Being open and honest

In April, we started working in a more localised way, with our people and services centred around our neighbourhoods and communities.

Our housing and property specialists are now part of ‘locality’ teams, with each team focusing on specific locations across our geography. Accountable for helping us create places people are proud to live in, our teams deliver for our customers, their homes and communities.

This localised approach means we have a more visible presence and are able to proactively engage with customers and partners in person. Every week, teams meet to look through their priorities and to discuss any concerns, so they can establish the best ways to serve our customers.

A strong example of the benefits of working in localities came up in May - our Isle of Wight localities team jumped into action when a cooker fire broke out in a customer’s flat. Thankfully our customer wasn’t hurt but we worked closely with them and external partners to make sure they received the right support. 

In less than an hour of the fire being reported, our Fire Safety and Compliance team attended, an electrician checked and made safe all the electrics and fire alarm, we notified the customer’s next of kin and raised a safeguarding alert to the local authority.

Our localities model meant we were able to respond quickly, working together in a close-knit team to make fast decisions.

Proposed merger

We’ve been busy consulting with customers about our proposed merger with Network Homes. 

By the end of June, over 5,000 of you had responded with your views. The consultation period is now closed and you can see a summary of the results here.

Other highlights of this quarter

• We celebrated the coronation of King Charles, giving out £5,100 in grants to support 19 community events  
• We worked with partners to launch a new £1.2m social action programme for young housing association residents, 
• We launched a new £240k fund to help young islanders live independently 
• We partnered with social enterprise Your Own Home to help prevent homelessness 

We’re also continuing to update our cost of living page with local and national support, plus information on our services and ways to save money.

Customer Transformation Programme

We have a wide programme of activities focused on improving the overall service experience for our customers. We’re looking at many things, including repairs, gardening and service charges.  

For repairs, the overall aim is to make the repairs experience as easy and effortless as possible, by improving day-to-day service and introducing new features like video assessments. Our ultimate aim is to provide a self-service experience, where customers can see a calendar of availability and book in their repair at a convenient time.  

We’ll update you in our next quarterly report about how our Customer Transformation Programme is progressing.

Respecting our teams

All our teams are expected to act professionally and respectfully when working with customers, and we aim to make any type of contact with us easy and straightforward. In return, we ask the same of our customers, so that we can provide as good a service as possible. 

Sadly, we have seen an increase in our teams reporting abusive behaviour from some customers. While we understand that there are many pressures on people at the moment, we won’t tolerate abuse. We take any reports from our teams very seriously and will take action where needed. If you have any concerns you feel may be affecting how you interact with our teams and think we might be able to help, please always let us know.

Service stats – how we’re performing

Customer engagement

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) - Our customer-led Scrutiny Coordination Group has been scrutinising how we respond to damp and mould. The group is due to the publish the results of the scrutiny in early September, so we’ll update you in our next quarterly report.  

Merger consultation - Our Customer Engagement, Localities and Corporate Affairs team worked together to run two merger consultation events in June – one in the Isle of Wight and one in Basingstoke. 43 customers attended, getting the opportunity to meet their Locality team and learn more about our merger plans.

New tenant satisfaction measures

We have been measuring our performance against the new Tenant Satisfaction Measures   (TSMs) since April 2023.  The TSMs allow tenants to see how well their landlord is doing and helps landlords understand what they can do better.

The primary measure is ‘Overall Satisfaction’, which is gathered by the following question: Taking everything into account, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the service provided by Sovereign?

Overall satisfaction for Sovereign customers was 67% in quarter 1, against a target of 72%. Recent improvements in our Customer Service Management Centre performance is driving satisfaction, with tenants complimenting us for being easy to contact and quick to answer the phone. 

The main cause of dissatisfaction was delays to responsive repairs. To address this, our Property team is focused on reducing response times and has developed a new reporting dashboard, which is already being used to identify improvements. 

In addition to improving day-to-day performance, several enhancements are being made to the repairs service, including the use of video triage for boiler repairs and the introduction of self-help video repair guides   for customers.

Customer service

Between April and June 2023, our Customer Service Manager Centre has made great strides in improving how long customers wait to hear back from us.

In quarter ones, wait times were:

• Phone: 30 seconds vs 2 minute target
• Email: 18 hours 3 minutes vs 48 hour target
• Social media: 56 minutes vs 1 hour target
• Webchat: 15 seconds (No target as it’s a new channel)

And our post telephone call survey results were a great 4.23 out of 5 vs our 4 out of 5 target.

Localities

Our Homes and Place and Property Service teams are working closely to provide customers across our localities with better places. Our teams are out and about in our communities, creating strong relationships and seeing what benefit they can bring.

One area they look at is anti-social behaviour (ASB). ASB can have a devastating effect on people’s lives, which is why we link in with the police and other organisations when necessary. 

To help continually improve our response to ASB, we are currently looking at the possibility of:

• Doing localised reassurance texts to those actively affected by ASB cases.
• Having an ASB phone triage, with the aspiration that customers will be able to speak with someone with ASB experience as soon as they call in. These specialists will empower customers by clearly explaining whether something is or isn’t ASB and signposting to further support where necessary. 
• Improving ASB data logging in our systems.
• Managing noise cases differently. Depending on what the noise is, we’d deal with some under ASB and others under neighbourhood and tenancy management. 
• Remodelling our approach to mediation.
• Using instant text or email feedback surveys rather than calls.

We’ll update you on progress in our next quarterly report.

Fantastic partner feedback 

One of our Localities Officer and our Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) Officer received praise from one of our local council for their work dealing with ASB. 

"Great piece of work connecting with the council and resolving the street gang problem in the area. It showed great partnership working with the Community safety team, dealing with customers both involved and impacted by the issues in the community.” 

Communities

Between April and June 2023, our Communities team has been developing new services, with more announcements on what’s available to support our localities due to be announced over the coming months. Within Communities, we focus on community investment, employment and skills, digital and financial inclusion, social value and funding and partnerships.

Key highlights in quarter one included:

• supporting 52 community organisations to grow their capacity to deliver services in our localities
• 3,843 engagements with our team, partners and initiatives
• awarding 10 projects grants to provide youth social action support under our #iWill programme

Lettings and development

Between April and June 2023:

1. We completed 335 new homes, 301 of which were affordable.
2. 82 shared ownership   homes were sold, with an average equity of 40.6%.
3. We completed 741 lets: 518 re-lets of existing homes and 223 lets to newly developed homes.

We completed 62 mutual exchanges  .

Fantastic customer feedback:

Our Development team oversaw the construction of five fully adapted homes in Somerset. The council’s occupational therapist said:

“Just wanted to share this morning’s viewings with you – two delighted new tenants, one of which stated ‘my life begins again today’.

“The impact of everything - from the new build policy, to the huge attention to detail and lessons learned on phase 2 [of the development] - is immense and I just wanted to thank you and your teams for making this possible for five local families."

Tenancy support

Between April and June 2023:

• Our Customer Income Advisors took 578 referrals.
• They also closed 655 cases, with 556 (84.89%) engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience.
• We supported 455 customers with their Universal Credit claims.
• We referred 49 customers to local money partners to support them with debt advice and explore their options.

Maintaining our homes and neighbourhoods

Between April and June 2023:

1. 62,000 response repairs were raised in quarter 1 which was 10% more than the same period last year – approximately 42,000 were routine, 20,000 were emergency and out of hours.
2. The 1st quarter has seen us fit 165 new kitchens and 117 new bathrooms.
3. We’ve replaced 468 boilers and installed air source heat pump heating to 40 homes.
4. A further 285 homes have had new windows, 354 have had new doors, and 151 homes have had new roofs.
5. We completely rewired 37 properties and added new electric heating installations to 35 others. 

Fantastic customer feedback:

"I would like to compliment your builder on his cleanliness, his amazing work and work ethic and to say what an amazing job he has done!"

Sovereign website

We are continually finding ways to provide digital services our customers want to use. Virtual assistant and web chat are recent tools we’ve added to our website to help answers your questions faster.

In quarter one:

• 1,320 questions were responded to by our Virtual Assistant 
• 618 webchats were activated
• 28,400 users were registered on MySovereign , where you can pay your rent, report your repairs, amongst many other things.

In the first three months of the year, we were busy getting ready to launch our new localities model .

This new way of working means that, from April 2023, we have ten locally-based teams who provide quality services that are really easy to use, accessible and delivered right first time, every time by people who care.

Our centralised Customer Service Management Centre will work alongside these teams.

Our localities areas are:

Oxford | Newbury & Reading | North Hampshire & Surrey | South Hampshire | Isle of Wight | Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (BCP) | Dorset | Devon | Bristol & Gloucester | Wiltshire

In March, we were very excited to welcome members of our Youth panel to Sovereign House. They worked alongside our Communities team to decide which projects in our communities would be given grants from the Sovereign #iwill Fund to support youth social action.

Below are some highlights of our performance between January 2023 and March 2023 (Quarter 4) on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

Communities

We increased our support to customers and communities as part of our Customer Support Fund and saw a significant increase in demand in particular for our financial inclusion services.

1. We secured £1,748,762 of external funding to extend our reach and impact in communities.
2. 55,000 people benefitted from our community grants programme.
3. We generated over £19,584,744 of social impact.
4. We supported 168 community groups.
5. We also supported 52 residents to get into work or better work, with another 172 training outcomes completed.
6. We helped our residents make savings of £142,206.
7. We made 1,321 fuel poverty interventions with customers needing help with their heating.
8. We enabled 108 digital support interventions and supported 124 customers to get online.

Customer engagement

Resident training

We worked alongside TPAS to offer bespoke training to our engaged customer groups.

2 February | Effective Challenging

16 customers attend in total:

• 8 from our Resident and Board Partnership
• 6 from our Scrutiny Coordination Group
• 2 from our Youth Panel

9 March | Performance Data

13 customers attended in total:

• 6 from our Resident and Board Partnership
• 5 from our Scrutiny Coordination Group
• 2 from our Youth Panel

Engaged customers also attended:

February | End to end repairs quick wins sessions

We held three sessions, with 23 engaged customers attending.

3 March | #iwill Voting Day

Three members of our Youth Panel visited Sovereign House to vote on applications for round two of the Sovereign #iwill Fund.

They also shadowed the Contact Centre and speaking with seven members of staff across the business.

Localities Deep Dive

Nine engaged customer attended a Deep Dive, looking at our new Localities model.

Lettings and Development

Tenancy support

1. We completed 507 new homes, 480 of which were affordable.  
2. 94 shared ownership homes were sold, with an average equity of 44%.  
3. We let 792 homes: 582 re-let homes and 264 new build homes we let for the first time. 
4. We completed 135 mutual exchanges. 

Maintaining our homes and neighbourhoods

1. 81,800 response repairs were raised which was 11% more than the same period last year – approximately 59,700 were routine, 22,100 were emergency and out of hours. 
2. Repairs satisfaction was at 86.6%. 
3. The third quarter has seen us fit 184 new kitchens and 160 new bathrooms. 
4. We’ve replaced 479 boilers and installed air source heat pump heating to 59 homes. 
5. A further 196 homes have had new windows, 537 have had new doors, and 200 homes have had new roofs.  
6. We completely rewired 55 properties and added new electric heating installations to 162 others. 
7. We insourced grounds maintenance for over 7,000 properties across Oxfordshire and Basingstoke, after great feedback from customers when we insourced the service in Berkshire. 

Customer service

1. New complaint volumes increased 30% from quarter 3, to 1,932. Themes mostly centre around quality of delivery, communication and time. 
2. Satisfaction with complaint handling rose from quarter 3 to 43%. 

New tenant satisfaction measures

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) confirmed that new ‘tenant satisfaction measures’ (TSM) come into effect in April 2023. 

These measures are designed to let tenants see how well their landlord is doing and give an idea of which landlords might need to make improvements. 

This means we will need to measure our performance against them, as a member of the RSH. The measurements cover social rented homes, with some also relating to shared ownership properties. 

We had already been planning for the TSMs and changed some of the perception questions we ask our residents in readiness for what we thought the TSMs would be. 

We now only need to make some minor changes – read the 22 satisfaction measures we need to measure against and what changes we need to make to our current perception questions . 

If you have any questions about TSMs, please email contact@sovereign.org.uk 

Inflation continued to rise in October 2022, peaking at 11.1% before ending the year at 10.5%.

We’re continuing to update our cost of living page  with local and national support, plus information on our services, tips to keep you and your home warm, and ways to save money.

Below are some highlights of our performance between October 2022 and December 2022 (Quarter 3) on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

• 74,700 response repairs were raised – approximately 50,600 were routine, 24,100 were emergency and out of hours.
• Repairs satisfaction was at 90%.
• We let 799 homes: 483 re-let homes and 316 new build homes we let for the first time.
• We completed 140 mutual exchanges.
• The third quarter has seen us fit 168 new kitchens and another 125 getting new bathrooms.
• We’ve replaced 345 boilers and installed air source heat pump heating to 73 homes.
• A further 176 homes have had new windows and 568 have had new doors, with 71 homes getting new roofs.
• We completed 1,451 Neighbourhood Standard Inspections – in Q3 we began recording data differently, which is why the number of inspections appears higher than Q2.
• Our Tenancy Support Advisors took 591 referrals. They also closed 405 cases, with 443 (80.63%) engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience.
• We supported 405 customers with their Universal Credit claims.
• We referred 67 customers to local money partners to support them with debt advice and explore their options.
• We also supported 70 residents to get into work or better work, with another 357 training outcomes completed.
• We supported 55 community groups and engaged with 2,145 people across our community development projects.
• We also helped our residents make savings of £86,818.08.
• We enabled 360 digital support interventions and supported 202 customers to get online.
• We co-created 5 environmental projects and 15 new neighbourhood events.
• We secured £183,796 of external funding to extend our reach and impact in communities.
• We generated over £19m of social impact.
• Overall customer satisfaction, as measured using our STAR survey, remained relatively stable at 70.7%.
• Complaint volumes continued to rise (1,471), in line with an increase in complaints across the sector as a whole.
• Satisfaction with complaint handling fell slightly to 38.4%.
• Phase 1 of the transformation of our complaints service continued to confirm that our case management approach to resolving complaints is proving effective.

Highlights of our performance

Customer engagement

We worked with customers to map the journey of our planned works service for kitchens, bathrooms, and windows:

• 14 Sovereign staff involved in four interactive workshops.
• 175 customers gave their feedback on their experiences.
• 25 ways to action the recommendations for the proposed changes.

We received the final report of the engagement review done by external company Connectives, which showed:

• 11 key findings highlighting areas of focus.
• Six areas of recommendations for change, with a focus on four suggested goals. We will review how to take these forward.

We recruited for a new Chair of the Resident and Board Partnership – we received 17 applications of interest, with Ruth Picknett-Powell  being successfully appointed after an interview process.

We also recruited for new members of the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) and Scrutiny Coordination Group:

• 70 applications received for RBP and 43 for SCG.
• We held three selections events and successfully appointed three new members for the RBP and two new members for the SCG.

New tenant satisfaction measures

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) recently confirmed that new ‘tenant satisfaction measures’ (TSM)  will come into effect in April 2023.

These measures are designed to let tenants see how well their landlord is doing and give an idea of which landlords might need to make improvements.

This means we will need to measure our performance against them, as a member of the RSH. The measurements cover social rented homes, with some also relating to shared ownership properties.

We had already been planning for the TSMs and changed some of the perception questions we ask our residents in readiness for what we thought the TSMs would be.

We now only need to make some minor changes – read the 22 satisfaction measures we need to measure against and what changes we need to make to our current perception questions .

If you have any questions about TSMs, please email contact@sovereign.org.uk

Inflation rose to 10.1% in September 2022, its highest rate since the early 80s. Increasing food prices have been a big factor in the increase, with pasta costing nearly 60% more  than it did in September last year.

We understand that this will be putting more pressure on your finances, which have also been impacted by rising fuel costs.

That’s why we’ve published our Cost of living support page.

It has information on:

• Government and energy company financial support
• Our services and support (including employment and training, grants)
• Tips to keep you and your home warm
• Ways to save or make money on shopping

Please share this with anyone you think will find it useful.

Below are some highlights of our performance between July 2022 and September 2022 on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

Services and support

• 55,000 response repairs were raised – approximately 40,000 were routine, 15,000 were emergency and out of hours.
• Repairs satisfaction was at 89%.
• We let 792 homes: 513 re-let homes and 279 new build homes we let for the first time.
• We completed 133 mutual exchanges.
• The second quarter has seen us fit 169 homes with new kitchens and another 120 getting new bathrooms.
• We’ve replaced 540 boilers and installed air source heat pump heating to 75 homes.
• A further 160 homes have had new windows and 450 have had new doors, with 100 homes getting new roofs.
• In August we asked over 170 customers to tell us what it was like having a recently installed new kitchen, bathroom or windows in their home. The overall feedback has been instrumental in helping Sovereign understand the customer’s perspective when receiving these services from Sovereign.
• We completed 703 Neighbourhood Standard Inspections and carried out 58 neighbourhood improvements across our estates.
• Our Tenancy Support Advisors took 568 referrals.
• They also closed 545 cases, with 457 (83.85%) engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience.
• We supported 406 customers with their Universal Credit claims.
• We referred 88 customers to local money partners to support them with debt advice and explore their options.
• We also supported 100 residents to get into work or better work, with another 205 training outcomes completed.
• We supported 73 community groups and engaged with 1,083 people across our community development projects.
• We helped 10 people with tailored digital support. We also provided 57 with devices to get online and 35 with digital training.
• We also helped our residents make savings of £58,590.77.
• We now have just over 23,000 MySovereign users.
• Since our Virtual Assistant went live at the end of January, it’s helped with 3,763 enquiries.
• Our new web chat, which launched in June, has been used 525 times.
• Our STAR survey showed overall satisfaction was at 72.5%.
• Complaint volumes remained high (1,386) but at the same levels as the previous quarter with satisfaction increasing to 42.1%.
• The transformation of our complaints service continues but the changes we put in place in phase one are showing evidence that our case management approach to resolving complaints is proving effective.

Role of residents

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG)

The Scrutiny Coordination Group’s investigation into Sovereign’s responsive repairs service continues. In the final phase the group has been speaking with customers who’ve recently had a repair about their experience. Their voices will be incorporated into the final report due at the end of the year.

Scrutiny Coordination Group members have also been out and about talking about their work: Chair, Paula Grebot spoke at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s South West conference in Bristol; member Kelly Long attended the Tpas Scrutiny Conference in Nottingham and took part in the ‘scrutiny showcase’ talking about the group’s work with other delegates; Ebony Taylorson spoke at a launch event for Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s new approach to resident scrutiny.

Engagement review

We have been reviewing how we engaged with residents.

Key questions for the review are:

• Is the ‘triangle of engagement’ still fit for purpose?
• Rewarding our engaged residents - what good practice is out there for us to consider?
• How do we broaden our engagement approach to make it more diverse and widen the reach to hear our customers?

So far, we’ve done:

• 1-2-1s with over 20 key colleagues and Board members
• Three workshops with customers, both face to face and online

Recruitment for Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) Chair and RBP and Scrutiny Coordination Group members

Over the last few months, we have been actively looking to recruit for our panels, as well as Joyce Ward’s replacement as Chair of the RBP.

We have had 17 applications for the Chair role, 70 for the RBP and 43 for the SCG. New members will be appointed in the following months.

Day in the Life

Over the last quarter, engaged residents heard about the ‘Day in the Life’ of a locality officer. Members found it really useful and an eye opener as to what locality officers had to deal and the importance of their role.

Residents' conference, by the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP)

After a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, our 2022 engaged residents’ conference took place on Saturday 18 July at Sovereign House in Basingstoke.

The conference brought together residents from the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) and Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) and other involved residents.

There were many workshops and information sharing opportunities between Sovereign employees and residents. This included workshops from the Customer Contact, Scheduling and Communities teams, and sessions on our Homes and Place Standard.

The day really highlighted the value of resident engagement – see the highlights here.

Youth Panel

Our Youth panel is the voice for our younger residents. In July the group met in Bristol to attend a day’s training with Acorn. This included learning about the Principles of Community Organising. Members Jack and Emily also took part in scoring the first applications from the #iwill project.

Emily said “Being part of the #iWill applications assessing process was a challenging, but insightful experience. It was definitely worth getting involved, knowing I am actively making a small difference.” 

The group has also been working on submitting their Asdan training booklets where they will receive accreditation for their volunteering within the Youth panel.

New tenant satisfaction measures

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) recently confirmed that new ‘tenant satisfaction measures’ (TSM) will come into effect in April 2023.

These measures are designed to let tenants see how well their landlord is doing and give an idea of which landlords might need to make improvements.

This means we will need to measure our performance against them, as a member of the RSH. The measurements cover social rented homes, with some also relating to shared ownership properties.

We had already been planning for the TSMs and changed some of the perception questions we ask our residents in readiness for what we thought the TSMs would be.

We now only need to make some minor changes – read the 22 satisfaction measures we need to measure against and what changes we need to make to our current perception questions .

If you have any questions about TSMs, please email contact@sovereign.org.uk

After a difficult first few months of 2022, it was wonderful to be able to put our worries to one side to dive into an extended bank holiday, where we celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

From marmalade sandwiches to a special concert outside Buckingham Palace, thousands of events and street parties took place - we contributed £6,500 Amazon vouchers to residents and community groups to help them bring people together to celebrate this historical moment.

However, despite this joyous occasion, we do understand it’s still a hard time for many of you, with the cost of living continuing to rise and energy price caps increasing.

Please take a look at our advice and guides pages – you’ll find everything from money, jobs and debt support, to benefits guidance and ways you can look for a new home if you want to move. Please get in touch if you’re struggling.

Below are some highlights of our performance between April 2022 and June 2022 on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

Services and support

• Repairs satisfaction was at 87% as we continued to catch up on non-urgent repairs and were also affected by national labour shortages and supply of some materials.
• Positive feedback from our customers continues following the insourcing of Grounds Maintenance in Berkshire. Work to prepare for insourcing of Grounds Maintenance across Oxfordshire and Hampshire remains on track
• We let 770 homes: 564 re-let homes and another 206 new homes we let for the first time.
• We completed 144 mutual exchanges.
• We completed nearly 57,700 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• In the first quarter we’ve made a good start to the new financial year with 160 homes getting new kitchens and another 103 getting new bathrooms.
• A further 200 homes have had new windows and 250 have had new entrance doors, with 70 homes getting new roofs.
• We completed 3,303 Neighbourhood Standard Inspections and carried out 11 neighbourhood improvements across our estates.
• We supported 449 customers with Universal Credit claims and issues.
• We supported 47 people with aging well projects and services and 80 residents to get into work or better work. Residents also completed another 334 training outcomes. 
• We supported 47 people with aging well projects and services
• We also supported 80 residents to get into work or better work, with another 334 training outcomes completed.
• We supported 76 community groups and engaged with 2,634 people across our community development projects.
• We helped 194 people with tailored digital support, like providing 69 with devices to get online and 125 with digital training.
• We also helped our residents make savings of £94,825.69.
• In June we switched to monthly STAR surveys and our overall satisfaction was maintained at 69%.
• Repairs satisfaction increased to 89%, despite continued high demand for services and national labour shortages.
• Complaint volumes remained high (1,276) but at the same levels as the previous quarter with satisfaction increasing to 41%.
• Work continued on our complaints service transformation, with Phase 1 launch scheduled for late July.

Role of residents

Residents' conference, by the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP)

After a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, our 2022 engaged residents’ conference took place on Saturday 18 July at Sovereign House in Basingstoke.

The conference brought together residents from the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) and Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) and other involved residents.

There were many workshops and information sharing opportunities between Sovereign employees and residents. This included workshops from the Customer Contact, Scheduling and Communities teams, and sessions on our Homes and Place Standard.

The day really highlighted the value of resident engagement.

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG)

The SCG has been investigating what drives customer satisfaction with Sovereign’s repairs service. This project is split into two halves and the group have completed part one – analysing Sovereign’s customer data and getting the views of employees. From August, they’ll start to investigate what parts of the service are liked and disliked by residents and why. Then they’ll work with Sovereign to formulate workable service improvements.

The group received a demonstration of new functionality due to be launched soon on MySovereign. They were excited to see how residents’ feedback has helped shape Sovereign’s approach to the online services it provides.

The SCG also held a deep dive into Sovereign’s new approach to tackling damp and mould issues. This topic area has been scheduled in to be scrutinised by residents next year, when the current approach has had time to bed in and the SCG is able to measure its success over the upcoming winter months.

Engagement review

Our current ‘triangle of engagement’ has been established for around five years. We felt that, in line with the Social Housing White Paper, it was an opportunity to see if our current structure of engagement is still fit for purpose. So, this quarter we successfully recruited a research company called Connectives to help us undertake a review.

As part of the work, the researchers will be interviewing employees, residents, and other interested parties, to see how we can be more inclusive when it comes to engaging with our customers and hearing their voices and acting upon it too.

In the next quarter we will share some of the findings.

Ongoing recruitment for the RBP, SCG and RBP Chair

We started preparing for our recruitment campaign for more members, including the Chair of the RBP, as the current Chair will be retiring in December.

We emailed residents with the opportunity to 'go behind the scenes' of resident engagement, to understand how these groups represents them and to encourage them to get involved too.

More information on recruitment and how to apply can be found at www.sovereign.org.uk/rbpscg and www.sovereign.org.uk/rbpchair.

Youth Panel

The Youth panel is the voice for our younger residents. The group met with members of Sovereign’s internal Disability and Carers Network (DACN). Member Jack represented the panel at the Residents’ Conference, held at Sovereign House. Members also attended training in Bristol on community organising.

We started 2022 with hopes of new beginnings, as we began to ‘live’ with Covid-19.

But as we got used to the freedom of no restrictions, unexpected national and international events suddenly had a huge impact on our lives.

From fuel shortages and cost of living increases, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there’s been a lot for us all to deal with.

While we don’t know yet the full impact that Russian sanctions will have on our daily lives or how much further energy costs will increase, we do offer support if you’re struggling financially or need help.

Please take a look at our advice and guides pages – you’ll find everything from money, jobs and debt support, to benefits guidance and ways you can look for a new home if you want to move.

Below are some highlights of our performance between January 2022 and March 2022 on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

Services and support

• We let 696 homes: 564 relet homes and another 150 new homes we let for the first time.
• We completed 148 mutual exchanges.
• We completed nearly 64,000 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• Although Covid delayed us from returning to full delivery of planned works, we were still able to install 312 new windows, 248 new doors, re-roof 102 homes and replace over 104 kitchens and 56 bathrooms.
• We completed 1,249 Neighbourhood Standard inspections and carried out 11 neighbourhood improvements across our estates.
• We supported 456 customers with Universal Credit claims and issues.
• We supported 470 people with aging well projects and services and 143 residents to get into work or better work. Residents also completed another 378 training outcomes. 
• We supported 80 community groups and worked with communities and partners on 12 environmental projects, engaging with nearly 3,285 people across our community development projects.
• We helped hundreds of people with tailored support like providing 101 with equipment to get online and 133 with digital training, as well as working with 1,653 residents through our money and digital services. We helped our residents make savings of over £57,588.
• Our ‘STAR’ customer survey showed that overall satisfaction was at 69% in January to March. 
• Repairs satisfaction was at 87% as we continued to catch up on non-urgent repairs and were also affected by national labour shortages and supply of some materials.
• The challenges of the period were also reflected in a 21% increase in complaints (1,267) compared to quarter three, with ‘communication’ still being a big driver of dissatisfaction. Satisfaction for the quarter was 40%.
• As a result, work continues on transforming the experience our customers have with our complaints service. In March we launched our new way of dealing with repairs issues in ‘real time’ – this will give customers quicker resolutions and reduce complaints. We’ll monitor its success as part of a phased rollout.

Role of residents

Resident and Board Partnership (RBP)

• In March, 36 residents played a pivotal role in mapping the customer’s journey when mutually exchanging their home.
• This work helped shape recommendations for changing how the service is delivered in the future, with seven service improvement actions. These included giving more details about the process on our website and getting comprehensive feedback from customers after they’ve exchanged.
• Residents, RBP and SCG members also gave us a customer perspective on how we procure services like grounds maintenance and communal cleaning. This feedback will help us look at how we obtain these types of services in the future and how we can be more transparent in how we deliver them.

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG)

• Following its review of Sovereign’s social media, the SCG agreed service improvement recommendations, which included upskilling our Contact team so they can make best use of Sovereign’s Facebook page.
• The SCG is now working with volunteer resident scrutineers to investigate what drives customer satisfaction with Sovereign’s repairs service. They’ll start by analysing satisfaction data and hearing from employees about what they think makes customers happy. Residents will be asked what they think of the service later this year.
• The SCG also discussed the supposed stigma of living in social housing, which is currently being addressed by the government in its Social Housing White Paper, and by the National Housing Federation with its Together with Tenants charter. They looked at how Sovereign’s approach to residents could help combat stigma and agreed to include questions on it in all upcoming scrutiny projects.

Youth Panel

• The Youth panel is the voice for our younger residents. The group has been supporting our digital team on improvements to services and attended training. They also looked at ways they can take social action in their own community.

Other activity

• The RBP had an update on our Customer Contact strategy. We explained how lessons learnt about our services during the pandemic mean that we’ll be evolving how we work to ensure we can get services right first time.
• The RBP, SCG and other residents took part in workshops on how we can ‘decarbonise’ our homes, giving us their views on the work that will be involved.
• In light of the financial challenges people are facing, the RBP also heard about current and additional support Sovereign will be offering residents over the next year. This includes white goods grants, financial support, furniture and flooring grants, digital training, fuel vouchers, advice on how to find energy savings, money and debt advice, and personalised employment and training support.

Over the last few months of 2021, we continued providing a full range of services and supporting customers and their communities - despite the ongoing challenges of high Covid levels as the Omicron variant emerged.

And it continued to be a very challenging time for many residents. Following our successful welfare calls to certain customer groups during lockdown, we’ve been sending SMS messages to about 4,000 residents aged over 70. These are a chance for a check in and offer support around heating, finances or other help. Customers can just reply ‘yes’ for a call back.

We want to offer more services digitally too – giving you access where and when it suits you and freeing up our people to get out into neighbourhoods or provide individual support.

During December we moved MySovereign to a new platform and improved the look and feel. Thousands of customers have now re-registered or signed up, getting online access to pay their rent, check their balance, request a repair – and more. It’s quick and easy, just visit https://my.sovereign.org.uk/.

Please get in touch if you’re struggling financially or need help at the moment. There’s lots of support and advice available – you can also find out about some of these support offers on our advice and guides pages.

Below are some highlights of our performance between October and December on some of these key services and areas of support that matter to customers.

Thank you.

Services and support

We let 753 homes: 604 relet homes and another 149 new homes we let for the first time.

• We completed 192 mutual exchanges.
• We completed nearly 54,000 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• Although Covid has delayed us from returning to full delivery of planned works, we’ve still managed to prioritise and install 227 new bathrooms and 458 kitchens in the first ten months of the year.
• We completed 1,018 Neighbourhood Standard inspections (and, since July 2021, we’ve also carried out 86 neighbourhood improvements across our estates - totalling £194k).
• We saw a drop in Universal Credit (UC) claims but were still able to support 148 customers with UC claims and issues.
• We supported 470 people with aging well projects and services and 106 residents to get into work or better work – a huge increase on the three months before. Residents also completed another 349 training outcomes. 
• We supported 54 community groups and worked with communities and partners on 15 environmental projects, engaging with nearly 2,000 people across our community development projects.
• We helped hundreds of people get back on their feet - tailored support like providing 92 with equipment to get online and 326 with digital training, as well as working with 1,264 residents through our money and digital services. We helped our residents make savings of £34,562.
• Our quarterly ‘STAR’ customer survey showed that measures are back on trend with the previous two years - overall satisfaction was 79% and satisfaction with neighbourhood was at 86%.
• Repairs satisfaction was at 90% as we continued to catch up on non-urgent repairs and were also affected by national labour shortages and some materials.
• The challenges of the period were also reflected in more complaints (1,051) with ‘communication’ still being a big part of dissatisfaction – with satisfaction at 38%.
• Work continues on transforming our complaints service: around making sure we keep customers updated while we’re managing their complaint, and how we improve the experience we deliver to them.  Early in 2022 we also began the phased launch of a new way of dealing with repairs issues in ‘real-time’ - helping to reduce the number of complaints and giving customers the opportunity to resolve issues quickly and easily.

Role of residents

Resident and Board Partnership (RBP)

• Key focus areas for the RBP included reviewing the new customer metrics and performance - areas such as ‘our service’, ‘your home’, ‘your neighbourhoods and ‘your safety’. All these are related to our customer impact strategy and the Housing White Paper.
• The group also found out more about our strategic asset management strategy and how it will look to develop a blueprint to help meet housing need and bring current homes up to standard for future customers.
• There was also an update on the Enhanced Empty Homes pilot and feedback on how the project’s developing.   

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG)

The SCG completed its review of Sovereign’s social media just before Christmas and are now developing recommendations to improve the service. They interviewed key staff about how we use social media to communicate with residents and others. They also analysed how customers use social media to contact us and looked at what we do compared to other housing providers.

• The group also heard how we’re implementing actions recommended after the scrutiny of the anti-social behaviour (ASB) service in autumn 2020 - and tracked progress on other recommendations, making sure they keep holding us to account.
• In preparation for their next scrutiny, starting in spring 2022, the SCG also heard from the Responsive Repairs team and analysed the latest customer satisfaction data around repairs – all good background to help them look into what drives satisfaction with the repairs service.

Youth Panel

The Youth Panel is the voice for our younger residents. Over the autumn its members gave their insight into various services and continued with their own community projects, such as ‘safe space’ - connecting isolated people with others in the area.

Other activity

A successful recruitment drive (including email and Facebook campaigns) led to 100 customers saying they’d like to get involved with us. As well as new potential resident scrutineers and a pool of people we can contact for feedback on specific topics, we welcomed a number of new members to the RBP and SCG.

• In October, residents played a pivotal role in mapping two customer journeys: the Market Rent service when someone is looking to rent on an Assured Shorthold basis with a choice of flexible tenancy lengths; and the journey our Keyworker customers experience.
• The two projects involved 67 customers interviews and led to 70 service improvement actions, such as providing Keyworker customers with an in-room welcome pack and making customers aware of upfront costs on property adverts.
• In December, RBP and SCG members also provided valuable insight and feedback in some discussion groups on sustainability – helping us gather a customer perspective on our plans to reduce our impact on the environment, as we move towards our target to be carbon neutral by 2050.

The government’s national Covid-19 recovery plan continued over the summer but it remained a difficult time for our customers and a challenging one for delivering some services.

We worked hard to catch up on demand for services such as non-emergency repairs and an increase in requests to move. But we were also affected by national issues like national shortages of skilled labour and certain materials, alongside price increases in things like fuel.

We explained more about this in an update email to residents and on our Covid-19 pages.

Despite this backdrop, we continued to complete thousands of repairs; build and let hundreds of homes; support our customers and communities; work with residents to review and improve our services – and much more. Below is more information about our performance between July and September on some of these key areas that matter to customers.

As always, please get in touch if you’re struggling financially or you need advice and help. There’s lots of support and advice that we and our partners can offer.

And don’t forget that you’ll need to register to do some things on MySovereign (like pay your rent or log a repair) but there are also 100s of pages of useful information which you can access without logging in.

Thank you again.

Services and support

• We let 753 homes: 676 relet homes and another 77 new homes we let for the first time.
• We completed over 50,000 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• Income teams continued to help and advise residents claiming Universal Credit, supporting with 227 cases.
• We supported 385 community organisations and 68 residents to get into work or better work. Residents also completed another 27 training outcomes. 
• We helped hundreds of people get back on their feet through tailored support – like providing 25 with equipment to get online and 51 with digital training, as well as working with 300 residents through our money and digital services.
• At the end of September there were just over 34,000 registered users of MySovereign. We’re continuing to develop the site and will be moving to a new platform and improved look and feel at the end of the year, paving the way for some extra features in 2022.
• We’ve also set up a ‘living together’ fund to support our teams and residents find innovative, often simple, solutions to local anti-social behaviour issues – for example, by fitting underlay in a flat if there’s a major problem with sound travelling to neighbours below.

Role of residents

• Key focus areas for the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) were reviewing and contributing to the Customer Impact Strategy as well as customer performance indicators and building safety. They also found out more about the national political landscape and how that’s impacting on housing, and about some key communication projects where we needed input from residents.
• The RBP is following up all these areas with further in-depth meetings or incorporating them into resident-led scrutinies to help us understand the voice of our customers better.
• The Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) reported back on its investigations into how we distribute community grant funding. Recommendations included increasing visibility of the grants by producing an impact report, revising the web pages about the grants and producing an ‘offer’ document to make sure the application process is simple and robust for smaller, grassroot community groups.
• The SCG also discussed MySovereign and how they’d like to see it develop, as well as reviewing progress on actions from previous scrutinies – including presenting back on the ‘scrutiny tracker’ to the RBP as part of making sure Sovereign remains accountable to customers.
• RBP and SCG members have also done ‘deep dives’ to look at a number of service areas including Universal Credit, tenancy support, money and digital services as well as our Customer Impact Strategy and how we measure customer-facing services.
• In April, residents also mapped the journey that our home ownership customers experience when they’re looking to staircase (buy more shares in their home) or sell their home and move. This involved video interviews with 24 customers and led to 12 service improvement actions, such as having a dedicated case manager so that a customer only has one person to speak to.
• The Youth Panel is the voice for our younger residents. Its members have given their insight into our building safety information and discussed how they could get involved in some of our environmental projects. In May, Ebony - one of its members, also spoke about her experiences at a national ‘Understanding the tenant of the future’ conference.

This spring and early summer, the national recovery from Covid-19 began but things remain difficult for many people. We continued to provide our services and support, reopening various aspects of some of these in line with the government’s four step recovery plan. But we received a lot more contact about things like repairs and requests to move – alongside needing to catch up on work that had been postponed. This meant some services took longer to provide than we would like.

We also began to feel the effects of external factors affecting organisations across the country and making front page news.

The information below gives you a flavour of our performance between April and June  on some key areas that matter to customers. We remain grateful for your ongoing patience and support. Do continue to interact with us on MySovereign where you can (you’ll need to register to do some things like pay your rent or log a repair but lots of useful information is available without logging in).

But please get in touch if you’re struggling as there’s lots of support and advice that we and our partners can offer.

Thank you again.

Services and support

• We let 753 homes: 676 relet homes and another 77 new homes we let for the first time.
• We completed over 50,000 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• Income teams continued to help and advise residents claiming Universal Credit, supporting with 227 cases.
• We supported 385 community organisations and 68 residents to get into work or better work. Residents also completed another 27 training outcomes. 
• At the end of June there were over 29,000 registered users of MySovereign. We’re continuing to develop the site and there’ll be improvements later this year to help if you’re facing a damp and mould issue or need to report a defect in a new-build home.
• We’ve also set up a ‘living together’ fund to support our teams and residents find innovative, often simple, solutions to local anti-social behaviour issues – for example, by fitting underlay in a flat if there’s a major problem with sound travelling to neighbours below.

Role of residents

• Key focus areas for the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) were reviewing and contributing to the Customer Impact Strategy as well as customer performance indicators and building safety. They also found out more about the national political landscape and how that’s impacting on housing, and about some key communication projects where we needed input from residents.
• The group is following all these areas up with further deep dive meetings or incorporating them into resident-led scrutinies to help us understand the voice of our customers better.
• The Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) reported back on its investigations into how we distribute community grant funding. Recommendations included increasing visibility of the grants by producing an impact report, revising the web pages about the grants and producing an ‘offer’ document to make sure the application process is simple and robust for smaller, grassroot community groups.
• The SCG also discussed MySovereign and how they’d like to see it develop, as well as reviewing progress on the recommendations made in previous scrutinies – including presenting on this ‘scrutiny tracker’ to the RBP as part of that group’s role in making sure Sovereign remains accountable to customers.
• RBP and SCG members have also done ‘deep dives’ to look at a number of service areas including universal credit, tenancy support, money and digital services as well as our Customer Impact Strategy and customer metrics.
• In April, residents also mapped the journey our home ownership customers experience when they’re looking to staircase (buy more shares in their home) or sell their home and move. This involved video interviews with 24 customers and led to 12 service improvement actions, such as having a dedicated ‘case manager’ so a customer only has one person to speak to
• The Youth Panel is the voice for our younger residents. Its members have given their insight into our building safety information and discussed how they could get involved in some of our environmental projects. In May, Ebony - one of its members, also spoke about her experiences at a national ‘Understanding the tenant of the future’ conference.

When we shared our last quarterly report, we’d resumed most of our services but were restricting non-essential repairs within people’s homes. Our aim was to help reduce infections during the third lockdown by minimising our direct contact with you where we could. 

Three months later, the national recovery is well underway and the roll out of vaccinations is continuing, but we know things are still very difficult for many people. 

We’ve had another busy few months providing a range of services and support – and you can read more about our performance below. 

Here are some highlights of the quarter:

• We let 673 homes. 
• ​We completed over 37,700 emergency and essential repairs, despite the third lockdown from early January.
• ​We supported 122 community organisations, 69 residents to get into work or better work, and another 202 with training. Other teams and specialist partners offered support and advice on a wide range of issues. 
• The Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) has finished reviewing our community grants programme and made recommendations about how we can better promote this in our communities. 
• Our quarterly customer survey showed overall satisfaction slightly down at 79% but 81% for the year. 
• ​Despite not being able to carry out routine repairs inside people’s homes, satisfaction with repairs was at 69% and satisfaction with your neighbourhood up slightly to 87%. 

October to December remained difficult for everyone as we faced different tiers of restriction to help stop the spread of Covid-19. Adjusting to the latest guidance meant multiple short notice changes to our services, so thank you for your patience. We also sent 112,000 ‘Covid update’ emails to keep you in the know. 

Here are some highlights of the quarter:

• We let 800 homes, completed 220 mutual exchanges and 55,000 repairs. 
• Income teams supported 616 residents claiming Universal Credit.
• We supported 194 community organisations, 59 residents to get into work or better work, and another 217 with training 
• We continued to provide support and advice on a range of other issues 
• Our resident scrutineers completed their investigations into ASB and are working on recommendations to improve the service for our customers.
• To deliver the best possible residents’ voice, we recruited eight new members to our Scrutiny Coordination Group and Resident and Board Partnership after a successful recruitment campaign which included a focus on attracting a diverse range of residents.
• Residents have also helped us look at the stages customers go through with our Home Ownership external management service (known as customer journey mapping). We’ll use this to help us design better processes and customer communication.
• Our quarterly ‘STAR’ customer survey showed overall satisfaction remained at 83%, despite post-lockdown pressures on our services. It was a particularly challenging and uncertain period for repairs but satisfaction with these stayed stable (0.3% change).
• We know that satisfaction with our complaints handling isn’t as good as it should be. In December, we self-assessed against the Housing Ombudsman’s new code. While we performed well against most measures, we identified some key areas for improvement and are working on these.