annual report 2010

Putting our success on the map

AnnualReport2010/2011

Location: OL6 7AT

New Charter Great homes

2 · Great Homes · Great Neighbourhoods · Great People

Foreword

In October last year, the magazine “Inside Housing” mourned the death of social housing in England. It felt the coalition plan to restrict future funding to the affordable rent programme heralded the demise of the tenure.

Mark Twain’s often misquoted remark, “the report of my death was an exaggeration” seems appropriate here. It’s certainly the case that the affordable rent programme is a significant change, alongside tenure lifetimes and many others the government introduced or has pending. Welfare benefit reforms and the measures to rein back the deficit over the lifetime of a parliament are potential challenges to every landlord. The changes to regulation in the sector will be difficult for some providers to command the confidence of funders and stakeholders.

But we are in a good place to respond. Challenges inevitably produce opportunities. Government needs high performers like New Charter to help provide more new homes, increased satisfaction linked to service provision and greater resident scrutiny. Many housing associations are already significant players in running neighbourhoods and an important part of the Big Society.

Great neighbourhoods Great people

This is what we value:Genuine: We care that we are being genuine

and honest with people.Respect: We value people’s differences and are

considerate to their needs.Excellence: We enjoy being the best and encourage innovation to always improve.

Achievement: We are proud to be a learning organisation and celebrate the personal

development of our people.Together: We work collectively to achieve the

best results.

Our confidence in our future is based on our people. This last year has seen us again in the top twenty of The Sunday Times 100 best companies to work for. We retained the 3 star “extraordinary” assessment from Best Companies. And we won Investors in People Gold status, a significant achievement attained by less than 2% of those with the Investors in People standard.

Primary tenant services such as tackling anti-social behaviour, promoting resident involvement and excellent customer service have attracted quality accreditations. In return, our customer satisfaction ratings are better than the best in commerce and industry.

Great People help us make Great Homes and Great Neighbourhoods. Different times, different means - but the same end.

Ian Munro

Group Chief Executive

Ged Cooney

Chair, New Charter Housing Trust Limited

Great Homes · Great Neighbourhoods · Great People · 3

Alternative routes

Change is the only certainty in our

business

The last year has brought unprecedented change in the external operating environment. A new coalition government has introduced or signalled some fundamental reforms which affected our business.

It was impossible to avoid some impact from the economic difficulties the UK faces. But we anticipated some of these - such as the rise in VAT – and have had a successful year, both financially and across our performance.

Concentration on systems improvement meant we again outperformed our business plan, allowing us to increase our investment in homes and services for tenants. Our Building Company’s record success in attracting new work added to our ability to invest in homes and services.

Changes in regulation have brought greater importance to self-assessment. We are a front runner in co-regulation. As well as an overall good TSA assessment, the Tenant Services Authority picked us as one of only 10 Co-regulatory Champions.

Last year we agreed and published our Corporate Plan for the decade to 2020. Our performance targets are on course but our growth in the past year has been more difficult as the development regime was revised, and borrowing terms were unattractive.

The new Affordable Rent regime was a challenge to every housing provider. Changing the terms of our relets offers in our operating areas – in rent levels and length of tenancy - has to sit with our desire to help the housing needs of the poorer in our communities. We have enjoyed the confidence and support of the Homes and Communities Agency in the past and are confident of attracting support to build more new homes in future. As the strongest performing member of the JV North development consortium, we have plans for around 750 new homes over the next four years.

But in a time of change we did not forget our core offer to our customers. We completed a management restructure to reflect our vision of Great Homes, Great Neighbourhoods, Great People. We systematically improved performance across all areas of the business by relentless focus on measurement, monitoring and continual improvement.


For the second year running, New Charter was listed in the top twenty organisations in the prestigious Sunday Times 100 best companies to work for. This recognition straddles all our brands in the Group, and the rating makes our housing associations and Building Company among the best to work for in the country. We were the highest placed housing organisation with brands across regions.

We were proud to retain the three star “extraordinary” status from Best Companies, one of only 84 companies to achieve this in 2011. More remarkably, we were again awarded one of the six special national awards from Best Companies, this time for Best for Training and Development.

Earlier, we attained Investors in People Gold status, achieved by less than 2% of those with the Investors in People standard. The Health and Wellbeing Good Practice award supplemented this success, and reflects our belief that great people make great companies.

Our second National Training Award was presented for our involvement in a neighbourhoods development programme delivered with other registered providers. We are an accredited centre to deliver Institute of Leadership & Management programmes.

We again collected three gold awards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents for our attention to health and safety. New Charter Housing Trust, Gedling Homes and New Charter Building Company each achieved this top award.

Individually, companies in the group were also successful with our Building Company named as National Gas Installer of the Year. Staff and teams were shortlisted in the Housing Heroes awards.

Tenants made sure they were not left out – Brushes Estate Management Board again won a Green Pennant for its management of the green space at Baileys Backs in Stalybridge.

Going places

Yet again we’ve been awarded the status as one of best companies to work for in the UK

Martin FrostExecutive Director Corporate Services and Deputy Chief Executive

Christine Amyes Executive Director People

Lynn ClaytonManaging Director Gedling Homes

Ian MunroGroup Chief Executive

Andy StaffordExecutive Director Homes

Tony PowellExecutive Director Neighbourhoods6 · Great Homes · Great Neighbourhoods · Great People

Part of the reason for success is our approach to customer service. We were pleased to be reassessed and retain our government standard for Customer Service Excellence, reflecting the importance and attention we pay to frontline service.

As part of our restructuring, we established a new Customer Experience team to concentrate on shaping our services to customer expectations. Diligent surveying means we now hold a great deal of tenant profiling information - 82% New Charter Homes, 93% Aksa Homes and 84% at Gedling Homes. Our communications to customers now reflect this knowledge. We embarked on major reviews of our technology-based information – websites and new social media. And we worked on a significant shift in our telephone call handling which will increase customer confidence and our efficiency.

But all this work depends on our employees, and their attendance record was the best yet. Over the Group we achieved 97.4% attendance, equivalent to 4.38 days absence per employee. This compares favourably with a national average of 10 days absence.

Being there


Being there Moving outwards

Broadcaster Jon Snow urged delegates at the National Housing Federation annual conference to do more to get housing issues into the media. But we’ve done exactly that for several years.

We have been bold enough to see the opportunity to promote the work of registered providers by agreeing to participate in the BBC One series “Neighbourhood Watched”. After a favourable reaction to our appearances in the first series, a second series was filmed and broadcast in March 2011. This drew heavily on the staff and tenants of New Charter Homes and Aksa Homes.

We believe the programmes show the value of what we do at a time of immense pressure on all public services. They reach audiences of millions, and demonstrate the often surprising work we do to meet customer expectations and manage neighbourhoods effectively. The professionalism of the staff featured shines through. There’ll be more to watch in future.

Our tenancy compliance and enforcement activity (featured in the series) is one of several professional services we sell to other landlords. We plan to do more of this in areas such as training, systems improvement skills, supported housing and legal advice.

A major competitive tendering success came as we won the contract to provide housing advice and homelessness services for Knowsley council in Merseyside. The contract is worth around £1m over the initial three years. Aksa won a contract to provide empty homes management across the borough of Oldham, in addition to its floating support.

Our Building Company has always looked beyond the Group for clients, and has been increasingly successful in winning external work. As well as an excellent reputation in housing maintenance, it is strong in the education sector. We think new markets may emerge from the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future programme as older schools are maintained rather than rebuilt.


New landmarks

Our single largest building project will not produce housing. We are sponsors of the largest learning centre in Tameside, the New Charter Academy, and a new £43m campus was under construction in the year. The building at Broadoak in Ashton-under-Lyne will be open for the start of the autumn term in 2011.

As the first housing provider to sponsor an Academy, we have had to gradually improve our offer to students and parents. The first three years of teaching took place in existing school buildings on two sites, but the new purpose-designed accommodation will eventually take 1650 students.

Academically in 2010, 36% of year 11 students obtained 5 GCSEs or more at grades A* - C. This improved on the first set of results in 2009. More significantly, there was a rise in those attaining A and A* passes, which is important for the success of the newly-opened sixth form.

Renewed confidence from parents was reflected in over-demand for admissions in 2010 and 2011. The Academy is a major local statement to provide better opportunities for young people. Our neighbourhood management and youth diversion work by New Charter Homes alongside work placements with us has proved invaluable for both housing and education.

With support from the Homes and Communities Agency and using the JV North development consortium, we have also added to the stock of both Aksa and New Charter Homes in 2010/11.

Many of our larger scheme handovers fell in March 2010 and were reported last year. This year, we purchased a self-contained sheltered housing in Dukinfield from another registered provider. We were also able to buy back several former social rented homes, alleviating financial hardship for the owners, and adding to supply

We are sponsors of the largest learning centre in Tameside


Location: OL6 8RF

New Charter Academy, Broadoak Road, Ashton-under-Lyne.

Location Number of homes

Cost (£’000) Grant (£’000)

Atlas Street, Ashton 22 1315 588

Kenyon Street, Ashton 1 186 69

Total 23 1,501 657


Cost (£’000) Grant (£’000)

Lakeswood, Dukinfield 31 605 0

Right to Buy buy-backs 10 441 68

Mortgage rescue 3 333 217

Total 44 1,379 285

New developments on site include Ravensfield in Dukinfield. We are redeveloping the site of a former sheltered housing scheme to provide an extra care scheme for the elderly to meet local authority assessment of need.


Cost (£’000) Grant (£’000)

Ravensfield, Dukinfield 31 3,964 1,600

St Petersfield, Ashton 31 3,750 1,900

Total 62 7,714 3,500

We anticipate success in bidding for support under the government’s affordable rent programme.


Location: OL6 6EF

Customer Access Centre, Henrietta St, Ashton-under-Lyne.


After steering the board since transfer, Julie Hardman stepped down as Chair in 2010 to be replaced by Geoff Loughlin. Julie was among several board members whose term was ended by the ‘nine year rule’ and we are grateful to them all for their contribution to the Group’s success.

We are also grateful to our many tenants who gave their time and views to help us improve. Notably, the independent Tenant Management Team has not only taken up scrutiny of our landlord activities, but has responded generously to share its experiences across the country.

This resident-led, self-regulated structure evolved from work with some tenants and experts from the Tenant Participation Advisory Service. The Tenant Management Team reviews our policies as well as setting its own agenda and priorities for scrutiny. It ensures New Charter Homes’ tenants are empowered and directly involved, and was instrumental in engaging tenants to help develop our local offers.

Further recognition for our collective approach came in February when we were named as a TSA Co-Regulatory Champion, one of only ten nationally. The award helps us and our tenants share our experiences with other providers.

We continue to support existing involvement activities such as tenants’ and residents’ associations, estate forums and shared interest forums. We received the Resident Involvement Quality Standard from TPAS Chief Executive Michelle Reid, reflecting the whole organisation’s commitment to listening to and using residents’ views.

New Charter Homes

Our other main accreditation obtained last year was for our anti-social behaviour service. Although we believe it to be one of our strengths, we welcomed the opportunity to be independently validated. This was benchmarked and assessed against the Respect charter by Housemark, and is held for three years.

The rolling rent collection rate of 100.53% again exceeded our business plan target. The revenues function focuses on arrears prevention and support. This is excellent performance in the current economic climate.

Improvements to our relet processes have consistently delivered results, and turnaround times fell again to around 29 days. The number of empty homes was at an all-time low by the end of the year. Demand (the number of households seeking accommodation with us) continues to rise, reinforcing the need for more new homes to be added to supply.

Our repairs service continues to deliver high levels of performance and excellent customer satisfaction, evidenced by the scrutiny report from the Tenant Management Team which scored the service ‘excellent’. We introduced extended working over Christmas and New Year to improve customer satisfaction. The average time taken to complete repairs in any category is 5.2 days, a slight improvement. We have been able to reduce the average cost of repairs (under £70) and increase those repairs done by appointment (57%) and the number completed at first visit (95%). Our Repairs Centre call handling productivity increased by 7.5%.

Geoff LoughlinChair, New Charter Homes

Our stock condition survey showed just one home failed the Decent Homes Standard. However, this was because tenants had refused consent for us to renew building elements. Gas servicing was a particular cyclical maintenance success as 100% of homes had a valid (within 12 months) safety certificate – the first time New Charter Homes has achieved this.


The environmentally-friendly renewal of heating to our 15 storey Chartist House in Hyde won both Environmental Initiative of the Year and Project of the Year at the Heating and Ventilation News awards. We plan to apply the learning and technology as we tackle renewal of heating at the 159 apartments in Cavendish Mill, Ashton-under-Lyne. We have a three year plan to improve our use of green technologies. A pilot to retrofit photovoltaic panels will lead to substantial activity in future to reduce both tenant and landlord fuel costs.

Cornerstone is our Family Intervention service, run with Action for Children and Tameside council. We attracted more funding to increase our capacity to 80 families. We provide further support to vulnerable households through our Independent Domestic Violence Advocate service for the borough of Tameside, and a ROOTS scheme to help vulnerable adults including ex-offenders sustain tenancies, encourage training and work opportunities and dissuade reoffending.

Our community regeneration activities focus on five areas:

• communitysafety

• healthyliving

• socialinclusion

• Jobsandlifelonglearning

• improvingtheenvironment

We highlight two particular successes. Recognition of the need to sustain neighbourhoods and the immense pressure on local authorities led us to provide a Youth Service. This harnesses young people’s energies in activities which are both fun and improve society. We already see a direct benefit in reducing the problems of youths causing annoyance in many of our neighbourhoods.

The second is unique and was provoked by our successful work over the last few years to engage tenants in Britain in Bloom. We brought young people from several neighbourhoods together in our Dreamscheme, which rewards them for contributing to their communities. They set out to design a ‘Great Garden’ which was built at the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park. It attracted significant interest and the young people attended to explain their work to the crowds of visitors. Their hard work attracted a bronze medal from the show’s judges.


Many registered providers have seen a fundamental change to their relationships with repairs contractors as the economic climate forced some established companies to close. It’s one change we haven’t experienced; our in-house contractor protected us from those difficulties.

In fact, our Building Company increased its external work by 8% to a record £12.8m, and had an overall turnover of £30m. Its reputation as an excellent maintenance contractor has been forged by listening and responding to our own tenants.

This success was based around an impressive marketing conversion rate of 44.9%. Despite the planned reduction in value of work for the internal customers (New Charter Homes and Aksa Homes), it returned substantial dividends to the Group for investment in improved services to tenants and significant contributions to local charitable concerns.

But it has not simply been a good year financially. Externally and internally, we collected an outstanding set of awards.

We were named as national gas installer of the year at the annual CORGI awards evening, having picked up the north of England title earlier. This remarkable achievement was based on a record of more than 11,000 new heating installations over the decade as well as innovation and satisfaction ratings.

Relentless attention to health and safety and a motivated workforce with sector-leading levels of attendance underpinned the award of the gold

medal from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents for a third consecutive year. Accidents reduced again, showing determination to improve.

These awards are an important part of the success in attracting external contracts which secure employment for the skilled workforce, maintain procurement strengths and bring substantial additional resources into the Group.

Just as importantly, the service was praised by our tenants. The responsive repairs service for New Charter Homes was scrutinised by the independent Tenant Management Team. Their verdict to our board was ‘excellent’ even though they were still able to recommend some areas for improvement. At Aksa Homes, we have addressed a lower satisfaction rating for responsive repairs with the full involvement of tenants. The Building Company has changed the way it operates in line with the local offer to Aksa tenants. Early indications show an eight point improvement in tenant satisfaction.

We returned to our monthly 100% record of attending to emergency and urgent repairs for tenants, which was disrupted by severe winter weather conditions the previous year. And a record 57% of repairs were by done by appointment. Prompted by tenant feedback, we integrated our caretaking service with our building operations, reducing costs and increasing productivity.

A consistent strength is gas servicing which the Building Company carries out for both Aksa and

New Charter Building

Vincent Ricci Chair, New Charter Building


Location: SK16 4XP

New Charter Building Outram Road, Dukinfield.

New Charter Homes’ tenants. But this year 100% of the homes it looks after had a valid gas safety certificate (issued within the last 12 months). This achievement was helped by team working across the Group and use of hand-held technology to issue certificates to tenants at point of service.

The Building Company plans to further improve its diversity record, and diversify into new contract opportunities. Positive action to increase the numbers of women working in construction has meant taking on female gas and window fitters as well as innovative job swaps. It uses equality and diversity training to improve customer contact, along with visual aids to overcome language difficulties and special communications needs. Substantial numbers of work experience placements are helping younger people see a career in construction.

Two new services have been introduced. An in-house scaffolding team was developed to reduce cost and address a previous area of tenant dissatisfaction. It has also increased local employment. And anticipating the growth in renewable energy technologies, the Building Company is now an MCS accredited contractor/installer. It plans to install photovoltaic panels to benefit landlords and tenants in the future.


Gedling Homes

The expectation of tenants after transfer is delivery of promises.

So although we’ve introduced several additional changes to services and collected awards, we did not take our eye off what we said we would do at transfer in November 2008 – 126 promises in all.

Reaching the Gedling Tenants’ Standard for all our homes is the key task, and we’ve had another excellent year of investment. Our £42m programme is on time and on budget with tenant satisfaction in this area currently at 99.3%. Notable achievements included the 1500th new heating installation, the introduction of a mobile trailer to show and collect tenants’ choices, and employment of local apprentices through our construction partners. We are now preparing to add photovoltaic panels to our homes.

A stock condition survey by Savills covered 93% of homes and confirmed our belief that all homes will exceed the Decent Homes Standard by March 2014. The data is helping us plan our future investment and repairs budgets.

As anticipated, our performance on responsive repairs improved considerably, helped by new contractor, Morrison. New performance levels were set and average repair times have fallen. Locally measured, tenants record a 97% satisfaction rating.

Just nine homes had an out of date gas safety certificate. All were because of access difficulties and are being pursued.

Rent collection improved again to 99.86%, alongside successful welfare benefits advice putting more money in our tenants’ pockets. Our wider work on financial inclusion may give us opportunities to sell our expertise elsewhere.

We prepared to introduce a major change in how we let homes. Together with housing providers at Broxtowe and Rushcliffe, a new Choice Based Lettings scheme will be live in April 2011 to increase choice for applicants. Although our turnround time for all empty homes stood at just over 54 days, this was distorted by 37 properties which are low demand without major redevelopment. The underlying figure would have been 25 days; we have funds identified in 2011-12 to do option appraisal and start this work.

Most of our office staff work from our headquarters at Gedling House, but tenants use and value our Customer Service Centre in Arnold for personal calls. It relies on our IT investment to assure a one-stop experience.

Our overall satisfaction rating was 85% when last measured in January 2010. We anticipate a further increase when an independent survey is next done in summer 2011, underwritten but not entirely because of the delivery of more than two years of investment across the stock.

But we haven’t simply delivered our promises. Our employees have benefitted from an extensive Organisational Development programme, ensuring our people have the right skills and more are professionally qualified. This made a significant contribution to a range of awards – a 3 star “extraordinary” rating from Best Companies, a

Location: NG4 4AD

Gedling Homes, Wood Lane, Gedling Nottingham.

Adam JacobsChair Gedling Homes


The expectation of tenants after

transfer is delivery of promises

top twenty placing in The Sunday Times 100 best companies to work for 2011, and retention of both the RoSPA gold award and Code of Practice from the Centre for Housing and Support. Alongside this last accreditation, we successfully redesigned the support service for our sheltered housing.

Improved benefits for our tenants included the Just Rewards scheme to recognise good customers, our garden contest and the 20 local offers written and agreed with them.

Regulatory change has seen us introduce tenant-led resident inspection, with active scrutiny and influence by a strong Tenant Voice. Dora Godfrey and Helen Reyes Minana from our team of tenant inspectors passed the CIH level 2 qualification in housing with distinctions. We are working to achieve TPAS accreditation for our resident involvement service.

We introduced a Family Intervention service in partnership with Nottinghamshire county council, following a bid for government support. The service works with vulnerable families to improve life skills, behaviour and parenting, and seeks to avoid much more costly interventions such as eviction. The success encourages us to see this as an opportunity for business growth in the East Midlands.

Anne Parten, a tenant board member from transfer stood down this year. We are grateful for her contribution to our achievements.


Aksa Homes

Aksa celebrated its twentieth birthday in 2010, and it was an important year of change for the community-based landlord. Throughout, our core landlord functions performed very well.

Rent collection at 99.44% defied the general economic conditions, and average void time was maintained at 17 days. A stock condition survey confirmed all our homes meet the Decent Homes Standard. Every one of our homes has a valid (within 12 months) gas safety certificate.

We addressed the satisfaction ratings from tenants, which were lower than the Group average. We believe this to be based on a lower rating for responsive repairs satisfaction, so have involved tenants to reshaping our services in line with the local offers agreed with them. Locally measured, we have seen an eight point rise in satisfaction since, but will be more widely surveying in summer 2011.

We took the opportunity to mark our 20th birthday with a celebration involving our tenants, staff, board and key partners. A name change to Aksa Homes followed, reflecting our Corporate Plan objectives.

We used our existing work on tenant involvement and community development to produce our local offers. The level of engagement with customers remained high, with particular strengths linking our communities to the Britain in Bloom entries in two local authority areas. Aksa’s core business is housing families with children and most of its community cohesion work successfully engages

with under-16s. Towards the end of the year, we developed a new tenant empowerment structure and this will be implemented to improve the influence of tenants in Aksa Homes.

With a significant number of handovers of new homes just before the year started, we did not expect to add to our portfolio in 2010-11. One large family home on Kenyon Street in Ashton-under-Lyne was created from a terraced house and adjoining disused corner shop.

Like New Charter Homes, our work and staff featured on national television with the screening of the BBC One documentary series “Neighbourhood Watched”. It showed the challenges we face to meet the housing needs of our communities, and the versatile ways we try to manage expectations.

Our work tackles homelessness and worklessness. The Aksa Housing Support Service provides floating support to clients, particularly those at risk of homelessness or seeking to improve employment prospects. We have regular drop-in sessions for customers; both our Home Search and Job Search Clubs help residents, the latter particularly used by Jobcentre Plus for immediate referrals. The U Switch Club has been an immediate success in helping tenants chose the best tariffs and suppliers for gas and electricity. It complements other work we are doing on financial inclusion.

There has been considerable change in governance. The need to refresh the Aksa board to comply with the requirements of the Tenant Services Authority meant it was replaced, temporarily, by the Trust board in December. Since then, we have recruited new non-executive directors, a new Chair has been appointed and governance returned to the Aksa Homes board.

A new Director was appointed and a new vision set out. Reshaped as a community-based organisation, it has successfully developed a new relationship with Oldham council, and contracts won for floating support and empty homes management. This latter award should open up further opportunities for Aksa Homes in other local authority areas.

Georgia ParkerChair, Aksa Homes


Location: OL1 1AN

Aksa Homes, 2 Medtia Square, Oldham.


Our performance in 2010/11

There are three registered providers in the New Charter Housing Trust Group. The housing data listed here covers all three. Figures are at 31st March 2011 or for the 2010/11 financial year.

The registered providers are:Number of

homesAreas ofworking

Aksa 705Oldham,

Manchester, Bury, Tameside

Gedling Homes 3,352 Gedling

New Charter Homes 14,594 Tameside

Total 18,651

Property portfolio:a. Distribution by borough

b. Decent Homes98.41% of our homes meet the Decent Homes standard.

Every Aksa property complies with Decent Homes (most of Aksa’s stock is relatively new). Nearly all of the New Charter Homes stock is older but has seen massive investment. Only 1 is non-decent and remains to be completed by the investment programme.

The Group figure is lowered by the entry of Gedling Homes. The reason for transfer is to improve homes to beyond the Decent Homes Standard. Excellent progress of the investment programme means 10.3% of Gedling stock does not yet meet the standard.

c. Energy EfficiencyAll our new property has very high energy efficiency standards. For our older homes, we invest heavily in cavity/loft insulation and energy efficient boilers and windows. The measure for housing energy efficiency is the SAP score.

Our SAP score is around 63.

d. Leased PropertyCumulative number of properties sold but freehold retained (eg flats): 493

Rent LevelsOur rents remain very affordable, well below market rents and below average rents for registered providers in the North West and the East Midlands

Average net weekly rent (excluding service charges)

Average rents General Needs housing (New Charter Homes) (£pw)

Bedsit 50.52

1 bed 60.88

2 bed 76.36

3 bed 79.25

4 bed 78.06

Average rents General Needs housing (Gedling Homes) (£pw)

Bedsit 49.90

1 bed 53.88

2 bed 59.48

3 bed 66.08

4 bed 72.12

Average rent Aksa

(£pw)

All 76.60

Average rent Supported and housing for Older People (New Charter Homes)

(£pw)

Bedsit 52.91

1 bed 64.22

2 bed 67.69

3 bed 73.38

4 bed 74.99

Bury71

Oldham501

Tameside14627Manchester

100Gedling

3352


Average rent Supported and housing for Older People (Gedling Homes) (£pw)

Bedsit 49.45

1 bed 54.59

2 bed 62.53

3 bed 63.19

4 bed -

Rent Collection Rent collected as a percentage of rent debit (less rent lost due to voids)

Increase in average rent 0.99%

Rent collected as % of rent debit (net of Housing Benefit)

100.38%

Annual rent debit £ 69,602,211

% of rent debit in current arrears (net of Housing Benefit)

3.33%

% of rent lost due to voids 1.58%

% of rent debit written off in year 0.99%

Letting Property Number of homes let in the year 1,881

Lettings by household typeAksaSingles/Couples under 60 years 53.66%

Older Households (60+) 4.90%

Families with children 41.44%

Gedling HomesSingles/Couples under 60 years 37.20%



New Charter HomesSingles/Couples under 60 years 46.20%



Lettings by Ethnic Origin of HouseholdAksa - White 27.3% BME 72.7%

Gedling Homes – White 94.6% BME 5.4%

New Charter Homes – White 87.7% BME 12.3%

Empty homes Properties vacant available to let at year end 175

Properties vacant not available to let at year end 38

Void rate: 1.14% of al stock

Repairs PerformanceLast year we undertook Day to Day repairs. 96.85% of these repairs were completed within this timescale. The average time between the tenant reporting a repair and the repair being completed is 5.23 days.

Investment Homes improved in the year with new:

Bathrooms 1,250

Kitchens 1,196

Heating installations 1,002

Rewires 381

Roofs 169

Gedling366

Oldham36

Tameside1476

Oldham35

Manchester3

Bury1


Spending£’000

Investment 21,077,521

Cyclical maintenance 1,497,845

Responsive maintenance and void properties 10,814,136

New Building 5,426,963

Environmental 3,138,031

Total 41,954,497

Tenant Satisfaction – New Charter Homes

%

Tenant satisfied with New Charter Homes as their landlord

89.3

Tenants satisfied that their views are taken into account by New Charter Homes

73.6

Tenant satisfaction with New Charter Homes’ repairs and maintenance

83.6

* Based on a survey of 1000 tenants undertaken in January 2010

Tenant Satisfaction – Aksa%

Tenants satisfied with Aksa as their landlord 70.1

Tenants satisfied that their views are taken into account by Aksa

63.9

Tenant satisfaction with Aksa repairs and maintenance

62.5


Tenant Satisfaction – Gedling Homes

%

Tenants satisfied with Gedling Homes as their landlord

84.9

Tenants satisfied that their views are taken into account by Gedling Homes

67.6

Tenant satisfaction with Gedling Homes’ repairs and maintenance

73.0


Property salesProperties sold in the year under the Right to Buy or Right to Acquire

12

EmployeesThe Group currently has 780 employees.

Ethnicity

White 731

Asian 38

Black 9

Other 2

Gender

Male 398

Female 382

Other Services – Housing AdviceNew Charter provides a complete housing advice and homelessness service for the Tameside area. It had 4583 visitors in 2010/11. The emphasis is on homelessness prevention.

Advice cases worked on in the year: 1697

(of which became actual homeless applications) 271

Number of applications accepted as homeless and in priority need:

66

Homeless cases prevented for at least 6 months: 187

Households temporarily accommodated in the year:

New Charter accommodation: 285

Bed and breakfast: 69


Group Income and Expenditure account for the year ended 31st March 2011

£’000

Turnover Rent collected 89,620

Maintenance, management and other administration costs (includes the development agreement for Gedling Homes)

Cost of providing our services (80,412)

Operating surplus 9,208

Surplus on sale of properties PRTB and RTA sales 313

Loss due to properties demolished for redevelopment (1,528)

Surplus on ordinary activities before interest and taxation 7,993

Net interest and tax payableInterest charges we pay on our borrowings

(15,972)

Deficit for the year (7,979)

Group Balance Sheet at 31st March 2011What we own £’000

Value of investment in our housing stock 416,710

Cost of the investment in our offices, IT etc 13,446

430,156

Cash in hand and money we are owed - less bills not paid at year end 58,380

Net wealth (assets) 488,536

How we fund our investment

Borrowing from our loan facility 305.844

Other long term creditors 69,929

Accumulated reserves 112,763

Total funding 488,536

Financial Highlights 2010/11

RTB/RTA sales of 12 properties generating £702k (2009/10: £297k).

Capitalised major works of £2.161m (2009/10: £4.522m).

Rent losses from voids increased by £218k (2009/10: £98k).

Provisions for liabilities and charges of £55m relating to the development agreement with Gedling Borough Council is included on the Balance Sheet.

External income generated by the Building Company was £12.8m (2009/10: £15.0m).

Building Company turnover £30m (2009/10: £34m).


Boards of Directors 2010/11

New Charter Housing Trust LimitedCompany number 3807262Gerald Cooney (Local Authority) (Chair)Hamid Ghafoor (Independent) (Vice Chair)Maria Bailey (Local Authority)Malcolm Burbridge (Tenant)Jimmy Burns (Independent) stood down 20th September 2010 Ann Djordjevic (Independent)Jed Hassid (Independent)Adam Jacobs (Independent)Aslam Khan (Independent)Ian Munro (Executive)Joan Ryan (Independent)(Joseph) Philip Smith (Tenant)

New Charter Homes LimitedCompany number 3807022Geoff Loughlin (Independent) (Chair)Jim Middleton (Local Authority) (Vice Chair)Alan Alcock (Tenant) David Boyle (Local Authority) appointed 22nd October 2010Thomas Daly (Tenant) appointed 20th September 2010Margaret Downs (Local Authority) stood down 20th September 2010Jacqui Fendall (Independent)Julie Hardman (Tenant) stood down 20th September 2010 (Desmond) Taff Jeffery (Tenant)Tracey Jones (Local Authority) Joan Ryan (Independent)Jacqui McCann (Co-opted)Tony Powell (Co-opted)Gordon Tow (Co-opted)

New Charter Building Company Limited Company number 3807120Vincent Ricci (Independent) (Chair)Kieran Quinn (Independent) (Vice Chair)Geoff Howarth (Independent)Liliane Laine-Slater (Independent)Andy Stafford (Executive)

Gedling HomesCompany number 05975258Adam Jacobs (Independent) (Chair)Roger Palmer (Tenant) (Vice Chair)(Vernon) Vic Bradley (Local Authority)(Seamus) Jim Creamer (Local Authority)Ray Ellis (Tenant) appointed 30th September 2010Richard Goodwin (Local Authority)Ron Hodges (Independent)Lindy Mee (Tenant)(Violet) Anne Parten (Tenant) stood down 30th September 2010Doreen Richardson (Tenant) Paul Stone (Independent)Stephen White (Independent)(Marguerite) Anne Wright (Local Authority)

Aksa Housing Association LimitedFSA registration 27003RElaine Davies (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010Ken Heap (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010Nasir Ilyas (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010Aslam Khan (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010 Nasim Ullah Khan (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010 Joe Oliver (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010Abdul Quayum (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010Muhammad Rahman (Tenant) stood down 14th December 2010Anjam Shahzad (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010 Wizarat Siddiqi (Independent) stood down 14th December 2010

The New Charter Housing Trust board was appointed to carry out the duties of the Aksa Housing Association board on 14th December 2010. A new Aksa board was appointed from 1st May 2011.

The following people were also co-opted onto the Group’s Committees during the year:Andrew Broadhurst (Finance)Rex Charlton (Audit)Mark Dunford (Finance)Richard Sainsbury (Audit)


Issued by New Charter Housing Trust Limited, a company Limited by Guarantee, registered in England and Wales, company number 3807262; registered office: Cavendish 249, Cavendish Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, OL6 7AT

Written by David Rigby Communications 01457 871782Produced by Northstar Design & Printing.com 01282 865333


Registered Office: Cavendish 249 · Cavendish Street · Ashton-under-Lyne · Lancashire · OL6 7AT · T 0161 331 2000 · F 0161 331 2001 · E [email protected]

annual report 2010

Documents

new homes

people standard

best companies

people gold status

new coalition government

best results

death of social housing

significant change