Critical report into housing associations in Rutland

The area's housing association tenants are not happy with their landlords, a review has found.

In response to complaints from residents, in July last year Rutland County Council set up a working group to investigate what people in housing association homes thought of where they lived.

The review, which will be considered by the council's scrutiny committee on Thursday, does not paint a good picture. More than half of respondents were unsatisfied, although some housing associations fared better than others.

Amplius (formerly the Longhurst Group) is the biggest housing association provider in Rutland and the majority of responses were from its tenants.

Among the findings were:

* customer satisfaction levels have declined over the past three years and tenants feel strongly that they are not receiving value for money;

* communication is poor with frustration over many feeling the landlord only gets in touch is about annual rent increases;

* many properties are not energy efficient, with poor insulation and old windows which are leading to higher heating costs;

* long delays on repairs, with frequent cancellations and poor quality work;

* dirty communal areas;

* Complaints are handled poorly, with tenants not feeling they are taken seriously and response and resolution times are too long. Some customers felt they were treated without respect.

The working group, initially led by Coun Rosemary Powell (Ind) and then by Coun Ray Payne (Lib Dem), ran a survey for residents and housing associations and had meetings with three providers, including Amplius.

The 11 housing associations operating in the county provide 2,038 places to rent, with 896 of those homes in Oakham. The online survey for tenants hosted in January and February received 123 responses - or just over 5%. The authority’s report says the survey was statistically significant and reflective of the wider views of tenants.

The draft report summarises the responses and notable findings were: "Communication and customer service levels were areas of concern to customers.

"Communication by and with the housing associations was generally regarded as ‘poor’ with a common complaint being that customers felt that the only time they heard from their housing association was when the rent was due to be increased.

“Customers reported that they found using the telephone frustrating when trying to contact their housing associations, stating that they were often unable to get through to the right person to speak to and usually spoke to a different person every time they phoned, so had to explain the same issue over and over again.

"It became clear that many customers were reluctant to use on-line methods of communication with their housing association. This can most easily be explained by a combination of age profiles and economic resources which mean many customers still prefer to use the telephone as their main means of communication.”

Another common issue found was repairs: “ . . . the evidence was clear that there was a widespread level of dissatisfaction regarding the performance of the majority of housing associations when it comes to the timely completion of repairs and maintenance.”

All of the housing associations operating in Rutland were contacted by the local authority, which commended the organisations for their openness and willingness to engage with the review. Five of the housing associations did not respond.

Those who took part were Accent Housing, Amplius, Cross Keys Homes, Platform Housing Group, Progress Housing Group, St John and St Anne Housing Charity.

Those that did not respond were East Midlands Housing, Heylo Housing, Lincs Rural Housing Association, Nottingham Community Housing Association and Stonewater.

Amplius has around 1,450 homes in Rutland, making up more than 70% of the overall housing association offer in the county. In the survey the company revealed it had had 235 complaints from tenants in 12 months to April this year, with the majority concerning housing repairs. Twelve tenants have legal claims lodged against the provider.

A group of councillors and officers met two members of senior staff at Amplius at the end of March and the company admitted improvements needed to be made.

The minutes said: “There has been a lack of investment in some properties but the new merger [with Grand Union Housing Group] will result in the investment of existing housing stock rather than the purchase of new properties.”

It said the turnaround of vacant properties had improved from around 100 days to 60 days. A new cleaning contract was also starting and said it had been allocated £20m from the Warm Homes Fund to install new heating systems which would be matched by the housing association.

The report added: “The results of the survey, the housing association questionnaires and subsequent interviews have resulted in a much clearer idea of what positive steps the housing associations could take to improve the levels of service received by their customers."

The working party report makes a series of improvement suggestions which include better customer relations, faster repair times, prompt complaint handling and ensuring homes are energy efficient.

Phil Hardy, chief operations officer at Amplius, said: “We welcomed the opportunity to take part in this important piece of work and were delighted to meet directly with councillors to discuss our ambitious plans to improve services to our customers, including changing the way we work to get closer to the communities we serve.

“The insight from the report was helpful and we know that we still need to improve in some areas. Following our merger to become Amplius, we believe we’re in a stronger position to be able to do this.

“We’re already seeing improvements, from working with our repairs contractors to reduce overdue works, changing how we receive telephone calls and offering a new online repairs reporting form for the many customers who’d prefer to interact with us digitally, as well as investing in the way we handle complaints to ensure we learn more from what went wrong.

“We’ve also secured one of the largest government grants in the country to invest in our existing homes to improve their energy efficiency. We’ll be match-funding this grant, meaning around £41 million will be spent on upgrading the energy efficiency of about 2,000 homes across our operating region, including in Rutland.

“We’ll continue to work hard – and closely with our customers – to further improve our services to ensure they have a house they’re proud to call their home.”