Maynard Housing Association Annual Report and Accounts 2017-18
A message from the Chair Welcome to the Maynard Housing Association annual report. It s been a big year for us as we celebrated our 40th anniversary and took the chance to look back over our successful history. There were a number of ways we celebrated, including birthday cake and balloons to mark the day, and we organised a trip to Flamingoland in Yorkshire where everyone had a great time. There have been a number of positive changes this year including more housing surgeries, improvements to the repairs service, replacement of bathrooms and kitchens for many homes, and introduction of annual visits to each tenant member to ensure all is well. You can read more in the following pages. As we look back on the year we can be proud of what we ve achieved. It s a great foundation for moving forward. We intend to build on that success to make the future even better for all our residents and maintain an area where you can be proud to live. About Maynard Housing Association Maynard Housing Association (MCHA) provides quality affordable homes in the Highfields area of Leicester. We own 118 homes, renting properties to local people from a diversity of cultures. We are a community-based housing co-op so we are determined that you, our tenant members, are central to all we do. Any profits we make are reinvested into improvements to your homes and services to you. We also aim to extend our property portfolio. Our managing agent is PA Housing who deliver services including managing waiting lists, allocating homes, carrying out maintenance and rent collection. We rely on the groups and individuals who work closely with us to make MCHA such a success. We are grateful to all our tenant members, local residents, funders and other partners for their support. Here s to the next 40 years! Alam Navsa Chair of Maynard Housing Association 2 3
Stock investment During the past year we have made a significant investment in our stock. In the largest project we ve spent 121,000 on upgrades to kitchens and bathrooms in 27 homes - that s almost a quarter of the properties. Improvements were made to 17 bathrooms and 10 kitchens. We ve replaced full bathroom suites, bath, basin and WC, and offered a choice of aqua boards and new floor coverings. In the kitchen we ve put in new units and fittings and redecorated where necessary. We ve also carried out a smaller programme to renew doors. We ve replaced old wooden doors with new composite ones that offer a lot of advantages. Their better fit means they have a good seal around their frames and so they improve heat efficiency. They look better and they re far easier to maintain. They don t need repainting! Office improvements We ve also made improvements to the office where we hold the twice-weekly surgeries and committee meetings. A new door entry, CCTV and central heating will make things more comfortable for everyone. Surgeries are now being held on Tuesdays between 2:00PM to 4:30PM, as well as Thursdays between 9:30AM to 12:30PM. Acquiring new properties As an association we are proud of our record of providing affordable homes for our tenant members. We are always seeking opportunites to expand, in order to improve our services. We aim to increase the number of homes we own when we can, and have recently been in discussions with Leicester City Council for their approval to provide funding for buying an additional property. We have now been given the go ahead, so the next stage is to agree on a suitable home that will enhance our existing holdings. Grant funding The new property will be bought with the aid of 30% grant funding from LCC. The money comes from Right to Buy receipts which the council has agreed will be used to assist the Co-ops to buy new homes. Mrs Maryam Kanamia is delighted with her new kitchen and breakfast bar. The builders were fantastic and really helped us with the design. It s spurred us on to improve the next room now because the kitchen looks so good. 4 5
Training for GDPR The arrival of new data sharing rules - General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR - meant we had to ensure that our processes were compliant and did not break the law. The chair and committee made a visit to the PA Housing office at Bede Island where Data Protection Officer Frank Renouf explained the difference between the 1998 Act and the new regulations. Measuring our success We have joined a new benchmarking system that will allow us to check how our customer satisfaction stands up against other housing services. Called Acuity, the scheme allows us to record details of performance then compare them against other members results. Data protection preserves individuals from potential harm due to data abuse and misuse. It protects communications, home, body and life secrecy, dignity, freedom and liberty. Frank told members how the new regulations would affect us and offered advice to help us to avoid getting into trouble. He explained the principles of data protection, told us about the rights of the data subject, how we can stay compliant with the new rules, and advised us to put data protection at the heart of our processes. DLO New repairs arrangements Until October our routine repairs services were carried out by a list of approved contractors who were paid on a job by job basis. However, following lengthy dialogue with Lee Boyle, Head of Property Services, and Geoff Plant, Deputy Head, from PA Housing we have decided to use their Direct Labour team who will provide a service on a price per property basis. This will provide consistency and continuity, and should save us money overall. The service is still relatively new so we plan to monitor its success over the coming months. There will need to be an initial bedding in period while the new system is established and we will watch progress during that time. We will check on standards and customer satisfaction by recording some key performance indicators and review the scheme in the future. We want to ensure the decision was the right one for the benefit of all tenants. Mr Harun Lorgat CCH Conference Committee member Mr Harun Lorgat attended this year s Confederation of Cooperative Housing Conference (CCH) and reported back on several relevant subjects. Jane Everton from the Ministry of Housing Communities & Local Government talked about Government aims following the Grenfell fire, which include looking at the planning system, building homes faster, how to get smaller businesses to contribute towards housing, and looking at consumer issues in housing. She also discussed a recently completed consultation with 1250 householders covering their views on the current complaints procedure and potential improvements; what standards should be expected of the Ombudsman; and what can be done to fill gaps in existing services. Leslie Channon, Chair of A Voice for Tenants, mentioned what has changed since the Grenfell fire. She said Government are now more willing to listen to tenants. We have access to the HouseMark good practice website that provides information on what to measure, how to assess our outcomes, and what levels of service we should aim for. We can draw up quarterly and annual performance reports then compare our achievements with other members, based on size, region, or many other profile categories. The recommended measurements are those used by the English Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) so our results will let us know exactly how well we are doing, and whether we are offering outstanding service and value for money. The benchmarking will also help us to improve our services because we can share ideas with more than 900 other social housing providers, to learn from them, emulate their success and avoid their mistakes. 6 7
More members needed Do you want a say in how the is run in future? We d love you to be more involved. We offer full training and pay expenses so you won t be out of pocket. There s even childcare if you need it. Meetings last no more than a couple of hours and they offer you the chance to put your views forward about a whole range of topics including future developments, property investment, strategy and services. Maynard is a paperless organisation so you ll even get an ipad! Contact Nicola Parlby on 0116 2044135 for more information. Attendance COMMITTEE MEMBER Mr A Navsa Mr Lorgat Mr M E Yakub Mr Sheikh Miss Hussein Mr Makda Mr Tim Clarke (Co-optee) Mrs Lorgat Mr S Gaffar (Co-optee) Mr Vahora Number Of Committee Meetings Attended Between April 2017 And March 2018 5 Out Of 6 Meetings 4 Out Of 6 Meetings 4 Out Of 6 Meetings 4 Out Of 6 Meetings 3 Out Of 6 Meetings 2 Out Of 6 Meetings Mr Sagir 1 Meeting Out Of 1 Meeting Resigned On 9 June 2017 Financial Information Balance Sheet 2018 2017 000 000 Fixed Assets 3,036 3,014 Current Assets 579 411 Creditors (<1 Year) (191) (95) Net Current Assets 388 316 Total Assets Less Current Liabilities 3,424 3,330 Creditors (> 1 Year) (2,106) (2,147) Total Net Assets 1,318 1,183 Share Capital And Reserves 1,318 1,183 Income and Expenditure Income 2018 2017 000 000 Rent Receivable 490 482 Service Charges 9 6 Other Income 18 Social Housing Grant 30 30 Other Grants 12 12 Total Income 559 530 Expenditure Services 24 11 Management 103 103 Routine Maintenance 176 149 Bad debts 1 1 Major Repairs/Planned Maintenance 59 67 Depreciation 60 57 Total Expenditure 423 388 Operating surplus 136 142 Interest Receivable 0 0 Interest Payable 0 0 Surplus for the year 136 142 8 9
Here s a summary of our performance 54 out of How we spend each 1 of your money in 2017-18 Repairs We aim to respond to: 100% 57 jobs responded to on time 14p 5p 9p 6p 24p Services Management Routine Maintenance of emergency repairs within 24 hours 93% of routine repairs within 234 out of 264 jobs responded to on time 42p Major Repairs Depreciation Planned Maintainence 14 calendar days Maynard Housing Association reviewed its day to day maintenance service during the year to improve performance against our targets. Rent Arrears Current rent arrears Target 3% Achieved 1.8% MCHA has had a successful year in keeping our arrears low. Lettings We have let 4 homes in the last year. Empty Properties In March 2018, we had 2 empty homes. Thank You We would like to thank all our contractors, suppliers and partners who have worked with us over the last year for their ongoing support. These include: PA Housing, formerly asra Housing Group (managing agents) The Venue (AGM venue) Sanjay Foods (caterers) Furry Dice Promotional Goodies (stationery suppliers) Rogers Spencer (external auditors) Neil Plumb Photography (photographic services) Woods Coaches (travel provider) Word Association (communications) Novus Solutions (Kitchen and bathroom works) Northstar (Door replacement programme) Assured Alarms (Office security works) 10 11
Maynard Housing Association 3 Bede Island Road, Leicester LE2 7EA Tel: 0116 257 6800 Email: info@maynardcoop.org.uk www.maynardcoop.org.uk