Welcome to the Tenant Annual Report 2021/2022. This report is an opportunity for us to share with you how the Council’s Landlord services performed against the standards laid out by the Regulator of Social Housing.

Inside this report you will find information on how we performed, what we achieved and the challenges we faced during the year. 

We will be publishing our end-of-year video soon, so make sure you are following our Housing Facebook account so that you can be notified when it is released.

 

Foreword - Cllr Barbara Denning

It has been encouraging to see our service getting back to normal following the disruptions brought on by the Covid-19 lockdowns. Sadly, though, it appears that we are facing difficult times ahead. The emerging cost of living crisis, brought on by increases in inflation and the cost of fuel, will undoubtedly affect all of us in the coming years. Our housing service is currently working to understand the full impact of this crisis, and to find ways that we can support our tenants through this difficult time.

Despite the challenges on the horizon, this year we have a lot to be proud of.

We continued work on a significant project to install energy improvement measures to 220 of our properties. These works will help to ease the cost of fuel bills for some of our tenants.

We also completed a Survey of Tenants and Residents (STAR), which gave tenants the opportunity to provide feedback on their housing priorities. The results will help us shape our service and will allow us to benchmark ourselves against similar organisations. A huge thank you to those who completed the survey.

2021/2022 was also an exciting year for housing development. We completed construction on Exeter’s first social housing extra care scheme, and we recently welcomed the first tenants through the doors. Edwards Court contains 53 apartments and has been designed to Passivhaus

standards, which will result in lower heating costs for its occupants. We have plans to build hundreds more energy efficient new homes over the next ten years.

The content of this report acts as a year in review, and I hope that you find it interesting.

We are always looking to improve our service, and if you wish to provide feedback or suggestions about ways we can do so, please contact us online or call on 01392 277888.

 

Welcome - Deputy Chief Executive

Bindu Arjoon

Bindu Arjoon is the Deputy Chief Executive and has leadership responsibility for the Council’s Housing Service.

“I am proud of the achievements made in the past year, particularly following the disruptions caused by Covid-19. Providing the outstanding housing service that we aspire to deliver means putting tenants at the heart of our decision-making wherever we can, so I would like to thank my colleagues and our tenants on their work to improve our service and to help us make more informed decisions.”

 

Meet the team

Adrian Pengelly, Assistant Director of Housing, Housing Assets

The Assets Service area consists of 39 Staff covering the following areas:

Response Repairs (including Voids) Day-to-day repairs on both let and void properties

• Planned and Cyclical Maintenance
• Planned improvements to properties
• Health, Safety and Compliance
• General Health & Safety management and safety inspections
• Asset Management and Development
• Stock condition surveys and new build housing

 

Lawrence Blake, Assistant Director of Housing, Housing Tenancy Services

The Tenancy Services area consist of 43 members of staff covering the following areas:

• Income generation
• Tenancy and neighbourhood Management
• Resident involvement and community engagement
• Lettings and Leasehold
• I.T. System - Administration of the in-house computer system and mobile working
• Performance and Policy