building better services

We have been working hard to improve the services we offer to you. You can read more about some of the things we have changed below.

Download our Annual Report 2007

Working with residents

Council tenants and leaseholders now have a big say in the way their housing service is run. We encourage residents to get involved at every opportunity and have a range of initiatives designed for this including:

Helping us monitor our repairs service
Checking the standard of repairs and cleanliness on your estate.
Joining a resident involvement panel or group

We also provide regular training and development opportunities for residents.

A new resident involvement agreement

In 2007 residents, Councillors, Board members and staff from Homes for Haringey gave their stamp of approval to the new Resident Involvement Agreement, ‘Your voice counts’.

This is the first three-way agreement between Homes for Haringey, Haringey Council and council tenants and leaseholders.

The agreement sets out how Homes for Haringey will consult, inform and involve residents and lists examples and opportunities for getting involved, possibly as estate monitoring volunteers or as members of housing panels.

Steve Clarke, Mike Jones and Councillor Isidoros at the launch of the new Resident Involvement Agreement

Estate services

Our Estate Services teams are getting communal areas into good shape and about 150 residents are helping to keep them that way by monitoring the standard of repairs and cleanliness. Everyday things that go wrong on estates can now be fixed right away because we have trained Estate Services Officers to do basic repairs. For bigger problems, such as dumping rubbish or abandoning vehicles, senior staff have been trained to issue penalty fines to those responsible.

We’re working with the council to encourage residents to recycle more of their household waste. This year, we’ve introduced doorstep or ‘near-entry’ recycling facilities to about 6,000 homes.

Customer services

We understand that our customers have different needs: our new repairs call centre now has longer opening hours so that you can call until 8pm during the week and between 8am-1pm on Saturdays to report your repair. We also offer evening and Saturday appointments for gas and general repairs.

The ten most popular pages on our website are available in five community languages and you can ask us to translate any of our publications or provide them to you in Braille or on audio tape.

Our customer agreement sets out what you can expect from us and what we expect from you in return. We welcome your complaints, comments and suggestions because they help us improve services.

Customer Services Week

In October 2006 and 2007 we celebrated National Customer Services Week. The week saw management and staff engage in raising awareness about the importance of giving customers the best service possible.

Activities included senior management going 'back to the floor' and groups of Homes for Haringey staff visiting estates to knock on doors and ask residents their views.

Chief Executive Stephen Clarke works as an Estate Services Officer for the day

Home ownership

We asked leaseholders how we could give them a better service and have made many changes as a result. These include providing clearer information about service charges; introducing a sub-letting register; and offering an out-of-hours information service at times when this is needed most.

Repairs

We do over 60,000 repairs every year. Residents who took part in our annual survey said we needed to improve our repairs service. This year we’ve made and kept more repairs appointments and completed 93% of repairs on time. We’re pleased to say that nine out of ten people who asked for a repair were satisfied with the service.

In January 2007 the British Standards Institute inspected our repairs service and gave it their stamp of approval. The service is one of only a few in the UK to have achieved the standard. This means we work to high standards and are focussed on continuous improvement.

To make sure our repairs service gives value for money, we invited other contractors to bid for the repairs work we do. Our own in-house team was awarded the contract after a thorough and lengthy review by experts made up of residents, officers and independent specialists.

A Homes for Haringey operative completing a repair

Reporting repairs online

We’ve introduced a new smart way of reporting repairs online. The Graphical Repairs Ordering system, or GRO for short, is a picture based program you can access through the web.

It’s remarkably simple. Tenants who wish to report repairs simply click on the picture of the item that needs repairing then choose an available appointment date and time. They can even track the progress of their repair online.

Leaseholders also have access to GRO to report repairs to external and communal areas.

Antisocial behaviour

Tenancy Management Officers help to sort out disputes between neighbours and work closely with the council’s Antisocial Behaviour Action team. Over the last three years, the team has issued 17 Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) and 80 Acceptable Behaviour Contracts. In February this year we signed up to the government’s Respect standard.

A helping hand

We visit each new tenant to find out if they have specific needs and will assist them in getting any extra help required.

Tenants who have trouble paying their rent can talk with their Income Collection Officer, who is trained in welfare benefits, to make an arrangement. If more in-depth advice is needed we will refer the tenant to Citizens’ Advice.

New clamping and removal service

Abandoned and untaxed cars on our estates are a danger and a nuisance. They use up parking spaces and are prime targets for thieves and vandals. They can also block emergency access and kerb-side collections.

We are taking tough action and introducing a new clamping and removal scheme on estates. It scheme will start in North Tottenham and then be rolled out in South Tottenham, Wood Green and Hornsey during 2007.

Value for money

We do regular checks on the services you receive to make sure you get value for money.

We’re currently checking our repairs service, but we’ve also reviewed a number of other services including the Noise Response team, Estate Lighting and the Antisocial Behaviour Action team. These reviews and others have led to savings totalling £86,000 which we’re reinvesting to improve services to you.

Dealing with complaints

Last year you told us the way we deal with complaints needed to change. You said we needed to speed up the process, concentrate on resolving the problem and make sure it doesn’t happen again. We have spent the last year working with residents to develop a new scheme. Here is how things work now:

From now on, we’re going to try and get it ‘Sorted out Sooner’. We will try to resolve basic complaints in 2 working days. If we can’t, or you are still unhappy, we will automatically log it as a Stage One complaint and reply within 10 working days.
We’ve reduced the time for the whole complaints process from Stage One to Stage Three by a week
We have introduced new guidance on resolving and remedying complaints, meaning staff can solve problems straight away.
We’ll work with residents to look at complaints to stop them happening again.

Appointment of decent homes contractors

We’ve made a bid for the decent homes money and we’ve selected the contractors to do the work.

South Tottenham – Apollo London

Wood Green – Mulalley & Company Ltd

North Tottenham – Lovell Partnership

Hornsey – Wales Construction

In November we invited eight contractors to tender for the work. Residents and staff on the Procurement Panel worked hard to make sure we got the best people for the job.

All panel members reviewed each of the contractors written tender applications.

They then set off on site visits around live sites of each contractor. Following a close examination of the site setup, residents on the panel got to interview residents living on site. They asked them crucial questions, such as what it is like to have works done around them and what they thought of each contractor.

To finish off each contractor had a formal interview, where they were asked to give a presentation and answer some tough questions. Three residents joined staff members on the interview panel.

The contractors that will work with us were finally selected in March 2007. Each one will be responsible for the work in one area of the borough.

In addition, four construction consultants have been selected to make sure that the contractors carry out the work to the right quality and that costs and health and safety are properly managed.

The four construction consultants are Potter Raper Partnership, Ridge & Partners LLP, John Rowan & Partners LLP, and Bucknall Austin Ltd.

High standards

Since April 2006, we’ve taken giant strides towards making sure you get good quality services.

We are now certified by the British Standards Institute under ISO9001:2000.So far, this covers Rent arrears, Former Tenants rent arrears, Estate Services, Repairs and Voids (repairing empty properties).

Over the next 12 months, we intend to accredit more areas of our work.

Now we have this approval, BSI will check on us from time to time to make sure we are keeping our work at a high standard and delivering services that are meeting your needs.

Communicating with you

We’ve worked hard to make sure we keep residents up to date and in the know about our services. We’ve updated many of our leaflets, all of which are available on Homes for Haringey notice boards inside Customer Services Centres.

Our magazine, Homes Zone, was developed with the help of residents and regularly features contributions from our readers.

Our website contains a substantial amount of information for residents and many services are available at the click of a button. For example, residents can request repairs online, pay their rent online , find out what works are planned for where they live or find out about getting involved online.

A committed organisation

In March, Homes for Haringey was awarded Investors in People accreditation. This is a great achievement for an organisation in its first year and demonstrates our level of commitment to improving housing services.

In his draft report, the Investors in people assessor wrote: Given the newness of the organisation, the commitment to, and delivery of, learning and development has been exceptional. Homes for Haringey combines a willingness to listen with a clear focus and drive to deliver improvement.

Changes to Housing Management

To improve our services to you, we’ve changed the way in which we manage your homes. We created two new specialised roles in Housing Management to make sure you get the best advice possible.

Housing Managers used to handle rent matters as well as any other problems residents were having with their tenancies or in the neighbourhoods. Now, instead of a Housing Manager, residents have an Income Collection Officer and a Tenancy Management Officer.

Income Collection Officers deal with the money side of matters for tenants. This can include arrears in rent, methods of rent payment or any other money issue.

Tenancy Management Officers handle issues that affect neighbourhoods or any other problems residents may have, such as antisocial behaviour, parking or complaints about services.

Empty homes

This year we’ve cleaned and repaired empty homes faster so new tenants can move in. This means we’ve reduced the number of empty council homes in the borough and the rent lost from them.

We’ve also introduced a number of service improvements, such as a revised letting standard . This has improved the standard of repair and cleanliness in the homes we let and 84% of new tenants feel their homes meet the standard.

We have a satisfaction survey for new tenants and more flexible arrangements for terminating tenancies. We’ve also worked closely with the council to introduce a choice-based letting scheme, Home Connections.