Tenancy
These are the performance indicators for the regulator’s ‘Tenancy’ standards.
| Performance measure | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | Target 2023-24 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current tenant rent arrears, as a percentage of the annual rent debit | 3.61 | 4.53 | <=2.71 |
| Number of evictions for rent arrears | 2 | 5 | N/A |
| Average calendar days to re-let a vacant home (standard works) | 56.24 | 65.82 | <=28 |
| Number of vacant and available to let homes (excluding Lancaster West refurbishment) |
77 | 53 | N/A |
| Tenant satisfaction measure | 2023-24 |
|---|---|
| Tenants - satisfaction that rent provides value for money | 70.82% |
Tenants - satisfaction that service charge provides value for money |
61.88% |
How we are doing and what we need to work on
Arrears, welfare and benefits
During the last year, the cost-of-living crisis intensified. This significantly impacted rent collection, leading to a steady rise in arrears, which had reached 4.54 per cent by week 31.
Our Income Team remained proactive in supporting residents to maximise their income and maintain their tenancies. We prioritised early interventions, offering help and advice to avoid enforcement action.
Our Financial Inclusion Team played a crucial role in assisting tenants, helping them to recover £398,109 in unclaimed and backdated benefits and pensions - more than double the previous year's figure. On average, these applicants each received £1,800 in backdated payments.
To address the increased need for assistance in claiming benefits, the Financial Inclusion Team supported tenants with the Department for Work and Pensions’ migration from legacy benefits to Universal Credit and support with disability benefits.
Many tenants faced multiple debts for the first time and needed support navigating the benefits system. The financial health checks helped to identify areas of financial pressure and suitable remedies. These included creating affordable repayment plans for rent arrears, securing non-repayable grants and negotiating with debtors, such as utility suppliers, including requesting debts be written off.
Financial Inclusion
Our Financial Inclusion Team continued to support vulnerable residents in need of assistance to sustain their tenancies. Throughout the year, we improved access to financial assessments and held monthly Money Cafés, where residents could confidentially discuss their finances and receive advice and support.
We used £300,000 of rent paid, to assist residents struggling with the increasing cost of living - helping over 317 households through the provision of e-vouchers for food, energy payments and credit to their rent accounts.
In response to the significant increase in energy costs, we prioritised financial support to residents affected most. We introduced a one-off payment between £60 to £250, for tenants whose heating and hot water charge had increased by more than £10 per week. It assisted 1760 residents, totalling £195,820.
For the upcoming year, we have increased funding for money cafes and plan to extend to five locations. Also, we have raised the allocation for tenancy sustainment and warm home grants to £500k, to further support tenants impacted by the cost-of-living crisis.
On the Lancaster West Estate, we supported residents through our cost-of-living support, a range of financial support around benefits, debt and grants for households, as well as free offers like wi-fi, SIM cards and reuseable period products, putting a total of £27,400 back into residents’ pockets to alleviate the financial strains caused by these difficult times.
We have drawn down over £1.2m in internal investment onto the Lancaster West estate to benefit residents and the wider community, through income from jobs, volunteering, grant funds and money saved, and we are planning to draw a further £1m internal investment in the coming year.
In the coming year we hope to:
- develop our holistic support for residents, in particular through the Money MOT scheme, cost of living support, energy cafe, and health and wellbeing programmes
- support more residents into employment and training
Housing and Employment Service
The Housing and Employment service delivered a range of targeted campaigns, including a campaign with the GLA and Policy in Practice, helping pensioners claim a total of £231,812 per year in unclaimed Pension Credit. The team secured £50,000 from the Household Support Fund in May 2023 to issue food payments to 288 residents. The financial value of the outcomes achieved for residents last year was over £100,000, based on one-off and monthly amounts.
We also launched LancWest Connects, our local volunteering scheme in partnership with Lancaster West Residents’ Association in December 2023 and have seen over 57 local volunteers contribute 1333 hours this last year.
Voids and lettings
We continued to work hard to reduce the number of empty homes and minimise the overall re-let times. The average re-let times were directly impacted by ongoing challenges experienced with contractors. We ended 2023/24 with 16 per cent more tenancies ending compared to the previous year, which increased the number of properties available to new tenants.
We recognise that the average number of calendar days taken to re-let a vacant home was not as low as it should have been, and we have been working tirelessly on improving this figure. To help tackle this, our Voids and Lettings teams have gone through restructure to streamline their processes.
Great starts in our homes
We have been renewing kitchens and bathrooms in empty properties wherever needed, to bring the properties up to a better standard. By carrying out these works, the quality of accommodation offered to our residents in their home is improved. We continue to support local care leavers by providing housing to an enhanced standard. In November 2023, we started letting properties at one of our first new build schemes, at Hewer Street and we welcomed 10 keyworker families working in the borough.
We also successfully launched a carpet scheme pilot, to provide financial assistance to tenants, to install carpets in their new homes. The scheme enables residents to pay for the carpet installation in weekly instalments across the first five years of their tenancy, instead of paying for it upfront when they move in.
Working smarter
During 2024 we will overhaul the housing section of the council’s website, to make information easier to find. We will also prioritise the IT and digital services available to residents, including:
- improved electronic statements and invoices
- end-to-end management of repairs online (including appointments)
- having fewer email addresses and instead, making better use of webforms.
We have a new digital programme to help achieve these, with the vision of making online access to our services neater and more useful - we have started to engage with residents on co-designing this. An internal working group will provide honest feedback focused on frontline service, for our Housing IT team to make relevant improvements.