Annual report for customers 2019/20
Introduction from Julie Doyle
Throughout 2019/20, we have reaffirmed our commitment to delivering the homes people need, where they are needed most.
The last 12 months have been the most significant period in the Group’s history, as we consolidated our structure to become one organisation and launched our ambitious Improving Lives 2025 strategy.
The Coronavirus pandemic has shone a bright light on the inequality that exists in society and this has been at the forefront of our mind during our response to this unprecedented crisis.
Our purpose, vision and values have served us well during this difficult time. By absolutely living our values, pushing the boundaries to find new solutions and remaining in it together, we’ve continued to operate safely while supporting customers and colleagues.
To maintain and improve our homes we’ve spent £30m on responsive repairs, voids, planned works and major improvement works.
Over 51,000 repairs were carried out, with 98.8 percent of emergency repairs completed on time. We have faced challenges with timely completion of some repairs jobs and continue to work with our contractor to resolve these issues.
We remain committed to providing excellent homes, care and support while ensuring value for money, lessening our impact on the environment and doing everything we can to improve people’s lives.
During 2019/20, we established our Community Investment fund, investing an initial £350,000 that will increase to £500,000 in the year ahead.
We also procured a new heating contract with Mears Limited and launched a new digital platform to improve customer experience. Recognising we have more elderly, vulnerable and disabled customers, we’re working hard to ensure our integrated offer is accessible to all.
To support people with disabilities, other complex needs or long-term conditions, we’ve established an accessibility working group. With 1,414 adaptations completed in the last three years, we aim to reduce the need for these changes by ensuring better design and improving processes around minor adaptations.
We have much to be proud of, in terms of what we’ve already achieved and our future plans, but we must also look at where we can improve.
Recognising our customer satisfaction results need to improve, we’ve introduced new ways for customers to provide instant text message feedback about the services they receive, such as repairs and grounds maintenance, and doing everything we can to ensure they are consistently of the high standard our customers deserve.
As demonstrated throughout this report, we remain committed to providing excellent homes, care and support while ensuring value for money, lessening our impact on the environment and doing everything we can to improve people’s lives.
Longhurst Group – review of the year 2019/20
Longhurst Group 2019/20 – our year in figures
Our purpose, vision and values
Our purpose is to provide great homes and services to deliver an integrated solution to the housing and social care crises.
Our Improving Lives strategy will help us realise our purpose and our vision of doing everything we can to improve people’s lives.
We are focusing our strengths and resources into two clear areas:
- Supporting people with their health and wellbeing
- Enhancing people’s economic resilience
These two pillars inform everything we do, providing the guiding principles for how we improve the lives of our customers and colleagues.
Our aims
In delivering our Improving Lives strategy, our aim is to be renowned for:
As a single organisation, operating from a strong financial and governance platform, we’ll be able to do more for our customers.
Our aim is to be renowned in the housing sector for providing a clear and successful integrated housing, care and support offer.
During the life of this strategy, our ambition is to build approximately 1,000 homes each year, creating homes for people to rent or buy, at prices they can afford and in places they want to live.
By living our values and embracing our culture, we will work hard and invest in energetic, enjoyable and mutually beneficial partnerships that deliver positive change for our customers and communities.
Our value-driven, fun and inclusive culture will be reflected in everything we do. Working together as one team, motivated by strong, inspirational leaders, we will achieve high-performance and continue to provide care, support, commitment and dedication to our customers.