When the Tenant Services Authority inspected our services in summer 2010 they made some recommendations for improvement. Since then we have made some great progress and we are committed to further improvements.

Recommendation one:

Make sure the gas appliances in our customers' homes are safe

• 99.94% of our gas appliances now have an up to date safety certificate, we have a new policy and we have launched an awareness-raising campaign of the dangers of unsafe gas appliances via the Home Life magazine.
• Our customers are now safer in their homes because we know for the huge majority of our homes that the gas appliances are not posing any risks.

Recommendation two:

Improve customer access to services and information

• We know from feedback that customers feel our website has been greatly improved. It looks better, tells you more and is easier to navigate. Most of customers can now pay their rent online.
• Our new Customer and Client Service Centre is now up and running for some key services . We will continue to integrate further services and we plan to launch ‘one number to call’ for all enquiries sometime next year.

Recommendation three:

Improve the services we offer to all our customers, including diverse groups

• We have built on expertise already in the business. Training on safeguarding and sharing best practice across Stonham and customer service has helped improve our ability to support diverse groups across the whole business.
• We’ve raised awareness with colleagues of our translation service so they can ensure everyone can get the information they need.
• We know more about our customers through profiling and surveys. We use this information to make sure we are giving our customers what they want and need.  We now have profiling data for 100% of our customers (although this does include some refusals to provide information and some people who we’ve not been able to contact, about 20% fall into these categories). We are putting the information to good use. When we issued last month’s rent statements, for example, we printed 1600 copies in large print for those customers who had told us they wanted large print in their profiling questionnaire. 
• We are improving our systems to make it easier for colleagues to respond to individual needs.

Recommendation Four:

Improve value for money of our service

• We increased our leadership team’s knowledge and understanding of alue for money in the business. We have embedded it into the way we do things around here via our Value For Money Strategy (which was approved by our customers) and our operational planning tools. We reviewed the plans for each business and support unit to make sure that value for money could be evidenced in what we achieve in 2011/12.
• We are using customer data to inform budgeting. This year, we used the customer profiling data we’ve collated to support an increase in the disabled adaptations budget. Now we have more information on our customers we can make sure that those with the greatest need are helped first.

Recommendation Five:

Improve the repairs and gas servicing service

• The Short Notice Inspection (SNI) consultation, and further consultation since, highlights how important this was to our customers – it was one of the 3 top customer priorities that came out of the SNI consultation.
• Since October last year, we have started to offer appointments in the evenings and at weekends. From April next year we will have new contractors who offer two-hour appointments slots right across the business so customers will have more flexibility when they need repair or maintenance work.

Recommendation Six:

Improve customer involvement

• We have increased the number of communication and feedback channels. We now use text, email, post, website, customer magazine and local newsletters.
• Online Community – we are the first in the sector to launch our own online community. It will provide us with a permanent on-line advisory panel of engage with customers and clients and gain valuable insight. Anyone can sign up and get involved.
• We developed a ‘menu of involvement’ for customers and one for clients which gives everyone the chance to be involved at a variety of levels.
• We’ve established a National Customer Panel and regional Customer Viewpoint Teams, who help us make key decisions and check we are delivering what we promise.