Housing Annual Report 2023/24

This report gives a snapshot of the key achievements made by Broxtowe Borough Council’s Housing Services from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.  

The government introduced a new inspection regime for social housing landlords this year, including a new suite of measures on tenant satisfaction and statistics about our homes which we have included in this report. 

We listened to you and have made improvements to our Housing Repairs team and the service we offer. We have increased the number of operatives to carry out repairs in your homes, and created a Housing Repairs Customer Services team.  

We are really proud of our dedicated Tenant Panel, continuing to grow from strength to strength. They are given the opportunity to provide meaningful feedback on our services by being consulted on all new policies, and any proposed changes to existing policies. 

Despite the challenges posed by the cost of living crisis, we have assisted 383 tenants. If you need some further advice and support, visit our Cost of Living webpage. 

For the first time in over 20 years, we have added more properties into the Council’s housing stock than have been sold under the Right to Buy scheme, buying 25 properties and selling 16. 
We hope you enjoy reading the report and finding out what we have been working on, and what our plans are for 2024/25.

Contents:

• Safety and  Quality Standard
• Tenant Influence and Accountability Standard
• Neighbourhood and Community Standard
• Tenancy Standard
• Housing Revenue Account (HRA) 
• A Snapshot of our Achievements in Home Ownership
• Housing Contacts

Safety and  Quality Standard

Statistics:

• Kitchens Modernised – 112
• Bathrooms modernised - 40
• Gas central heating replacements / Boiler Swaps - 260
• UPVC window replacements - 314
• External door replacements - 240
• Roof replacements - 35
• Soffits, fascias and rain water goods – 64
• Responsive Repairs Completed – 13,741
• Electrical Compliancy – 89.1%
• Reactive repairs appointments made and kept – 97.7% (11613 appointments made, appointments kept 11329)
• 97.9% of properties were decent
• £4.4 million being spent on homes to make them decent

What have we been working on this year?

• Recruited a Change Delivery Manager to improve processes within the Housing Repairs and Asset Management teams.
• Started to carry out surveys of our homes to assess the condition of main elements including the roof, windows, external doors, kitchen and bathroom.
• Reviewed and redesigned 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. This ensures your safety.

Damp and Mould
We carried out an extensive review of our damp and mould procedures and introduced some improvements:

• Introduced a new Damp and Mould Policy.
• Created a dedicated damp and mould reporting email address – damp&mould@broxtowe.gov.uk
• Reviewed our processes and staff training to help us communicate better with tenants experiencing issues with damp or mould in their home
• Being more responsible to tenants we are working with to ensure they are more aware of the actions we are taking to help resolve their damp or mould issues.

Next steps:

• Carry out more analysis of locations of damp and mould on our estates to provide more support to residents living in these areas
• Set up a new, dedicated damp and mould internal dashboard to track reported cases and actions
• Promotion of information and reporting options across our communication channels and at our Tenant Engagement events and meetings.

In the next 12 months, we plan to:

• Undertake an exercise to review our current asbestos data, ensuring it meets the requirements of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 and conforms with best industry practice.
• Undertake an exercise to review our current fire risk assessments following recommendations from Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service to ensure our risk assessments meet the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and industry best practice.
• Review and relaunch the online repairs reporting form.

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Tenant Influence and Accountability Standard

What have we been working on this year?

The Engagement Team have been busy attending a range of community events as well as introducing evening meetings around the Borough. In the table, you can see the different ways the team have engaged with customers.

Dedicated tenant volunteers: our incredible tenants and leaseholders have made a significant impact, contributing a remarkable 273 hours of volunteer time this year. 

Tenant Panel (formerly the Resident Involvement Group)

Due to the new regulatory changes within Housing and the new consumer standards, it is more important than ever that we have an active Tenant Panel who will be able to scrutinise our services and have their voices heard.

Clair Lane, a General Needs housing tenant from Stapleford, became the new chair of our Tenant Panel. Clair oversaw the panel and drove it forward to help make positive changes to Housing. Clair also supported the Tenant Information Network. Sadly, Clair passed away in November 2024 and will be remembered for her contribution and assistance in growing the Tenant Panel, and providing support to other tenants and members of her community.

There are different levels of tenant engagement and involvement, and we are always looking for tenants to join us and have their say.

Tenant Information Network (TIN)

This year, the Housing team have developed the Tenant Information Network further by holding evening meetings at community venues to encourage more General Needs tenants to attend.

Members of the Housing team attended to discuss issues such as Housing Repairs, neighbourhoods and antisocial behaviour and housing development, and we also invited different community groups, charities and companies to share information that could support the tenants. 

Positive Partnership

Over the last year we’ve developed and continued to work with a range of partners and charities to support you. This is especially important, with the cost of living still increasing.

Green Doctor 

Housing invited the Green Doctor to a range of events to share information on how they can support you by providing free, impartial advice to help take control of your bills and save energy in the home. 

One tenant said ‘The Green Doctor was fantastic, they helped update my lightbulbs to energy saving ones and was able to see if I was on the right energy tariff. I would definitely recommend them’.

Broxtowe Mediation Partnership 

The Broxtowe Mediation Partnership is a confidential service run by Citizens Advice Broxtowe (CAB) and Broxtowe Youth Homelessness (BYH) for residents of Broxtowe. They offer free, impartial, unbiased support to individuals to help them explore ways in which their conflict may be resolved. 

For further information, visit the Citizens Advice website. 

Inspire 

Our Activities Coordinators and Inspire Libraries work together to run a range of creative and ‘learning’ sessions within our Independent Living Service. Our Activities Coordinators work across our Independent Living Schemes and provide activities that reduce loneliness, increase health and wellbeing, support economic wellbeing, help tenants to stay safe, make a positive contribution and of course have fun!

Since the partnership with Inspire, we’ve seen over 150 tenants attend over 25 different sessions from digital skills, clay modeling, paper flower craft and baking. The Inspire courses have inspired a creative collaborative community for both tenants and employees of the Council.  

One of our Activities Coordinators said ‘Personally, I have found the courses to be engaging and have learnt some new skills that I can try at other Independent Living Schemes’.

Other partnerships include

• Sycamore Dining
• Age UK
• Veolia

You Said, We Did

In the next 12 months, we plan to:

• Create a new Complaints Panel comprising of tenants and Council employees to discuss complaint handling and learning from complaints.
• Carry out a scrutiny exercise on the voids (empty homes) process.
• Work in partnership with the Helpful Bureau to introduce a Befriending Service across the Independent Living Schemes, helping to link people with similar interests together to create new friendships.
• Introduce a new Housing Magazine for tenants to improve communication and tell you what we have been working on.
• Send out new customer satisfaction surveys for complaint handling to identify improvements we need to make.

Learning from Your Feedback
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. To submit a complaint, visit https://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/about-the-council/consultations-feedback-complaints/make-a-comment-complaint/

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.

Compliments

We also like to hear from you when we get things right, or go beyond expectations. If you would like to compliment us for a job well done, or have suggestions about how we can improve, please let us know. Here are just a few compliments we have received.

• Housing Repairs - ‘The work as start as you promised can’t thank you enough for helping with the repairs we can finally get the house sorted no more mould or damp really happy tenant thanks to you and everything you done to get it organised and completed’
• Financial Inclusion Service – ‘I think this is an invaluable service without my Independent Living Coordinators help I would never have been introduced to the Financial Inclusion Team. I found to be very caring and professional and certainly in my case I feel she went above and beyond her job role I cannot thank her and yourselves for this great service I’m totally impressed and appreciate it many thanks.’
• Income Collection – ‘They were very helpful and understanding of my situation and was helpful in suggesting that to keep in touch and he was very considerate and listened to what I had to say, thank you very much for the help you have and are providing, it has taken a weight off of my shoulders, thank you’
• Housing Engagement – ‘I just wanted to say what lovely, feedback I’ve had about the Tenant Information Meeting that took place at Lombardy Lodge on Monday 4th December. Whilst being on scheme this week quite a few tenants have approached me to say how brilliant and informative it was.’
• Independent Living – ‘My Independent Living Coordinator, listens carefully & sympathetically and acts immediately on issues that arise.  I often feel anxious and insecure but she supports me and I trust her. Her help has been invaluable.’
• Tenancy Sustainment – ‘Are utterly fantastic. At the time I was recovering fleeing domestic abuse and feeling overwhelmed she was kind, helpful, matter of fact and has helped secure me a grant. Can’t thank you enough’

You Said, We Did

Thank you to all residents who provided feedback on our services. We read all feedback and your expertise helps us to improve our services. These are the changes you helped make happen this year

• You said: Improve our complaints handling and learning from complaints.
• We did: Set up a Complaints Panel comprising of tenants and leaseholders to discuss complaints and how we can learn from them. This will be fed back to residents via regular communication.
• You said: Answer phones more quickly in Repairs
• We did: Reviewed and adjusted the call queue times, improving call handling times.
• You said: Clean the communal areas of general needs blocks more frequently
• We did: Developed a 3-weekly programme of communal general needs block cleans.
• You said: Have clear service standards so residents know what to expect of the Housing Service.
• We did: Agreed and published a set of Housing Service Standards with the Tenant Panel (Link to website). Progress will be reported regularly.
• You said: Improve access to our front-line services.
• We did: Established regular Housing Drop-In sessions in different areas of the Borough. 

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Neighbourhood and Community Standard

As a landlord we’re committed to building strong communities and ensuring that our neighbourhoods and communities are safe, clean and well maintained. This involves tackling anti-social behaviour and promoting wellbeing.

What have we been working on?

• Adopted a new Anti-Social Behaviour Policy
•  Continued to encourage people to use the Noise App to record instances of noise for anti-social behaviour complaints
• Introduced a General Needs communal block cleaning regime to ensure that communal areas are kept clean and free of items. 

Statistics:

•  Anti-Social Behaviour Cases – 154

In the next 12 months, we plan to:

• Review neighbourhood walkabouts to improve participation of residents and Councillors.
• Conduct more pop-up events in our communities to provide you with more opportunities to come and speak to us.
• Positively publicise anti-social behaviour cases that we have resolved. 

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Tenancy Standard

What have we been working on this year?

• Reviewed the voids process to improve the average relet time, getting people into the properties they need as quickly as possible. 

In the next 12 months, we plan to:
•    Receive 22 new build Council homes into the housing stock. 
•    Implement a new Choice Based Lettings system which will allow applicants to manage their applications online.
•    Continue to encourage the use of the Home Release Scheme and mutual exchanges. 
•    Undertake data cleansing and ensure that we have up to date, relevant information on our tenants to enable us to support them and identify their needs. 

Statistics:

• Independent Properties Relet – 98
• General Needs Properties Relet – 161
• Housing Applications Received – 1,679
• Number of Mutual Exchanges - 17
• Number of Properties owned by Broxtowe Borough Council – 4,367
• General Needs Properties    - 3,247
• Independent Living Properties – 1,117
• Properties Sold Under the Right to Buy – 16
• Properties purchased back into the Council’s housing stock – 25, consisting of:
  •    8 x 3 bed houses
  •    9 x 2 bed flats
  •    3 x 2 bed houses
  •    4 x 1 bed flats
  •    1 x 1 bed bungalow
  No. tenant referrals for Financial Inclusion team – 383

In the next 12 months, we plan to:

• Receive 22 new build Council homes into the housing stock.
• Implement a new Choice Based Lettings system which will allow applicants to manage their applications online.
• Establish ‘Housing Drop In’ sessions around the Borough, improving access to our front-line services. 

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Housing Revenue Account (HRA)

Just like a household, we have to budget carefully each year as our income mostly comes from the rent you pay. We work hard to ensure we achieve the best possible value for money.

In 2023/24, Broxtowe Borough Council received £18.7 million in income to the Housing Revenue Account. £17.2 million came from housing rents; the remainder from garage rents, Independent Living management charges and leaseholder service charges.

Statistics:

• Rent collected as a proportion of rent owed – 100.20% (target 99%)
• Current arrears as a percentage of the annual rent debit – 0.9% (target 2%)

Where the money was spent

• Charges for capital (includes depreciation, gains/losses on disposal of properties and interest payable on borrowing) - £7.86 million
• Supervision and management (including staffing costs) - £6 million
• Repairs and maintenance (Includes repairs costs, contractor costs, void work, electrical testing etc.) - £4.96 million
• Total = £18.82 million

Regulator of Social Housing

From 1 April 2023, the Government introduced new Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) which are designed to assess and monitor how well social landlords are doing in providing good quality homes and services.

We must submit our performance annually against the TSMs to the Regulator of Social Housing, and publish the results on our website and in publications.

There are 22 TSMs, consisting of:

• 10 Landlord Measures – based on information we hold in our systems.
• 12 Tenant Perception Measures – based on an annual tenant perception survey.

The TSMs relate to five key areas:

• Keeping homes in good repair
• Maintaining building safety
• Being respectful and helpful
• Effective handling of complaints
• Responsible neighbourhood management

These will be submitted to the Regulator from 1 April 2024 and will enable them to see how we are performing.  This data, along with complaints data from the Housing Ombudsman and other statistical returns, will help to inform the Regulator where to carry out inspections.

1,153 of you responded to the survey in 2023/24. The results can be found on our dedicated Tenant Satisfaction Measures webpage and in the Winter 2024 Edition of the Housing Magazine.

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A Snapshot of our Achievements in Home Ownership

Investing in New Homes

Broxtowe have been busy building and taking on ownership of new Council homes. This includes our first four Shared Ownership properties. 
Shared Ownership is a type of affordable housing where you can buy a share of the home’s full market value, usually 10% to 75%, and pay rent back to the Council on the remaining share. For further information, visit our Home Ownership webpage.

Our new homes are designed to be energy efficient and are built for people to live in comfortably with good storage and access to outside space. They will be excellent quality, will look great and will meet or exceed all current building and safety standards. They will be fitted with Air Source Heat pumps, solar panels and electric charging points where possible. 

• Properties will be completed on the following sites:
• Field Farm, Stapleford – 6 x 3 bed houses, 7 x 2 bed houses
• Gayrigg Court garage redevelopment, Chilwell – 2 x 3 bed houses
• Felton Close garage redevelopment, Chilwell – 2 x 2 bed houses, 2 x 1 bed flats
• Selside Court garage redevelopment, Chilwell – 2 x 2 bed houses, 1 x 3 bed house

Further information can be found on our Housing Delivery webpage.

In addition to these new homes, development is progressing on new build sites around the Borough to provide various types of low cost, affordable homes. To view a list of current sites where these homes are available, please visit the Council’s Affordable Housing webpage.

Struggling to pay your rent?

It is really important that your rent is paid. Please don’t suffer in silence if you are struggling. Get in touch with us so that we can help you. 

Contact our Housing Income team on housingincome@broxtowe.gov.uk or 0115 9173658.

Our Financial Inclusion team can also assist with free, confidential and impartial advice. 

Let us know what you think of our annual report! 

If you would like to give us any feedback on this year’s Annual Report, please contact housingengagement@broxtowe.gov.uk or give us a call on 0115 9173935.

Tell us what you found interesting or what you thought was missing, and what sort of information you would like to see in future annual reports.

Thank you!

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Housing Contacts

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