Housing Management Plans for 2012/13
Over the coming year Southdown plans to:
Housing Management
- Introduce a new system to regularly inspect communal areas of properties – details will be publicised in advance of visits and tenants will have an opportunity to get involved.
- Regularly (at least twice yearly) hold tenant focus groups to look together at how Southdown can better manage its housing, deliver better value for money for tenants and improve the service it delivers.
- Better publicise contact information for the Housing Officers.
- Simplify rent statements.
- Introduce Direct Debits as a payment option for tenants.
- Reintroduce local liaison meetings with support teams to better respond to local issues that arise.
- Adapt our IT system to better monitor and report on instances of anti-social behaviour.
Property Services
- Look at our turnaround of void properties and clarifying our void standards so that properties become available to tenants quickly, in good condition and in a way that represents good value for money.
- Involve tenants in the recruitment and selection of new contractors.
- Use a tenant panel to check and question the performance figures.
- Start to monitor ‘first fixes’, the percentage of repairs that we were able to fix on the first visit.
- Revisit our stock condition survey and planning an investment strategy for the years to come.
- Identify properties with high utility costs and targeting energy-saving measures at these to reduce costs for tenants and Southdown.
- Investigate opportunities to increase the number of repairs satisfaction slips we receive
- Investigate the use of text messaging for communication and feedback regarding repairs.
For more information contact the Housing Division Manager, Jim Aspdin
