Our Responsibilities

Our responsibilities and the level of service can you expect from us

Repairing & maintaining your home

Your home should be a well-maintained and safe environment for you to live in.  The maintenance of your home is important to us and we will:

• Enable you to easily report repairs, including being able to report an emergency repair 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
• Deliver a prompt and efficient repairs service with clear published timescales
• Explain if the repair work is your responsibility and/or if there are any additional charges
• Show you identification upon arrival when we visit your home
• Aim to complete your repair at the first visit. If this is not possible we will keep you informed and advise when we will return
• Offer you a choice of appointment times
• Let you know if we are unable to keep an appointment
• Consult you about any planned improvement works, such as kitchen and bathroom replacements and provide clear timescales
• Carry out servicing and safety checks in line with legislation
• Respect your home and clear up after the work has been done

The place you live

You should be able to enjoy living in your home and community.  We recognise that this is important and will:

• Ensure the estates we manage are clean and safe
• Provide a range of ways to help prevent and deal with anti-social behaviour, taking appropriate action against people who cause a nuisance to their neighbours

Letting our properties

We want to make it as easy as we can to help you live in one of our homes and for you to be able to settle in as quickly as possible, therefore we will:

• Ensure we let homes as quickly and as fairly as possible
• Provide advice on how to apply for housing and information on how to apply for any related welfare benefits
• Keep you informed throughout the moving in process and provide advice and assistance after you have moved in

Paying and managing your rent

Paying your rent on time is a condition of your tenancy. We will provide you with a number of easy ways to pay your rent and will:

• Provide you with timely information about your rent account
• Contact you if you fall into arrears with your rent and agree an approach
• Advise you of any action we are planning to take
• Take appropriate legal action if you fail to pay your rent; which could lead to eviction

When you contact us

We want our colleagues to be able to resolve your enquiry the first time you tell us, regardless of how you tell us.  You should not have to wait excessively for a response to your enquiry and to do this we will:

• Clearly identify ourselves so you know who you are dealing with
• Listen carefully and ask questions to fully understand your enquiry
• Provide accurate and appropriate advice
• Ensure colleagues are equipped with the knowledge, tools and information to resolve your enquiry at first point of contact; if this is not possible we will transfer your enquiry to the person who is best placed to respond. Should they not be available, we will arrange for them to contact you at a convenient time (usually within 1 working day)
• Answer your call (on average) within 60 seconds and acknowledge online and social media enquiries within an hour

Monitoring our performance against these standards

We use a range of methods to ensure we are continually delivering against our standards, these include:

• Carrying out regular customer satisfaction surveys
• Enabling our Customer Involvement Panel to scrutinise our services and make recommendations for improvements
• Monitoring all complaints and feedback including what we have learnt
• Recording telephone calls to our Contact Centre for training, monitoring and feedback purposes
• Regularly reviewing and scrutinising key performance information, including financial and customer satisfaction data
• Telling you how we are doing by publishing information on our website and telling you about our plans to further improve in our annual reports