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Annual Report 2018–19
Game instructions:
- Click on the Start square to begin by watching a short introduction from our chief executive Sarah Boden.
- Work your way around the board, clicking on squares to reveal playing cards with more information.
- You can also click on squares to read blogs and watch short films about our work.
Start
Development
We spent £20.7 million building or acquiring 168 homes.
All homes were built to be affordable with 43 of them allocated for shared ownership.
Developments included 77 homes in Shropshire, 52 in Telford & Wrekin and 39 in South Staffordshire.
100% of customers said they were satisfied with their new-build home.
For every £1 we invested in the building of new homes, the social return for the local area was up to £8.54. This equated to a staggering £176 million last year.
Income
The total value of rent collected over the last year was £56,853,080.
Rent arrears in Shropshire were 1.18% against target of 2.5%.
Rent arrears in Staffordshire were 1.72% against target of 2.5%.
Rent arrears of £805,110 were outstanding from current tenants.
Rent arrears of £404,898 were outstanding from former tenants.
Jan Goode
Customer support
Our support helped customers secure £1,926,389 in additional income.
420 customers were supported by the employment and money advice team, helping them to reduce debt, maximise income and budget efficiently.
Our debt counselling service helped customers make savings totalling £71,888.
Customers’ savings included £20,227 in water bills and other utilities.
We helped 105 customers back into work, training, volunteering and education.
Access to the internet and over 3,000 customer support sessions were provided at our Digital Dens in Shropshire.
3,609 people attended our training programmes, including 1-2-1 support, job clubs and work placements.
22 people gained learning certificates through the Digital Dens and 176 achieved City & Guilds qualifications.
26 young people received life skills support through work with the Prince’s Trust and Wolverhampton College.
We helped 14 people secure employment.
We used National Lottery and European funding to help 186 people get into work, education, training or volunteering.
Scrutiny panel
Our finances
Income for 2018–19
| £’000s | |
|---|---|
| Rent net of voids | 51,262 |
| Other social housing activities | 5,590 |
| Service charges | 3,368 |
| Non-social housing activities | 1,556 |
| Surplus on disposal of properties | 1,410 |
| Amortised grant income | 685 |
| Other income | 92 |
| Interest on balances | 32 |
| Surplus on disposal of other fixed assets | 2 |
| Total | 63,997 |
Expenditure for 2018–19
| £’000s | |
|---|---|
| Housing management | 16,526 |
| Interest paid | 15,511 |
| Impairment and depreciation (properties) | 10,373 |
| Planned repairs and maintenance | 8,687 |
| Other social housing activities | 6,031 |
| Routine repairs and maintenance | 3,772 |
| Decrease in valuation of investment properties | 516 |
| Non-social housing activities | 354 |
| Bad debts | 209 |
| Total | 61,979 |
Customer involvement
42 customers have been recruited to give regular feedback through our Let’s Talk work.
The customer-led scrutiny panel volunteered 252 hours of their time to give feedback on our services.
2,549 surveys were carried out to get customers’ views on our services.
Allocations
907 new tenancy agreements were signed.
94.3% of tenants sustained their tenancy for more than 12 months.
817 empty properties were returned to a lettable standard.
Louise Wagstaff
Customer services
We answered 142,467 calls from our customers.
75% of queries were resolved in a single contact.
88% of customers were satisfied with the service provided at our call centre.
9,380 customers visited our reception in Shrewsbury.
Retirement living
Our people
We employ 668 people.
Our colleagues completed over 12,000 hours of training.
We raised £1,136 for Mind, the mental health charity.
Retirement living
We have 35 retirement living communities.
1,633 people live in our retirement living communities.
92% of customers said they are happy with our retirement living communities.
We invested nearly £2 million into our retirement living communities.
For every pound invested into retirement living, the social benefits add up to £11.01. This means an amazing £22 million during the year.
Benefits have included over 7,000 well-being activities; comprising bingo, lunch clubs, coffee mornings and exercise classes that were organised in our retirement living communities and extra care schemes.
58,416 people attended our well being activities.
We helped 791 customers maintain their independence in Shropshire through our support service.
Domiciliary care
The number of care hours we delivered increased from 62,366 to 135,621.
100% of customers were happy with the care and support we provide.
We provided around 2,700 hours of domiciliary care every week.
Les Clarke
Responsive repairs
We spent over £21 million repairing, improving and maintaining homes.
We completed over 25,182 repairs.
More than 4,400 emergency repairs were carried out.
Triage team
Our future
Housing Plus Group and Stafford and Rural Homes are to merge, creating an influential housing, care and property group for Staffordshire and Shropshire.
The combined group — including Severnside Housing and South Staffordshire Housing Association — will own and manage around 18,000 homes. Providing employment, training and apprenticeships for 800 local people, the group will have an annual turnover of almost £100m.
The new merged group will launch on 1 October 2019.
Planned maintenance
372 new kitchens were fitted.
631 new bathrooms were installed.
We spent £4.4 million improving kitchens and bathrooms.
63 homes were rewired.
694 new boilers were installed.
504 new doors were hung.
70 new wet rooms were installed.
We carried out 12,996 safety checks including electrical, gas servicing and fire risk assessments.
Performance
93% of customers were happy with the repair service they received.
94.9% of responsive repairs were completed within target.
99% of customers were happy with our MOT scheme - planned maintenance which takes place a neighbourhood at a time.
Stephen Collins
Severn Homes
Severn Homes operates as a commercial company within the Group, providing homes for outright sale. The brand is also used to market our quality, affordable shared ownership and market rent properties.
It enables us to respond to housing need and the aspirations of our customers with revenue received from the sale of homes, along with the income from the market rent properties, helping to subsidise the provision of more affordable housing.
The Severn Homes brand was also used to help secure land in Perton, Staffordshire for the building of 220 new homes.
Please click on the next square to watch a film about this exciting development.