Housing Services - our service standards and performance

Housing Services, what you can expect from us

Rent collection

Team responsible – Income Team
Contact information – Tel: 01582 546620 
 [email protected]

We will:

• make sure you understand your responsibility to pay your rent on time and offer advice when you sign up for a tenancy
• give you at least 28 days notice of any changes to your rent
• send you rent statements twice a year
• contact you within 14 days if you get into rent arrears
• offer debt advice and refer you to other agencies that can help you
• visit you to discuss any problems before taking legal action for non-payment of rent

If you have any enquiries about your former temporary accommodation account, please contact the Former Debt Team on 01582 548050.

Please note:

• your former debts may cause you to be suspended from the choice based letting bidding system
• the debt will not go away, the earlier you deal with it the better
• making arrangement towards your former debt is easy, speak with a Recovery Officer on 01582 548050

Choice Based Lettings

• check and acknowledge you application
• notify you of your priority in writing within 10 working days
• issue you with a PIN and user ID so you can bid for properties
• provide a number of options to enable you to bid for properties
• assist you with the bidding process if you need it
• contact successful bidders within five working days of the advert closing

Anti-social behaviour

• contact you within one working day of your report for serious anti-social behaviour
• contact you within three working days of your report for all other nuisance and anti-social behaviour
• allocate a named officer to your case
• keep in regular touch with you at least every fortnight whilst your case is in progress
• work in partnership with residents and other agencies to resolve your complaint

Your tenancy

• offer you an accompanied viewing
• explain your rights and responsibilities as a tenant before you sign up
• carry out a new tenancy visit within eight weeks of the tenancy starting
• ask you how you felt about the process of starting your tenancy

• acknowledge requests for tenancy changes within five working days and send a full response within 15 working days
• keep you informed about changes to our service
• carry out a periodic tenancy audit of your home to check our records are correct and that you are complying with your tenancy conditions

• acknowledge your notice to end the tenancy within 24 hours
• visit to inspect your home within five working days

Housing estate team

• clean communal areas in high rise blocks daily and in low rise blocks fortnightly
• cut the communal grass areas regularly from spring until autumn
• litter pick the communal areas around high rise blocks five days a week and low rise blocks fortnightly
• remove fly-tipped rubbish from our land within 2 working days of it being reported to us
• remove offensive graffiti within one working day and other graffiti within 5 working days of it being reported
• remove abandoned vehicles in line with legislation
• inspect high rise blocks five days a week and low rise blocks fortnightly
• offer you the opportunity to become a key customer

Repairs and servicing

• carry out an annual safety check and service of your gas supply and council installed appliances (where applicable)
• ensure all vacant properties are quickly returned back into service, according to our Lettable Standard
• maintain our properties in line with Decent Homes standards
• carry out responsive repairs, based on their severity, within the following timescales:
• emergency – within one hour to twenty-four hours
• urgent – within five working days
• routine – within 30 working days
• arrange an appointment to carry out the work when you report the work
• give you at least 15 days notice of major works to your property and consult with leaseholders in advance on all major works

For more information please click on the button below:

Repairs and servicing

Comments, compliments and complaints

If we have not met these standards, or you are not happy with the service you have received from us, we want to know. This helps us to improve the service we provide. You can contact the relevant team to discuss the problem, or you can report the issue online using the comments, compliments and complaints form.

Performance

We can only know how well we are delivering our service if we measure our performance against standards. We have several teams who do this – including council officers, council tenants and council leaseholders. These reports can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

Each year we provide a report for tenants that tells how we have performed over the past 12 months. It includes, amongst other things, how we spent the rent that you pay, how your rent compares to other housing landlords, and how we are doing on repairs. These reports can be viewed via the link at the bottom of this page.

• How we are performing