This is my first year as Chair of Arches Housing and one which I have really enjoyed. I have been struck by just how determined staff and Board Members are to deliver on our commitments to our customers, through what has been a challenging time for everyone involved.
This year has seen an in-depth review of Arches, something called an IDA, by the Regulator of Social Housing. All Housing Associations have an IDA every few years.
I am pleased to say that Arches received the highest possible rating from the Regulator, which is a G1/V1 rating. This despite quite rightly toughening standards and a difficult operating environment, which has seen costs increase quite significantly. I want to take the opportunity to thank staff for their work here. I know we will all strive to continue to improve on this performance going forward.
This strong performance could not have been achieved without the work of Members who have now retired from the Board, including my predecessor as Chair Kay Dickinson. Members work hard to support and challenge staff, and I have been pleased by the productive working relationship that exists.
We understand that there have been significant economic and indeed social challenges, putting many families under a lot of pressure. We will continue through our tenancy support teams and through working with our many partners, to continue to do what we can to support those impacted.
I have had the opportunity, first hand to see Arches staff out in the community, really going the extra mile to help people in ways that go a long way beyond simply keeping the house in good condition.
We have increased investment in our housing, in particular in our older properties and are advanced in our action to increase energy efficiency, thereby lowering gas and electricity bills for customers. Many customers have commented on how helpful this has been.
We have also invested in ensuring that we fully understand the condition of all our homes, so that we can take action to address issues that have impacted us and other housing associations, such as damp and mould. The Board is committed to ensuring everyone lives in a safe and decent home. We would encourage all customers to quickly report any issues that you may have.
The Board really wants to make sure that all its decisions are made fully with the interests of customers in mind. As such we are stepping up on our efforts to give all customers the chance to be involved. For example, I have been very grateful to customers who have helped conduct a review of how we deliver repairs, which has resulted in a number of actions to improve our service. If you can help in any way, please let us know. Getting your views, is the best way to help ensure we continue to improve our services.
Looking ahead, 2025 will be a particularly exciting one, as it will be Arches 50th Anniversary. We are busy planning a multitude of events to celebrate this important milestone.
Many thanks and happy reading
Case 1 – A customer was struggling financially and needed support to access furniture for their home as well as support with paying their rent.
We successfully supported them with a Discretionary Housing Payment of £549. We were also able to award the family an additional £80 through the Household Support Fund to enable them to buy much-needed supplies. We also referred the family to external organisations to help them with white goods for their home.
Case 2 - One family of five had no access to beds or blankets in their home and were using blankets to sleep on the floor. Utilising our tenant at risk budget, we were able to provide the family with five much needed beds and mattresses.
Case 3 - A Customer was needing help and support with their rent and household bills. We liaised with Universal Credit to advocate on customers behalf and successfully received a backdated rent payment which helped with their rent arrears. We were also able to apply to the Council Tax support fund to successfully maximise their overall household income.
Case 4 - One Customer had signed a new tenancy with Arches following a stay in temporary homeless accommodation. The Customer worked part time but was struggling to fund household appliances and carpets in their property. By assessing the customer’s needs, we were able to support them by purchasing a new fridge, microwave, and partial carpet through our Tenant at Risk Budget.
Brienburg Court in Sheffield celebrated it’s first birthday in style. Following its extensive refurbishment last year, Brienburg Court’s resident joined together for a street party.
The development is made up of 12 homes specifically tailored to the needs of older, vulnerable members of Sheffield’s Black and Ethnic Minority community.
Maintaining our homes to meet the Arches Homes Standard remains a top priority for us.
Working together with our residents and contractors 99% of our homes are compliant with the Arches Home Standard.
In the last year our £1.3m programme completed:
*Other works include boundary walls and fencing, brick work repairs and rainwater goods. We also fully refurbished two older properties that had been converted into larger properties from two smaller ones
Health and Safety of all our residents is always a major priority to us, and we continue to ensure all our homes are safe and secure for everyone.
Ensuring our homes are as energy efficient as possible is of great importance to us. Over the last 12 months we have worked on raising the Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) in a number of our properties.
Our EPC upgrade plans for 2024/25 continue to show our commitment to improving the energy efficiency of our homes, helping to drive down the costs of heating your home.
In 2023/24 we took handover of 14 new homes. This is slightly below our target of 20 new homes per year, we are however, projected to take ownership of 64 new build properties over the next two years.
We have a pipeline of around 120 properties, subject to final agreements, and are well on track to hit our long-term targets.
This scheme by Barratt David Wilson (BDW) will deliver 28 affordable homes for Arches - 17 for rent and 11 for shared ownership. The first four homes were handed over in March 2024 and another four homes followed in May and a further two in June.
In addition to our main development, we agreed the purchase of a further 11 homes, which are supported with grant funding from Homes England. Six homes were purchased in June 2024 with the remaining five homes are due in summer 2025.
This development in partnership with Strata Homes will provide 23 rented and 20 shared ownership homes. The site is progressing well with the first Arches homes expected to be completed in late 2024.
The Wentworth Way development in Dinnington has so far delivered 18 brand new affordable rented houses for Arches customers, as part of Taylor Wimpey’s wider development. The final five homes are due for completion in the 2024/25 financial year.
Looking to the future we are very hopeful of securing sites in Sheffield and expect to start on site on a new development in north Sheffield in 2024/25. We continue to seek insight and opportunities for learning via the South Yorkshire Housing Partnership (SYHP), which includes numerous housing associations in South Yorkshire, all four local authorities and has Homes England as a key partner.
We have maintained a steady financial position in 2023/24 despite the turbulent economic environment.
Income has continued to grow with the addition of 14 new properties. Expenditure on repairs and reinvesting in our properties, a priority through the Arches Home Standard, totalled £3.56m in 2023/24.
We continue to compare well to our peers in terms of providing value for money, keeping our ‘core’ administration costs low and maximising spend on our housing stock.
To read our financial statements and our Value for Money performance, including details of the Board and governance arrangements, please visit our webpages - Annual accounts
To assess whether we are delivering Value for Money (VfM) for our customers we always ask ourselves three important questions:
On average our rents cost 65.3% of the rents charged in the private rented sector at a local authority level. All of our rents are below the Shelter living rent calculation for the UK.
At Arches we are committed to investing in our homes to increase their energy efficiency. By increasing their efficiency, we will help our customers to reduce the running costs associated with their homes.
In 2023/24 we spent £767k on energy improvement works in our properties. This has resulted in 93% of our properties achieving an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) level of ‘C’ or above.
By introducing a stronger customer focus, we are committed to providing better information to make this assessment more transparent to our customers and other stakeholders.
To help you understand more about how your rent and service charges are spent, take a look at our charts below which explain where your money goes:
Our CEO to median worker pay ratio is 2.9 which is lower than other similar housing associations across the UK where the peer group median is 8.1.
How we operate is really important to us. We want our residents to feel satisfied that we are working as best we can to ensure their queries are met. We continuously measure our operational performance against our annual targets and over the last 12 months we have achieved:
This year we have seen an increase in the volume of formal complaints received, whilst the escalation rate (complaints progressing to stage two or further where the process is complete) has returned to the levels experienced in previous years.
Complaints are important to us as they are a mechanism for us to ensure we are doing the very best we can for our customers, and they help us learn from instances where our service levels haven’t been we expect them to be.
An annual review of complaints is included on our complaints page including details of how we are learning from complaints to meet the requirements of the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code - Feedback and complaints.
Between August 2023 and March 2024 we contacted all of our tenants to learn more about them and their families. Thank you to all tenants who took part in the process, we managed to speak to 70% of tenants. From this we now know:
We now know more about our tenants and those who live with them. We have updated our systems with this information and during 2024 we are improving the way we deliver services to meet customer’s specific needs.
The greater understanding of our customers we have, the better services we are able to deliver, tailored to you and your family’s specific needs.
