Residents' Forum

Ashburton Triangle Residents Association has a place on the residents forum, which is a regular session for Newlon senior staff to present to residents and take on board feedback. Below are notes from latest meetings

Notes from Meeting 07/02/2024

Resident Engagement Progress Update

• • The resident involvement team presented their resident engagement strategy. This has been co-designed with residents and has also involved various groups of residents.

  • The most complex cross departmental buildings (like Ashburton Triangle) are now handled via a residents tracker, which is co-designed with the residents association and owned by the Newlon department with the most issues associated to them.

  • Recruitment of key positions now have residents sitting on the panel.

  • Residents' Voice is a new platform that takes short resident pieces and gives them direct access to the board.

  • Training of resident representatives on legislation and Newlon policies and strategies, including via Bite Size Guides that are open to all residents.

Governance & Strategy

• Newlon are planning to make the residents Forum (of which Ashburton Triangle is a part) a formal part of Newlon's governance structure.

• More detail will be shared in a meeting in April.

• Residents Forum members were surveyed at the end of last year, and responses are currently being reviewed with a view to being improved upon.

Scrutiny

• Latest scrutiny panel on complaints is awaiting a mystery shopping exercise. 

• Next scrutiny panel will be repairs, which will include representation from Ashburton Triangle.

Complaints

• Newlon finds that the levels of complaints have remained fairly consistent, and are largely related to repairs and estates

• Around 15% of complaints are escalated to stage 2, most relating to repairs.

• Around 45% of complaints that have reached the ombudsman over the last year have resulted in findings of mal-administration (5 findings), though there have been more findings in January and it is unclear why this is the case.

• The ombudsman has been producing spotlight reports on regular issues which are being provided to Housing Associations.

ASB/ Noise

• Team deal with ASB, no-access, and investigations.

• For noise complaints there is an app that Newlon will send residents, and there is new equipment that they are starting to use to investigate issues.

• Types of legal action that can be taken are: Injunctions, arrest (if injunctions are breached), exclusion orders. possession of property. Injunctions can be done without notice and are usually granted in a couple of days, but due to court delays repossession can take 6-8 months.

• Have resolved 13 cases, one through the court. 12 tenants have returned keys prior to court cases. One of those was an AirBnB in ashburton triangle. A leaseholders in Ashburton Triangle is also being taken to court as they have refused to take the property down.

• Have undertaken mediation between households recently which is a new process.

• Satisfaction is generally up on ASB cases, this is based on post-action surveys.

• If there is police action in a building, the police will not usually tell Newlon or concierge. If the concierge is aware of it then they will inform the ASB team about it.

Notes from Meeting 22/02/2023

New Repairs Team

• • Generally quite impressive, and was clear they understood repairs to date have been pretty awful.

  • Noted that cyclical works (redecoration) have suffered due to compliance works like fire remediation. There seem to be a LOT of buildings that are waiting for cyclical works.

  • They are prioritising blocks with healthy sinking funds to avoid charging leaseholds large amounts out of pocket. This should benefit hopefully us.

  • For blocks with leaseholders they will generally hire a consultant for cyclical works.

Wates

• • New lead from Wates was equally impressive. Equally honest about prior failings.

  • They are aiming to improve the services.

  • One example they gave of improvements is that they have now got the window contractor to pre-order and bring window handles to Ashburton Triangle jobs so that they can make instant fixes if that is the problem. 

Board updates

• • Rent was brought up. It was noted that it's a difficult issue, and the board understand how much of an issue this is for residents. 

  • Question about rent in terms of cyclical works. Newlon takes a proportion of money to go towards planned maintenance, cyclical works and urgent repairs, fire doors. Around 20% of budget goes towards maintenance, and a large amount of money is currently going onto remediation where it can't be claimed from the government. A lot of the rent goes towards new development to provide new homes. The annual accounts give a clear breakdown.

Resident Engagement Strategy

• • Miles' joining last summer has led to a radical review due to the cost of living challenge and regulatory environment. 

  • There has been a big reorganisation of the resident services team

  • Some new resident focussed things planned by 2026: including

    • A resident involved on every recruitment panel for resident facing roles in housing and building services

    • Significant improved satisfaction scores with top quartile performance.

  • 4 Key objectives of the new strategy:

    • Co-designing your services with us (involving residents in activities)

    • You say; we listen, we do (carrying out more consultations)

    • Your voices amplified (residents on boards and overseeing issues)

    • It's your resident engagement strategy (the strategy was designed by residents and will be assessed by residents)

Cost of Living Support

• It was noted that the hardship fund is still ongoing, giving out around 8.5k a month for things like pre-payment meters, school uniforms or urgent purchases, and residents who are struggling should look at how that can be used. https://www.newlon.org.uk/cost-of-living-support/