenditure financed by the Housing Revenue Account.

£5.3 Million on Supervision and Management (including staffing costs).

£4.8 Million was spent on Repairs & Maintenance (including repair costs, contractor costs, void work, electrical work etc...).

£78.07 Average Weekly Rent

Read more about our Where the Money was Spent (.PDF) (270KB) (Opens in a New Window)

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Your Homes

126 Kitchens and bathrooms modernised.

276 Roof replacement (including soffits, fascia's and rain water goods).

208 External Door replacements

257 Minor adaptations (including handrails, half-steps etc...

933 UPVC window replacements

26 Damp remediation works

Read more about Your Homes (.PDF) (195KB) (Opens in a New Window)

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Financial Inclusion

Broxtowe Borough Council’s Financial Inclusion Service consists of two fulltime Financial Inclusion Officers.

Better with a Benefit Check

Did you know our Financial Inclusion Officers can help tenants and leaseholders do a benefit check to see what they could be entitled to? A tenant did this, and they are now £196 per week better off!

What was the process?
A referral was made to the Financial Inclusion team from one of the Independent Living Coordinators, asking if they could do a benefit check for a tenant as they suspected they were not receiving all the help they were entitled to. Teresa, one of the Financial Inclusion Officers completed a home visit, discussed the tenants’ circumstances and completed a benefit check.

‘It was clear she was struggling to meet all of her outgoings due to being on a limited income and having to contribute towards rent and Council Tax costs.’

The tenant had many health conditions but told Teresa that her previous application for Attendance Allowance had been rejected. Teresa said they should make a new application.

Application
With the tenant, Teresa put together an application for Attendance Allowance and submitted it with medical supporting evidence.

Success! The tenant was awarded £92.40 per week. Teresa then visited the tenant again, as she knew once the Attendance Allowance was awarded it would change her entitlement to Pension Credit, Housing Benefit & Council Tax Support. Together they applied for Pension Credit and again was successful!

The Difference!
Before Teresa’s involvement, the tenant was receiving £200.53 a week. This included state pension, occupational pension and other benefits. They also had to pay money towards rent and Council Tax.

Thanks to Teresa’s help, the tenant is now receiving £396.60 a week. This includes new benefits of the Attendance Allowance and Pension Credit. They are now also entitled to full Council Tax contribution and full Housing Benefit. Overall that’s £196.07 better off per week and £784.28 better off every 4 weeks!

Backdated Money
Due to the tenant being awarded the Attendance Allowance, which is a qualifying benefit, the tenant was entitled to backdated benefits of around £1,000!

The tenant said ‘The service I received was excellent. I should like to comment however, that the Financial Inclusion Officer, Teresa, who helped me was excellent. Extremely knowledgeable, very professional with an exceptional level of understanding and compassion that helped me enormously on a personal level. I could not have achieved the help and support she achieved for me, on my own. I did not know about the service until I was told about it by my Independent Living Coordinator who recommended I contact the service.’

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Engaging with our Customers

The Engagement Team have been busy attending a range of community events as well as introducing evening meetings around the Borough.

Evening Meetings around the Borough

In June 2022 the team trialled an evening meeting out in the community, utilising one of the Independent Living Schemes, Gutersloh Court in Stapleford. The team invited tenants, leaseholders and Councillors in the local area to come together. To begin with, there was an incentive of a £10 ‘Love to Shop’ voucher to all who attended and filled out the feedback survey at the end of the meeting. The purpose of the evening meeting was to share important information for Housing and also gathering voices and feedback from tenants and leaseholders about the service.

30 people attended the first meeting. The team were able to engage, hear from and share information to tenants and leaseholders they hadn’t met before.

Table of number of tenants and leaseholder that we engaged with until the end of the financial year:

The meetings were a success and with the positive feedback received, we decided to continue with the evening meetings.

These meetings will run once a month in different parts of the Borough. Currently the team are using the Independent Living Schemes’ communal lounges for the meetings, but in the future they want to look at linking with local community hubs to encourage more people to attend.

Read more about Engaging with Our Customers (.Pdf) (168KD) (Opens in a New Window) and how to 'Join Us' (.Pdf) (180KD) (Opens in a New Window)

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Complaints

We value all feedback about services we deliver to customers and understand that at times we do not always get things right.

We want to hear from you! If you do not feel you have received the level of service you expect from us, so that we can learn and make improvements to our services.

The numbers of complaints received includes contact that has been logged as a formal complaint and not where contact is classified as a service request.

Read more about the Complaints (.PDF) (157KB) (Opens in a New Window)

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Compliments and Comments

We also like to hear from you when we get things rights, or go beyond your expectations.

• 'Just wanted to say ‘Thank you’ for all your help with my mother in law. We’ve been today to Rockwell Court and she
  has accepted the flat there.'
• 'The ILCs are fantastic, they supported me when moving in and gave me all the information I needed. You can ring them at any time, and I feel confident approaching them with any issues or questions. The activities run by Nicky are fantastic, she is a very creative and lovely person.'
• 'Please can I say a massive thank you to Emma, she is extremely professional and has excellent customer service'

Read more about our Compliments and Comments (.PDF) (200KB) (Opens in a New Window)

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Looking Forward

We are committed to providing a high level of service and during 2023-24, we will be conducting a Tenant Satisfaction Survey to gain your views on us as a landlord and the service you receive.

This is part of the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures return that we must send to them in 2024. This survey will be conducted on an annual basis.

We will be:

• Reviewing and redesigning the gas servicing process to focus on early intervention and earlier escalation to Legal Services for injunctions to enter properties when we cannot gain access.
• Streamlining the voids process to ensure that properties are ready to let quicker and improving the average relet time.
• Ensuring that tenants and leaseholders will be consulted on all new and changes to existing policies where necessary, giving you the opportunity to provide feedback.
• Recruiting more Housing Repairs staff to ensure that we are providing the best service possible, including operatives.
• Creating a new Damp and Mould Policy.
• Developing a new Housing Strategy to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our residents in the Borough.
• Moving forward with our development plans to build new Council homes on garage site

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 Housing Contacts