Being open and honest

It was a very busy last quarter of the financial year, with an enormous amount of work achieved by working with customers and listening to their feedback.

Customer engagement survey results

In March, we asked customers to give us their views on how they wanted to get involved in shaping, influencing, scrutinising and giving us feedback on our services and key decisions that impact customers.  

We were delighted to receive 5,291 responses and are now using this feedback to develop our customer engagement model with tenant engagement experts, TPAS.

We also completed six workshops with colleagues, current panel members and residents, with a total of 72 attending altogether.  These were very productive sessions, with great conversations.  

We also sent an email to 1,438 residents who said they wanted to be involved via email and are working on getting letters, text and phone calls out to those who preferred these methods of contact. We are also looking at comments from customers regarding queries and breaking down issues they are raising in more detail to then develop engagement activities or escalations to teams to remedy these.  

Next steps 

On 10 April, TPAS presented final feedback to all those involved in the workshops, including colleagues and customers. 

We will be presenting the final Engagement Model to final feedback group 16 May, then presenting it to Executive Board on 20 May. 

We will be finalising the Engagement Framework by 6 June and sending more information to customers on the new model, with details of how it will work, once it has been approved.

New self-service makes life easier for customers

We’ve launched View My Documents on MySovereign, so that customers can download their rent letters and service charge statements. Before this, customers had to email or call us if they wanted a copy. 

Available 24/7, this is just one way we’re creating an effortless customer experience with self-service solutions. 

Feedback from customers about using MySovereign to manage their tenancy has been positive, with customers commenting “it’s easily accessible” and “convenient to use”. 

Getting new neighbourhoods off to a great start

We saw some great joint working between our Bristol teams when they helped new customers moving into our brand-new flats at the Carriageworks  development. 

The block has several complex features like Modulair Heat Pumps that customers may not have experienced before, so we felt it was important to tie their viewings in with a workshop nearby. 

Customers got to know their new neighbours ahead of their move and to meet our officers. We also talked through their aspirations, move in arrangements, all of the additional SNG services they can access and their responsibilities as customers.  

One customer said: “Today's been really, really good. It's nice to come into somewhere and meet people. Some people can be socially awkward, you can think ‘should I approach that person?’  

“So it's nice to get to know people, see what's going to happen in the community, listen to everybody's ideas, but I just think that this is an absolutely brilliant workshop, so well done to you lot." 

We hope this personalised approach for new neighbourhoods will help create thriving communities over generations. 

Steps to tenancy success programme changes lives

There are times when we can’t offer someone a tenancy, even if they’ve successfully bid on a property. This is normally due to affordability or because we think they may not be able to manage a tenancy yet. 

To help those we have to say no to, we offer them the opportunity to join our pre-tenancy programme: Steps to tenancy success, run by social enterprise Your Own Place (YOP). 

Since we started working with YOP, we’ve referred 26 people of all ages and backgrounds who couldn’t take up the tenancy when we did our checks. 

• 7 of them took part in YOP’s online programme of support 
• 14 engaged with phone calls, texts and via Whatsapp - discussing their current situation and what steps they’re taking, with signposting if relevant 
• 2 people have since moved into social housing  

Watch how YOP changed Amy’s life:

Read a text-only version of the animation above

Mum of two Amy applied for an SNG home but was unsuccessful because of affordability and rent arrears issues. Determined to improve her financial situation, she was referred to our pre-tenancy programme partner =- Your Own Place (YOP)

After completing the YOP course, Amy said: “I feel ready to start a new era that I’ve been waiting for for so long... being able to do this course has given me hope ”

They worked with her one-to-one via Zoom and focused on courses around budgeting and debt management. 

She was able to use her new skills to pay down much of her rent arrears and debt, and let the housing team know. When further bids on properties were unsuccessful, YOP helped her find ways to manage. Then she found a home, passing the affordability checks. She is now looking forward to living in a safe and secure home.

If you think Your Own Place can help you, and want to learn more, get in touch now at steps@sovereign.org.uk.

Energy programme success

We partnered with Citizens Advice   to run our free Energy Outreach Programme. 

 This provided customers with impartial advice on how to improve energy efficiency, save money and access the very best energy deals. We also ran a series of energy advice webinars in partnership with Testlands Wellbeing Hub. 

By the end of the programme, we had completed 409 individual household assessments, which led to us delivering: 

• 310 household focused energy packs 
• 163 warm packs 
• 85 referrals for ongoing support from either our Customer Income Advice (CIA), Debt Advice or Employment Support services 
• 101 referrals to the Pocket Power switching service  

We also had some great feedback from customers we helped: 

Customer 1 

“I just cannot believe this support is available – I recently become a single parent and work full time but still cannot pay my bills. This call could not have come at a better time! The information and items you are able to provide will really make a difference to me and my son.” 

Customer 2  

“Thank-you! It has been really tough….. I have no income, haven’t heated my home in 2 years due to the cost of my storage heaters and am unable to find work. This call has been so incredibly useful and I am now looking forward to accessing help to clear my other debts and find work that can help me.” 

Customer 3 

"My daughter isn't well, I care for her and my money doesn't last, everything is a struggle. I can't believe there is so much I can do to try save money, thank you. The air fryer will mean I am able to cook hot meals again, I look forward to hearing from your CIA team to see what I can do to increase my income." 

If you’re struggling with costs, please visit our Cost of living support webpage for details on what support is available. 

Mutual exchange changes make a massive difference 

In February, we launched our new digital mutual exchange process through HomeSwapper. Before this, all applications were done manually and customers had to call or email us to check on the status of their exchange.  

Now they can manage their whole exchange online and get live status updates any time of day or night, seven days a week. We make decisions on whether an exchange can go ahead within the statutory 42 days and since launch, the average time to complete an exchange has nearly halved, from 114 days last October to 77 days in March.

Working locally

Our teams work hard to provide good services, so it’s always lovely to hear positive feedback from customers about how they’ve made a difference to their lives.

Read a text-only version of the animation above: How our teams are making a difference

Our carpenters are a credit

“I have never come across such lovely operatives - they were nothing but professional, tidy, knowledgeable, polite and respectful. They were an absolute pleasure to meet and deal with.”

Debt advice changes lives

“The help I received was exceptional, I was made aware of things that I had no idea existed, and if it wasn't for the help from your Jon [Debt Advisor,] I would still be struggling, or worse still, homeless. We are now looking forward to a brighter future and hopefully will never be in that place again.”

Apprenticeships matter

“The operative teaching the apprentice was wonderful and encouraging. The apprentice was clearly excited about the work and they very clearly worked very well together and to a very high standard.”

Life-changing benefits support

“I cannot thank you enough, I’m due to pay every single penny of my rent arrears. It’s [because of] your guys’ hard work, patience, and resilience with me as a person and also all the hard work with the [PIP] paperwork. Thank you so much.”

How we’re performing

Customer service

In quarter 4, we: 

• answered phone calls in an average of 1 min 52 secs (2 min target) 
• answered emails in an average of 25 hrs 41 mins (vs 48 hrs target) 
• responded to social media messages in 49 mins 45 secs on average (vs 1 hr target) 
• responded to webchat in 42 secs (no target as it’s a new channel). 

In our post-call customer surveys, we received an average of 4.1 out of 5 from customers vs our target of a minimum 4 out of 5. 

Complaints 

• In quarter 4, our Complaints Specialists continued to work hard to provide quality responses in a timely manner, with a view of reaching the right outcome for our customers. 
• 1,531 complaints were received and 58% of cases were responded to within 10 working days. 

Although we continue to focus on the quality of our responses, and ensuring we resolve our customers’ complaints effectively and efficiently, our performance is not where we, or our customers, want it to be. We are seeing an improvement, and this will be enhanced with the recruitment of a number of new roles, that will be put in place during the spring. 

We have also, appointed a Board Member to be our Complaints Champion, and they will ensure we report and challenge our complaints performance on a regular basis, and that complaints are being managed, change is happening and that customers are being heard through the complaints process.

Communities

Between January and March 2024, we saw these great results. 

Community investment 

• 31 community organisations supported 
• 463 young people took part in youth social action through our  SNG #iwill programme 
• Invested in 14 'environment and place' programmes and initiatives          
• Supported 10 ageing well programmes and initiatives      
• Contributed to 8 health and wellbeing programmes and initiatives 
• Invested in 25 social inclusion/isolation reduction programmes and initiatives 

We also launched three community grants programmes: our Commercial Support Fund  , EDI community microgrants   and Black History Month (BHM) 365 Fund  . 

Debt advice 

• In the financial year 2023-2024, we helped customers reduce or clear £27,332.44 of arrears 
• The service also generated £1,734,444 in social value 

Employment and skills 

• 97 people were helped into work or better work 
• 237 training outcomes were achieved 
• 10 people were supported with business start-up and self-employment 

Financial inclusion 

• We helped save customers £73,424.78 
• We supported 1,814 cases of fuel poverty 

Funding  

• We secured £1,037,081.96 of external funding

Localities

We have seen some great results from our teams working closely with customers to understand what they want us to focus on in their communities. 

In Greenham, our Localities teams worked alongside the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Newbury Neighbourhood Police team, Berkshire Youth and West Berkshire Council to offer the community: 

• free half-term activities 
• safety advice 
• free skip use 
• repairs advice 
• housing, budgeting, benefits and training support 

The community was pleased with the help provided - a lot of information and support was given, skips were filled, fly-tipping and litter were shifted, and gardens and communal areas cut back.

Tenancy sustainment

In quarter 4, we saw: 

ASB 

• January – 81 active cases 
• February – 76 active cases 
• March – 100 active cases 

ASB is an emotive topic and has a big impact on people’s lives. It’s therefore a key focus for us. We report internally and externally to our regulator on numbers of cases and how our customers feel about how we manage issues. We also report on Hate Crime. We are always looking to improve in this space.  

We recently got together the teams responsible for managing ASB cases and shared some of the challenges.
We also looked at the key actions that both our customers and industry experts tell us drive good customer satisfaction. We’ve mapped all of our ASB incidents on to our Electronic Mapping System and have new management information on cases per 1,000 homes in our various localities, which will help us identify hot spots and take action to address things proactively.  

Safeguarding 

• January – 107 cases 
• February – 81 cases 
• March – 73 cases 

We’ve seen a real increase in Safeguarding concerns coming in to and from our teams in the last year. We’ve also seen a sharp increase in people experiencing a mental health crisis. We believe much of this is linked to the increased pressures in the community due to the cost-of-living crisis. Our teams are working hard to advise and signpost people to support available as well as referring them to the range of grants and supportive offers SNG has to mitigate some of the worst of the cost-of-living crisis.   

Please remember our fully funded 24 hour mental health text support service ‘Not Alone’ provided by our mental health partner ‘Shout’. To use this service simply text ‘NOTALONE’ to 85258. 

Domestic abuse 

In the financial year 2023/4, we had 261 reports of domestic abuse. 

We have been adding lots of information to our domestic abuse webpage, including additional places you can get support if you are a victim or a perpetrator.  

(Please note, clicking the link below can show in your browser history. Women’s Aid has advice on how to cover your tracks online  .)

Lettings and mutual exchange

• In quarter 4 we completed 705 lettings, of which 502 were re-lets to existing homes and 203 were lets on new build homes. 
• We also completed 131 mutual exchanges.

Customer accounts and tenancy support

• In quarter 4 our Customer Income Advisors took 773 referrals. 
• They also closed 725 cases, with 580 (80%) of these customers engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience. 
• They assisted 496 customers with their Universal Credit (UC) claims, representing 27% of all UC-related support provided in 2023/24. 
• And they referred 80 customers to our money partners - ensuring they received expert debt advice and could explore viable options. 

Property services and repairs

Repairs

Preparations and training last summer and autumn increased our resources and gave us more capability to meet the extra demand for repairs over the winter. In January to March, we completed over 64,000 responsive repairs and customer satisfaction with these increased to 85%. 

We know it’s also vital to deal effectively with reports of condensation, damp and mould. We continued to focus on this, improving how we identify the extent of any problems – such as by enabling customers to upload photos and introducing video calls so we can make initial assessments more quickly. Our website and leaflets also include extra sources of support and tips to avoid condensation, damp and mould. 

In addition, we: 

• completed work on 586 empty homes 
• replaced 232 kitchens, 227 bathrooms and 126 roofs 
• fitted new windows to 304 homes 
• replaced 1,065 front and back doors, flat entrance fire doors and garage doors

Gas              

In quarter 4, we installed: 

• 403 planned boilers through our planned programme 
• 359 new boilers following a responsive repair issue 
• 13 Air Source Heat Pump systems 

For the financial year 2023/24, we were 100% compliant for domestic and commercial properties with gas. We also negotiated savings of £500k with our boiler supplier: money we can plough back into other activity.  

In total, we installed: 

• 1,253 responsive boilers 
• 1,396 planned boilers 
• 34 Air Source Heat Pumps 

Electrical 

In quarter 4, we completed the modernisation of 5 passenger lifts and, over the financial year 2023/24, we: 

• installed 154 new modern efficient electrical heating installs (responsive only) 
• upgraded 1,600 electrical distribution boards 
• completed 122 full property rewires 

Did you know?  

We now include arc fault detection devices (AFDD) into our new fuse boards and have done for some years. These aren’t mandatory unless buildings are over 18 metres tall, but we choose to provide them for all new fuse boards as they can detect a fire risk from a faulty appliance and switch off the power. This is in addition to the normal tripping feature if an appliance is faulty. 

We were Highly Commended for this approach in the ‘safety and compliance initiative of the year’ category of awards run by the Association of Safety Compliance Professionals (ASCP). 

It was a busy three months, with lots of holidays and celebrations mixed in with some difficult global and local events.

However, within our communities, there have been many things worth celebrating, including our merger on 1 October 2023, with Network Homes.

We are now called SNG (Sovereign Network Group) and work across the South and South West of England, London and Hertfordshire. 

Our CEO Mark Washer said: “This is an important moment for SNG, but we are now absolutely focussed on delivering the benefits for our customers, and future customers. Our combined strength gives us the opportunity to remain ambitious in our plans to create more homes, and more sustainable homes that people can love living in over many generations. This commitment to our environment and enabling wider social success within our communities is built into SNG from the very start.”

You can still contact us the same way as you normally do for any questions around your tenancy, repairs and services.

Giving you the best experience

As a result of customer feedback, we made some significant changes so that we can provide a far quicker service for those who need simple aids or adaptations to their home – our target is now to respond within 20 days.

We’re also making various changes to our repairs service following the results of a major resident-led scrutiny into the damp and mould service plus a further piece of research with customers into their experience of repairs. 

In Q3 we started using video visits to gather more information quickly after a report of a serious damp and mould issue; sharing extra information by SMS about preparing for appointments; and making it easier to access our support services by giving our trades information they can share with customers - and then a way to ask our teams to get in touch if you would like our help. And we added lots more content, suggested by customers, to our tips on avoiding condensation, damp and mould and winter tips, advice and support pages.

Great news for our customers

In December, two new SNG customers, one who had left a difficult relationship, and another who had been living in shared housing for years, were finally able to say they had a home of their own. Watch the video below to hear what difference it’s made to them.

We launched our mental health text messaging service with our partner, Shout, who can provide SNG customers with free, confidential mental health support, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Find out how the service works and how you can access it if you need it.

We’re also now working in partnership with the homeless charity Shelter to prevent avoidable evictions and to support customers to re-engage with us as their housing provider.

And we’ve expanded our digital inclusion offer, which now includes free training from Barclays Digital Wings and free sim cards.

In our communities

Alongside Clarion, Brighter Places, and Abri Housing, we helped fund The Youth Club on Wheels, a new mobile youth service, which works with young people in hard-to-reach areas of Bristol and rural areas where there are currently little to no services for young people to interact, engage and enhance their skills.

We also supported a resident-led winter market offering free surplus food at Rectory Park, Northolt, in West London (this is one of the new areas we work in). We teamed up with charity The Felix Project to supply the food to residents at the estate’s community centre.

And we distributed 126 microgrants to organisations within our communities to raise awareness of, and support, improved mental health and wellbeing. Watch the video below to see some of our Q3 highlights.

Our Q3 highlights 

• We gave 652 customer keys to their new home
• Answered calls in less than a minute on average
• Supported 520 customers through our Financial Inclusion service
• Replaced 700 boilers
• We supported 375 customers with Universal Credit claims
• We helped 10 people with business self employment
• We helped 1,344 in fuel poverty
• Supported 143 community organisations

Working locally

Our teams work hard to provide good services, so it’s always lovely to hear positive feedback from customers about how they’ve made a difference to their lives. Watch the video below to find out more.

Employment and skills make a difference
“Thank you a trillion for rewording and fixing my supporting statement. I truly appreciate your hard work and support and I'm applying for the position right away.”

Life-changing support
Our Customer Income Advisors helped one customer appeal an unsuccessful application for Disability Living Allowance (DLA). They attended the tribunal together and the customer was awarded £68.10 DLA a week, with £4,300 backdated.

Fantastic customer feedback
“I've had a new kitchen and bathroom and wanted to say how amazing it looks. The men on the job are a credit to you, always so polite and cheerful.”

We listen
After feedback from our customers, our Dorset Localities team built two new parking spaces at a housing for older people scheme, making an instant difference.

More fantastic customer feedback

To the Service Charges team and Wiltshire Locality Manager

“[I wanted to] express my sincere thanks to the Service Charge Team & Ian. Not only were they helpful, but also really kind & professional too, they have really gone above & beyond to help us.”

To our Devon trades team

“The Two Johns arrived at 8am yesterday and DID NOT STOP. What they managed in one day is just exceptional and outstanding.

“Thanks also to Ricky for making this happen!! Please let them all know and the whole of the company too. Very happy to live in a Sovereign home.”

To our Customer Specialist Claire

“She didn’t cut me off when I explained what I had gone through. Didn’t judge or change her tone of voice. She's a complete asset and went above and beyond and I wanted to make you aware of her hard work and dedication."

To our Greenham Trades team

"I just wanted to say a big thank you to the gentleman (Caz) that came to my house to treat the damp. He was extremely helpful, he was very tidy, polite and went above and beyond to help myself and my neighbour with some issues we have had of late.”

How we're performing

Customer service

In quarter 3, our Customer Service team continued to improve how quickly they respond when you get in touch via all our different channels. 

• Answering phone calls: 48 seconds vs 2 minute target 
• Answering emails: 22h 20 mins vs 48 hours target 
• Responding to social media messages: 1 hour 5 minutes vs 1 hour target 
• Responding to webchat: 42 seconds (no target as it’s a new channel) 

In our post-call customer surveys we also received an average of 4.15 out of 5 from customers vs our target of a minimum 4 out of 5.

Communities

Between October and December 2023: 

Community investment

• 143 community organisations supported
• 441 young people took part in youth social action through our SNG #iWill programme
• 2,409 community members engaged with our services and initiatives
• 5 'environment and place' programmes and initiatives           
• 4 ageing well programmes and initiatives     
• 2 new neighbourhoods initiatives           
• 135 health and wellbeing programmes and initiatives
• 3 social inclusion/isolation reduction programmes and initiatives

Funding 

• £372,587.64 external funding secured

Employment and Skills

• 71 people helped into work or better work
• £1,384,150 Social Value generated by our Employment and Skills team
• 217 training outcomes achieved
• 10 people with business start up and self employment

Other highlights: 

We received 76 applications to our SNG #iWill 2.0 programme during quarter 3, a phenomenal amount of interest.  We awarded 16 grants to youth organisations based within our communities to support the development of young wellbeing champions to support young residents. 

We supported a series of events on 27 October as part of World Clean-up Day. We provided funding for 13 groups who supported 98 volunteers to give 79.5 hours of their time to contribute to helping keep their community free of litter and waste. Thank you all!

Neighbourhoods

Between quarter 1 and quarter 3:

• We’ve had 774 anti-social behaviour cases reported to us.
• We’ve had 694 safeguarding cases report, which is a significant increase on the same time last year. This has likely been impacted by the cost-of-living crisis. 
• We have also seen an increase in domestic abuse cases, with 142 reported.

Lettings and mutual exchange

Between October and December 2023: 

• We let 652 homes
• 451 were re-lets to existing homes and 201 were first lets in new build homes
• We completed 80 mutual exchanges

Customer accounts and tenancy support

Between October and December 2023: 

• Our Customer Income Advisors took 551 referrals.
• They also closed 627 cases, with 520 (82.93%) engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience.
• We supported 375 customers with their Universal Credit claims.
• We referred 47 customers to local money partners to support them with debt advice and explore their options.

Merger with Network Homes 

We’re now known as SNG (Sovereign Network Group), having merged with Network Homes on 1 October 2023.

The merger doesn’t affect your right to live in your home and you have the same lease or tenancy agreement. Initially you’ll notice little difference: you’ll still be dealing with the same teams as you do now and contact us in the same way to access services, make a payment or request a repair.  

Longer-term, merging will let us do more for all our customers. As one organisation we can invest more into existing homes, services, local communities and building more homes.  

Working locally 

Our Locality Officers have received extra training to make sure they have the skills and knowledge to do the best in their roles. The teams spend lots of time in our communities and they’ve been inviting some customers to locality consultations, so we can get people's views on opportunities and issues within their area. 

In Wantage, we invited customers to give their thoughts on a proposed play park on the local green. Similarly, in Southampton, we asked households to get involved in creating an action plan of improvements for local outside spaces. 

And we’re pleased to see that customer satisfaction has increased this quarter around our ‘Positive contribution to neighbourhoods’ Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM).

How our teams are making a difference

Employment and skills make a difference
“Thank you a trillion for rewording and fixing my supporting statement. I truly appreciate your hard work and support and I'm applying for the position right away.”

Life-changing support
Our Customer Income Advisors helped one customer appeal an unsuccessful application for Disability Living Allowance (DLA). They attended the tribunal together and the customer was awarded £68.10 DLA a week, with £4,300 backdated.

Fantastic customer feedback
“I've had a new kitchen and bathroom and wanted to say how amazing it looks. The men on the job are a credit to you, always so polite and cheerful.”

We listen
After feedback from our customers, our Dorset Localities team built two new parking spaces at a housing for older people scheme, making an instant difference.

Our Q2 highlights

• Gave 722 customers keys to their new home 
• Answered customer calls within 28 seconds on average 
• Saved customers £157k through our Financial Inclusion service
• Supported 492 customers with Universal Credit claims 
• Fitted 186 new kitchens and 139 new bathrooms
• Replaced 599 boilers
• Helped 71 people in fuel poverty
• Supported 53 community organisations

Other key activities this quarter 

• We were Highly Commended in the 'Safety and compliance initiative of the year' award by the Association of Safety Compliance Professionals (ASCP). 
• We had nearly 1,700 engagements from young people who have directly taken part in our Sovereign #iwill Fund youth social action projects. We have also just launched our latest #iwill grants programme. 
• Thanks to negotiations with our boiler suppliers, we’ve saved £260k since the beginning of the year. These savings mean we can upgrade more boilers sooner than planned, benefitting an extra 70 homes. 
• We distributed £8,255 of funding to support local organisations to deliver summer activities and food programmes for families, children and young people. This programme really helped to relieve some of the pressure points that families faced during the summer. 
• We gave 13 projects a grant of £500 each to support a range of environmental projects. This included recycling programmes, litter picking and “swap” sessions for unwanted goods.

How we’re performing

Customer engagement

Members of our Resident and Board Partnership and Scrutiny Coordination Group had an amazing day at the TPAS National Tenant Conference 2023.

They were ensuring customers’ voices are heard, discussing how best landlords should engage with customers and offer the best services possible for all. 

Our Scrutiny Coordination Group has finalised its damp and mould scrutiny report. The group found a number of areas that we do really well in. This includes our financial inclusion support, the advice sent out to residents on how to deal with damp and mould, and the ease of reporting issues.  

They also made a number of recommendations for improvements, many of which will be implemented over the coming months, and will improve services for all customers who are reporting damp and mould. 

They have just begun the start of their next scrutiny which will look at we temporarily re-home customers in the case of an emergency.

Customer service

In quarter two, our Customer Service team continued to improve how quickly they respond when you get in touch via all our different channels. 

• Answering phone calls: 28 seconds vs 2 minute target 
• Answering emails: 17hrs 34 mins vs 48 hours target 
• Responding to social media messages: 48 minutes vs 1 hour target 
• Responding to webchat: 15 seconds (no target as it’s a new channel) 

In our post-call customer surveys we also received an average of 4.21 out of 5 from customers vs our target of a minimum 4 out of 5.

Communities

Within Communities, we focus on these five key areas: community investment, employment and skills, digital and financial inclusion, social value and funding and partnerships. 

Here are some key highlights from quarter two:

• Helping 94 people into work or better work 
• Supporting 22 customers with business start ups and self-employment 
• Saving customers over £157k through our Financial Inclusion service 
• Helping 71 people in fuel poverty 
• Supporting 53 community organisations 
• Engaging with 8,500 people within our communities 
• Running seven ageing well programmes and eight health and wellbeing initiatives 
• Securing over £320k in external funding

Neighbourhoods

• We are working towards rating all of our neighbourhoods (over 10,000). These ratings will help us decide how frequently our teams should visit them. 
• We investigate suspected tenancy fraud. This year, we have handled 256 cases, with subletting being the highest category. 
• We have handled 5,753 anti-social behaviour cases since the start of the year, with noise being the most reported category (circa 1,900 cases). 
• This year, we’ve worked on 226 domestic abuse cases, with our response time being 99.6% in line with our service level agreement.    
• 648 safeguarding cases have been created in the last 12 months, with 623 closed.  532 cases have related to adult safeguarding concerns and 116 to children.

Lettings and development

Between July and September 2023: 

• We completed 342 homes, 306 of which were affordable.
• 130 Shared Ownership homes were sold, with an average equity of 42%.
• We completed 518 re-lets and 204 new lets.  
• We completed 190 mutual exchanges.

Tenancy support

Between July and September 2023: 

• Our Tenancy Support Advisors took 643 referrals. 
• They also closed 597 cases, with 481 (80.57%) engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience. 
• We supported 492 customers with their Universal Credit claims. 
• We referred 49 customers to local money partners to support them with debt advice and explore their options.

Maintaining our homes and neighbourhoods

Between July and September 2023: 

• 52,000 responsive repairs were raised with 13,000 of these being emergency repairs.  
• We replaced 599 boilers.
• We installed 186 new kitchens and 139 new bathrooms.
• 188 homes had new windows, 323 had new doors and 150 homes had new roofs.
• We fully rewired 34 properties.
• We completed 26 low carbon electric full heating upgrades.
• We upgraded 170 fuseboards.

Turning things around

Despite our best efforts, we know we don't always get things right. But, when things go wrong we do everything we can to regain trust and do the right thing for our customers.

We received this feedback from a customer, complimenting one our Property Customer Specialists:

"I was totally overwhelmed by the customer service I received to deal with my problem. Nothing was too much trouble for this lady helping me, she certainly went above and beyond to deal with my issues and definitely went the extra mile to make sure everything was sorted. I have never received such an excellent customer service before and I am truly grateful.”

In April, we started working in a more localised way, with our people and services centred around our neighbourhoods and communities.

Our housing and property specialists are now part of ‘locality’ teams, with each team focusing on specific locations across our geography. Accountable for helping us create places people are proud to live in, our teams deliver for our customers, their homes and communities.

This localised approach means we have a more visible presence and are able to proactively engage with customers and partners in person. Every week, teams meet to look through their priorities and to discuss any concerns, so they can establish the best ways to serve our customers.

A strong example of the benefits of working in localities came up in May - our Isle of Wight localities team jumped into action when a cooker fire broke out in a customer’s flat. Thankfully our customer wasn’t hurt but we worked closely with them and external partners to make sure they received the right support. 

In less than an hour of the fire being reported, our Fire Safety and Compliance team attended, an electrician checked and made safe all the electrics and fire alarm, we notified the customer’s next of kin and raised a safeguarding alert to the local authority.

Our localities model meant we were able to respond quickly, working together in a close-knit team to make fast decisions.

Proposed merger

We’ve been busy consulting with customers about our proposed merger with Network Homes. 

By the end of June, over 5,000 of you had responded with your views. The consultation period is now closed and you can see a summary of the results here.

Other highlights of this quarter

• We celebrated the coronation of King Charles, giving out £5,100 in grants to support 19 community events  
• We worked with partners to launch a new £1.2m social action programme for young housing association residents, 
• We launched a new £240k fund to help young islanders live independently 
• We partnered with social enterprise Your Own Home to help prevent homelessness 

We’re also continuing to update our cost of living page with local and national support, plus information on our services and ways to save money.

Customer Transformation Programme

We have a wide programme of activities focused on improving the overall service experience for our customers. We’re looking at many things, including repairs, gardening and service charges.  

For repairs, the overall aim is to make the repairs experience as easy and effortless as possible, by improving day-to-day service and introducing new features like video assessments. Our ultimate aim is to provide a self-service experience, where customers can see a calendar of availability and book in their repair at a convenient time.  

We’ll update you in our next quarterly report about how our Customer Transformation Programme is progressing.

Respecting our teams

All our teams are expected to act professionally and respectfully when working with customers, and we aim to make any type of contact with us easy and straightforward. In return, we ask the same of our customers, so that we can provide as good a service as possible. 

Sadly, we have seen an increase in our teams reporting abusive behaviour from some customers. While we understand that there are many pressures on people at the moment, we won’t tolerate abuse. We take any reports from our teams very seriously and will take action where needed. If you have any concerns you feel may be affecting how you interact with our teams and think we might be able to help, please always let us know.

Service stats – how we’re performing

Customer engagement

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) - Our customer-led Scrutiny Coordination Group has been scrutinising how we respond to damp and mould. The group is due to the publish the results of the scrutiny in early September, so we’ll update you in our next quarterly report.  

Merger consultation - Our Customer Engagement, Localities and Corporate Affairs team worked together to run two merger consultation events in June – one in the Isle of Wight and one in Basingstoke. 43 customers attended, getting the opportunity to meet their Locality team and learn more about our merger plans.

New tenant satisfaction measures

We have been measuring our performance against the new Tenant Satisfaction Measures   (TSMs) since April 2023.  The TSMs allow tenants to see how well their landlord is doing and helps landlords understand what they can do better.

The primary measure is ‘Overall Satisfaction’, which is gathered by the following question: Taking everything into account, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the service provided by Sovereign?

Overall satisfaction for Sovereign customers was 67% in quarter 1, against a target of 72%. Recent improvements in our Customer Service Management Centre performance is driving satisfaction, with tenants complimenting us for being easy to contact and quick to answer the phone. 

The main cause of dissatisfaction was delays to responsive repairs. To address this, our Property team is focused on reducing response times and has developed a new reporting dashboard, which is already being used to identify improvements. 

In addition to improving day-to-day performance, several enhancements are being made to the repairs service, including the use of video triage for boiler repairs and the introduction of self-help video repair guides   for customers.

Customer service

Between April and June 2023, our Customer Service Manager Centre has made great strides in improving how long customers wait to hear back from us.

In quarter ones, wait times were:

• Phone: 30 seconds vs 2 minute target
• Email: 18 hours 3 minutes vs 48 hour target
• Social media: 56 minutes vs 1 hour target
• Webchat: 15 seconds (No target as it’s a new channel)

And our post telephone call survey results were a great 4.23 out of 5 vs our 4 out of 5 target.

Localities

Our Homes and Place and Property Service teams are working closely to provide customers across our localities with better places. Our teams are out and about in our communities, creating strong relationships and seeing what benefit they can bring.

One area they look at is anti-social behaviour (ASB). ASB can have a devastating effect on people’s lives, which is why we link in with the police and other organisations when necessary. 

To help continually improve our response to ASB, we are currently looking at the possibility of:

• Doing localised reassurance texts to those actively affected by ASB cases.
• Having an ASB phone triage, with the aspiration that customers will be able to speak with someone with ASB experience as soon as they call in. These specialists will empower customers by clearly explaining whether something is or isn’t ASB and signposting to further support where necessary. 
• Improving ASB data logging in our systems.
• Managing noise cases differently. Depending on what the noise is, we’d deal with some under ASB and others under neighbourhood and tenancy management. 
• Remodelling our approach to mediation.
• Using instant text or email feedback surveys rather than calls.

We’ll update you on progress in our next quarterly report.

Fantastic partner feedback 

One of our Localities Officer and our Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) Officer received praise from one of our local council for their work dealing with ASB. 

"Great piece of work connecting with the council and resolving the street gang problem in the area. It showed great partnership working with the Community safety team, dealing with customers both involved and impacted by the issues in the community.” 

Communities

Between April and June 2023, our Communities team has been developing new services, with more announcements on what’s available to support our localities due to be announced over the coming months. Within Communities, we focus on community investment, employment and skills, digital and financial inclusion, social value and funding and partnerships.

Key highlights in quarter one included:

• supporting 52 community organisations to grow their capacity to deliver services in our localities
• 3,843 engagements with our team, partners and initiatives
• awarding 10 projects grants to provide youth social action support under our #iWill programme

Lettings and development

Between April and June 2023:

1. We completed 335 new homes, 301 of which were affordable.
2. 82 shared ownership   homes were sold, with an average equity of 40.6%.
3. We completed 741 lets: 518 re-lets of existing homes and 223 lets to newly developed homes.

We completed 62 mutual exchanges  .

Fantastic customer feedback:

Our Development team oversaw the construction of five fully adapted homes in Somerset. The council’s occupational therapist said:

“Just wanted to share this morning’s viewings with you – two delighted new tenants, one of which stated ‘my life begins again today’.

“The impact of everything - from the new build policy, to the huge attention to detail and lessons learned on phase 2 [of the development] - is immense and I just wanted to thank you and your teams for making this possible for five local families."

Tenancy support

Between April and June 2023:

• Our Customer Income Advisors took 578 referrals.
• They also closed 655 cases, with 556 (84.89%) engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience.
• We supported 455 customers with their Universal Credit claims.
• We referred 49 customers to local money partners to support them with debt advice and explore their options.

Maintaining our homes and neighbourhoods

Between April and June 2023:

1. 62,000 response repairs were raised in quarter 1 which was 10% more than the same period last year – approximately 42,000 were routine, 20,000 were emergency and out of hours.
2. The 1st quarter has seen us fit 165 new kitchens and 117 new bathrooms.
3. We’ve replaced 468 boilers and installed air source heat pump heating to 40 homes.
4. A further 285 homes have had new windows, 354 have had new doors, and 151 homes have had new roofs.
5. We completely rewired 37 properties and added new electric heating installations to 35 others. 

Fantastic customer feedback:

"I would like to compliment your builder on his cleanliness, his amazing work and work ethic and to say what an amazing job he has done!"

Sovereign website

We are continually finding ways to provide digital services our customers want to use. Virtual assistant and web chat are recent tools we’ve added to our website to help answers your questions faster.

In quarter one:

• 1,320 questions were responded to by our Virtual Assistant 
• 618 webchats were activated
• 28,400 users were registered on MySovereign , where you can pay your rent, report your repairs, amongst many other things.

In the first three months of the year, we were busy getting ready to launch our new localities model .

This new way of working means that, from April 2023, we have ten locally-based teams who provide quality services that are really easy to use, accessible and delivered right first time, every time by people who care.

Our centralised Customer Service Management Centre will work alongside these teams.

Our localities areas are:

Oxford | Newbury & Reading | North Hampshire & Surrey | South Hampshire | Isle of Wight | Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (BCP) | Dorset | Devon | Bristol & Gloucester | Wiltshire

In March, we were very excited to welcome members of our Youth panel to Sovereign House. They worked alongside our Communities team to decide which projects in our communities would be given grants from the Sovereign #iwill Fund to support youth social action.

Below are some highlights of our performance between January 2023 and March 2023 (Quarter 4) on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

Communities

We increased our support to customers and communities as part of our Customer Support Fund and saw a significant increase in demand in particular for our financial inclusion services.

1. We secured £1,748,762 of external funding to extend our reach and impact in communities.
2. 55,000 people benefitted from our community grants programme.
3. We generated over £19,584,744 of social impact.
4. We supported 168 community groups.
5. We also supported 52 residents to get into work or better work, with another 172 training outcomes completed.
6. We helped our residents make savings of £142,206.
7. We made 1,321 fuel poverty interventions with customers needing help with their heating.
8. We enabled 108 digital support interventions and supported 124 customers to get online.

Customer engagement

Resident training

We worked alongside TPAS to offer bespoke training to our engaged customer groups.

2 February | Effective Challenging

16 customers attend in total:

• 8 from our Resident and Board Partnership
• 6 from our Scrutiny Coordination Group
• 2 from our Youth Panel

9 March | Performance Data

13 customers attended in total:

• 6 from our Resident and Board Partnership
• 5 from our Scrutiny Coordination Group
• 2 from our Youth Panel

Engaged customers also attended:

February | End to end repairs quick wins sessions

We held three sessions, with 23 engaged customers attending.

3 March | #iwill Voting Day

Three members of our Youth Panel visited Sovereign House to vote on applications for round two of the Sovereign #iwill Fund.

They also shadowed the Contact Centre and speaking with seven members of staff across the business.

Localities Deep Dive

Nine engaged customer attended a Deep Dive, looking at our new Localities model.

Lettings and Development

Tenancy support

1. We completed 507 new homes, 480 of which were affordable.  
2. 94 shared ownership homes were sold, with an average equity of 44%.  
3. We let 792 homes: 582 re-let homes and 264 new build homes we let for the first time. 
4. We completed 135 mutual exchanges. 

Maintaining our homes and neighbourhoods

1. 81,800 response repairs were raised which was 11% more than the same period last year – approximately 59,700 were routine, 22,100 were emergency and out of hours. 
2. Repairs satisfaction was at 86.6%. 
3. The third quarter has seen us fit 184 new kitchens and 160 new bathrooms. 
4. We’ve replaced 479 boilers and installed air source heat pump heating to 59 homes. 
5. A further 196 homes have had new windows, 537 have had new doors, and 200 homes have had new roofs.  
6. We completely rewired 55 properties and added new electric heating installations to 162 others. 
7. We insourced grounds maintenance for over 7,000 properties across Oxfordshire and Basingstoke, after great feedback from customers when we insourced the service in Berkshire. 

Customer service

1. New complaint volumes increased 30% from quarter 3, to 1,932. Themes mostly centre around quality of delivery, communication and time. 
2. Satisfaction with complaint handling rose from quarter 3 to 43%. 

New tenant satisfaction measures

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) confirmed that new ‘tenant satisfaction measures’ (TSM) come into effect in April 2023. 

These measures are designed to let tenants see how well their landlord is doing and give an idea of which landlords might need to make improvements. 

This means we will need to measure our performance against them, as a member of the RSH. The measurements cover social rented homes, with some also relating to shared ownership properties. 

We had already been planning for the TSMs and changed some of the perception questions we ask our residents in readiness for what we thought the TSMs would be. 

We now only need to make some minor changes – read the 22 satisfaction measures we need to measure against and what changes we need to make to our current perception questions . 

If you have any questions about TSMs, please email contact@sovereign.org.uk 

Inflation continued to rise in October 2022, peaking at 11.1% before ending the year at 10.5%.

We’re continuing to update our cost of living page  with local and national support, plus information on our services, tips to keep you and your home warm, and ways to save money.

Below are some highlights of our performance between October 2022 and December 2022 (Quarter 3) on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

• 74,700 response repairs were raised – approximately 50,600 were routine, 24,100 were emergency and out of hours.
• Repairs satisfaction was at 90%.
• We let 799 homes: 483 re-let homes and 316 new build homes we let for the first time.
• We completed 140 mutual exchanges.
• The third quarter has seen us fit 168 new kitchens and another 125 getting new bathrooms.
• We’ve replaced 345 boilers and installed air source heat pump heating to 73 homes.
• A further 176 homes have had new windows and 568 have had new doors, with 71 homes getting new roofs.
• We completed 1,451 Neighbourhood Standard Inspections – in Q3 we began recording data differently, which is why the number of inspections appears higher than Q2.
• Our Tenancy Support Advisors took 591 referrals. They also closed 405 cases, with 443 (80.63%) engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience.
• We supported 405 customers with their Universal Credit claims.
• We referred 67 customers to local money partners to support them with debt advice and explore their options.
• We also supported 70 residents to get into work or better work, with another 357 training outcomes completed.
• We supported 55 community groups and engaged with 2,145 people across our community development projects.
• We also helped our residents make savings of £86,818.08.
• We enabled 360 digital support interventions and supported 202 customers to get online.
• We co-created 5 environmental projects and 15 new neighbourhood events.
• We secured £183,796 of external funding to extend our reach and impact in communities.
• We generated over £19m of social impact.
• Overall customer satisfaction, as measured using our STAR survey, remained relatively stable at 70.7%.
• Complaint volumes continued to rise (1,471), in line with an increase in complaints across the sector as a whole.
• Satisfaction with complaint handling fell slightly to 38.4%.
• Phase 1 of the transformation of our complaints service continued to confirm that our case management approach to resolving complaints is proving effective.

Highlights of our performance

Customer engagement

We worked with customers to map the journey of our planned works service for kitchens, bathrooms, and windows:

• 14 Sovereign staff involved in four interactive workshops.
• 175 customers gave their feedback on their experiences.
• 25 ways to action the recommendations for the proposed changes.

We received the final report of the engagement review done by external company Connectives, which showed:

• 11 key findings highlighting areas of focus.
• Six areas of recommendations for change, with a focus on four suggested goals. We will review how to take these forward.

We recruited for a new Chair of the Resident and Board Partnership – we received 17 applications of interest, with Ruth Picknett-Powell  being successfully appointed after an interview process.

We also recruited for new members of the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) and Scrutiny Coordination Group:

• 70 applications received for RBP and 43 for SCG.
• We held three selections events and successfully appointed three new members for the RBP and two new members for the SCG.

New tenant satisfaction measures

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) recently confirmed that new ‘tenant satisfaction measures’ (TSM)  will come into effect in April 2023.

These measures are designed to let tenants see how well their landlord is doing and give an idea of which landlords might need to make improvements.

This means we will need to measure our performance against them, as a member of the RSH. The measurements cover social rented homes, with some also relating to shared ownership properties.

We had already been planning for the TSMs and changed some of the perception questions we ask our residents in readiness for what we thought the TSMs would be.

We now only need to make some minor changes – read the 22 satisfaction measures we need to measure against and what changes we need to make to our current perception questions .

If you have any questions about TSMs, please email contact@sovereign.org.uk

Inflation rose to 10.1% in September 2022, its highest rate since the early 80s. Increasing food prices have been a big factor in the increase, with pasta costing nearly 60% more  than it did in September last year.

We understand that this will be putting more pressure on your finances, which have also been impacted by rising fuel costs.

That’s why we’ve published our Cost of living support page.

It has information on:

• Government and energy company financial support
• Our services and support (including employment and training, grants)
• Tips to keep you and your home warm
• Ways to save or make money on shopping

Please share this with anyone you think will find it useful.

Below are some highlights of our performance between July 2022 and September 2022 on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

Services and support

• 55,000 response repairs were raised – approximately 40,000 were routine, 15,000 were emergency and out of hours.
• Repairs satisfaction was at 89%.
• We let 792 homes: 513 re-let homes and 279 new build homes we let for the first time.
• We completed 133 mutual exchanges.
• The second quarter has seen us fit 169 homes with new kitchens and another 120 getting new bathrooms.
• We’ve replaced 540 boilers and installed air source heat pump heating to 75 homes.
• A further 160 homes have had new windows and 450 have had new doors, with 100 homes getting new roofs.
• In August we asked over 170 customers to tell us what it was like having a recently installed new kitchen, bathroom or windows in their home. The overall feedback has been instrumental in helping Sovereign understand the customer’s perspective when receiving these services from Sovereign.
• We completed 703 Neighbourhood Standard Inspections and carried out 58 neighbourhood improvements across our estates.
• Our Tenancy Support Advisors took 568 referrals.
• They also closed 545 cases, with 457 (83.85%) engaging with the service and working with us to maximise their income and improve their financial resilience.
• We supported 406 customers with their Universal Credit claims.
• We referred 88 customers to local money partners to support them with debt advice and explore their options.
• We also supported 100 residents to get into work or better work, with another 205 training outcomes completed.
• We supported 73 community groups and engaged with 1,083 people across our community development projects.
• We helped 10 people with tailored digital support. We also provided 57 with devices to get online and 35 with digital training.
• We also helped our residents make savings of £58,590.77.
• We now have just over 23,000 MySovereign users.
• Since our Virtual Assistant went live at the end of January, it’s helped with 3,763 enquiries.
• Our new web chat, which launched in June, has been used 525 times.
• Our STAR survey showed overall satisfaction was at 72.5%.
• Complaint volumes remained high (1,386) but at the same levels as the previous quarter with satisfaction increasing to 42.1%.
• The transformation of our complaints service continues but the changes we put in place in phase one are showing evidence that our case management approach to resolving complaints is proving effective.

Role of residents

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG)

The Scrutiny Coordination Group’s investigation into Sovereign’s responsive repairs service continues. In the final phase the group has been speaking with customers who’ve recently had a repair about their experience. Their voices will be incorporated into the final report due at the end of the year.

Scrutiny Coordination Group members have also been out and about talking about their work: Chair, Paula Grebot spoke at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s South West conference in Bristol; member Kelly Long attended the Tpas Scrutiny Conference in Nottingham and took part in the ‘scrutiny showcase’ talking about the group’s work with other delegates; Ebony Taylorson spoke at a launch event for Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s new approach to resident scrutiny.

Engagement review

We have been reviewing how we engaged with residents.

Key questions for the review are:

• Is the ‘triangle of engagement’ still fit for purpose?
• Rewarding our engaged residents - what good practice is out there for us to consider?
• How do we broaden our engagement approach to make it more diverse and widen the reach to hear our customers?

So far, we’ve done:

• 1-2-1s with over 20 key colleagues and Board members
• Three workshops with customers, both face to face and online

Recruitment for Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) Chair and RBP and Scrutiny Coordination Group members

Over the last few months, we have been actively looking to recruit for our panels, as well as Joyce Ward’s replacement as Chair of the RBP.

We have had 17 applications for the Chair role, 70 for the RBP and 43 for the SCG. New members will be appointed in the following months.

Day in the Life

Over the last quarter, engaged residents heard about the ‘Day in the Life’ of a locality officer. Members found it really useful and an eye opener as to what locality officers had to deal and the importance of their role.

Residents' conference, by the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP)

After a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, our 2022 engaged residents’ conference took place on Saturday 18 July at Sovereign House in Basingstoke.

The conference brought together residents from the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) and Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) and other involved residents.

There were many workshops and information sharing opportunities between Sovereign employees and residents. This included workshops from the Customer Contact, Scheduling and Communities teams, and sessions on our Homes and Place Standard.

The day really highlighted the value of resident engagement – see the highlights here.

Youth Panel

Our Youth panel is the voice for our younger residents. In July the group met in Bristol to attend a day’s training with Acorn. This included learning about the Principles of Community Organising. Members Jack and Emily also took part in scoring the first applications from the #iwill project.

Emily said “Being part of the #iWill applications assessing process was a challenging, but insightful experience. It was definitely worth getting involved, knowing I am actively making a small difference.” 

The group has also been working on submitting their Asdan training booklets where they will receive accreditation for their volunteering within the Youth panel.

New tenant satisfaction measures

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) recently confirmed that new ‘tenant satisfaction measures’ (TSM) will come into effect in April 2023.

These measures are designed to let tenants see how well their landlord is doing and give an idea of which landlords might need to make improvements.

This means we will need to measure our performance against them, as a member of the RSH. The measurements cover social rented homes, with some also relating to shared ownership properties.

We had already been planning for the TSMs and changed some of the perception questions we ask our residents in readiness for what we thought the TSMs would be.

We now only need to make some minor changes – read the 22 satisfaction measures we need to measure against and what changes we need to make to our current perception questions .

If you have any questions about TSMs, please email contact@sovereign.org.uk

After a difficult first few months of 2022, it was wonderful to be able to put our worries to one side to dive into an extended bank holiday, where we celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

From marmalade sandwiches to a special concert outside Buckingham Palace, thousands of events and street parties took place - we contributed £6,500 Amazon vouchers to residents and community groups to help them bring people together to celebrate this historical moment.

However, despite this joyous occasion, we do understand it’s still a hard time for many of you, with the cost of living continuing to rise and energy price caps increasing.

Please take a look at our advice and guides pages – you’ll find everything from money, jobs and debt support, to benefits guidance and ways you can look for a new home if you want to move. Please get in touch if you’re struggling.

Below are some highlights of our performance between April 2022 and June 2022 on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

Services and support

• Repairs satisfaction was at 87% as we continued to catch up on non-urgent repairs and were also affected by national labour shortages and supply of some materials.
• Positive feedback from our customers continues following the insourcing of Grounds Maintenance in Berkshire. Work to prepare for insourcing of Grounds Maintenance across Oxfordshire and Hampshire remains on track
• We let 770 homes: 564 re-let homes and another 206 new homes we let for the first time.
• We completed 144 mutual exchanges.
• We completed nearly 57,700 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• In the first quarter we’ve made a good start to the new financial year with 160 homes getting new kitchens and another 103 getting new bathrooms.
• A further 200 homes have had new windows and 250 have had new entrance doors, with 70 homes getting new roofs.
• We completed 3,303 Neighbourhood Standard Inspections and carried out 11 neighbourhood improvements across our estates.
• We supported 449 customers with Universal Credit claims and issues.
• We supported 47 people with aging well projects and services and 80 residents to get into work or better work. Residents also completed another 334 training outcomes. 
• We supported 47 people with aging well projects and services
• We also supported 80 residents to get into work or better work, with another 334 training outcomes completed.
• We supported 76 community groups and engaged with 2,634 people across our community development projects.
• We helped 194 people with tailored digital support, like providing 69 with devices to get online and 125 with digital training.
• We also helped our residents make savings of £94,825.69.
• In June we switched to monthly STAR surveys and our overall satisfaction was maintained at 69%.
• Repairs satisfaction increased to 89%, despite continued high demand for services and national labour shortages.
• Complaint volumes remained high (1,276) but at the same levels as the previous quarter with satisfaction increasing to 41%.
• Work continued on our complaints service transformation, with Phase 1 launch scheduled for late July.

Role of residents

Residents' conference, by the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP)

After a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, our 2022 engaged residents’ conference took place on Saturday 18 July at Sovereign House in Basingstoke.

The conference brought together residents from the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) and Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) and other involved residents.

There were many workshops and information sharing opportunities between Sovereign employees and residents. This included workshops from the Customer Contact, Scheduling and Communities teams, and sessions on our Homes and Place Standard.

The day really highlighted the value of resident engagement.

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG)

The SCG has been investigating what drives customer satisfaction with Sovereign’s repairs service. This project is split into two halves and the group have completed part one – analysing Sovereign’s customer data and getting the views of employees. From August, they’ll start to investigate what parts of the service are liked and disliked by residents and why. Then they’ll work with Sovereign to formulate workable service improvements.

The group received a demonstration of new functionality due to be launched soon on MySovereign. They were excited to see how residents’ feedback has helped shape Sovereign’s approach to the online services it provides.

The SCG also held a deep dive into Sovereign’s new approach to tackling damp and mould issues. This topic area has been scheduled in to be scrutinised by residents next year, when the current approach has had time to bed in and the SCG is able to measure its success over the upcoming winter months.

Engagement review

Our current ‘triangle of engagement’ has been established for around five years. We felt that, in line with the Social Housing White Paper, it was an opportunity to see if our current structure of engagement is still fit for purpose. So, this quarter we successfully recruited a research company called Connectives to help us undertake a review.

As part of the work, the researchers will be interviewing employees, residents, and other interested parties, to see how we can be more inclusive when it comes to engaging with our customers and hearing their voices and acting upon it too.

In the next quarter we will share some of the findings.

Ongoing recruitment for the RBP, SCG and RBP Chair

We started preparing for our recruitment campaign for more members, including the Chair of the RBP, as the current Chair will be retiring in December.

We emailed residents with the opportunity to 'go behind the scenes' of resident engagement, to understand how these groups represents them and to encourage them to get involved too.

More information on recruitment and how to apply can be found at www.sovereign.org.uk/rbpscg and www.sovereign.org.uk/rbpchair.

Youth Panel

The Youth panel is the voice for our younger residents. The group met with members of Sovereign’s internal Disability and Carers Network (DACN). Member Jack represented the panel at the Residents’ Conference, held at Sovereign House. Members also attended training in Bristol on community organising.

We started 2022 with hopes of new beginnings, as we began to ‘live’ with Covid-19.

But as we got used to the freedom of no restrictions, unexpected national and international events suddenly had a huge impact on our lives.

From fuel shortages and cost of living increases, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there’s been a lot for us all to deal with.

While we don’t know yet the full impact that Russian sanctions will have on our daily lives or how much further energy costs will increase, we do offer support if you’re struggling financially or need help.

Please take a look at our advice and guides pages – you’ll find everything from money, jobs and debt support, to benefits guidance and ways you can look for a new home if you want to move.

Below are some highlights of our performance between January 2022 and March 2022 on some of the key services and areas of support that matter to you.

Services and support

• We let 696 homes: 564 relet homes and another 150 new homes we let for the first time.
• We completed 148 mutual exchanges.
• We completed nearly 64,000 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• Although Covid delayed us from returning to full delivery of planned works, we were still able to install 312 new windows, 248 new doors, re-roof 102 homes and replace over 104 kitchens and 56 bathrooms.
• We completed 1,249 Neighbourhood Standard inspections and carried out 11 neighbourhood improvements across our estates.
• We supported 456 customers with Universal Credit claims and issues.
• We supported 470 people with aging well projects and services and 143 residents to get into work or better work. Residents also completed another 378 training outcomes. 
• We supported 80 community groups and worked with communities and partners on 12 environmental projects, engaging with nearly 3,285 people across our community development projects.
• We helped hundreds of people with tailored support like providing 101 with equipment to get online and 133 with digital training, as well as working with 1,653 residents through our money and digital services. We helped our residents make savings of over £57,588.
• Our ‘STAR’ customer survey showed that overall satisfaction was at 69% in January to March. 
• Repairs satisfaction was at 87% as we continued to catch up on non-urgent repairs and were also affected by national labour shortages and supply of some materials.
• The challenges of the period were also reflected in a 21% increase in complaints (1,267) compared to quarter three, with ‘communication’ still being a big driver of dissatisfaction. Satisfaction for the quarter was 40%.
• As a result, work continues on transforming the experience our customers have with our complaints service. In March we launched our new way of dealing with repairs issues in ‘real time’ – this will give customers quicker resolutions and reduce complaints. We’ll monitor its success as part of a phased rollout.

Role of residents

Resident and Board Partnership (RBP)

• In March, 36 residents played a pivotal role in mapping the customer’s journey when mutually exchanging their home.
• This work helped shape recommendations for changing how the service is delivered in the future, with seven service improvement actions. These included giving more details about the process on our website and getting comprehensive feedback from customers after they’ve exchanged.
• Residents, RBP and SCG members also gave us a customer perspective on how we procure services like grounds maintenance and communal cleaning. This feedback will help us look at how we obtain these types of services in the future and how we can be more transparent in how we deliver them.

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG)

• Following its review of Sovereign’s social media, the SCG agreed service improvement recommendations, which included upskilling our Contact team so they can make best use of Sovereign’s Facebook page.
• The SCG is now working with volunteer resident scrutineers to investigate what drives customer satisfaction with Sovereign’s repairs service. They’ll start by analysing satisfaction data and hearing from employees about what they think makes customers happy. Residents will be asked what they think of the service later this year.
• The SCG also discussed the supposed stigma of living in social housing, which is currently being addressed by the government in its Social Housing White Paper, and by the National Housing Federation with its Together with Tenants charter. They looked at how Sovereign’s approach to residents could help combat stigma and agreed to include questions on it in all upcoming scrutiny projects.

Youth Panel

• The Youth panel is the voice for our younger residents. The group has been supporting our digital team on improvements to services and attended training. They also looked at ways they can take social action in their own community.

Other activity

• The RBP had an update on our Customer Contact strategy. We explained how lessons learnt about our services during the pandemic mean that we’ll be evolving how we work to ensure we can get services right first time.
• The RBP, SCG and other residents took part in workshops on how we can ‘decarbonise’ our homes, giving us their views on the work that will be involved.
• In light of the financial challenges people are facing, the RBP also heard about current and additional support Sovereign will be offering residents over the next year. This includes white goods grants, financial support, furniture and flooring grants, digital training, fuel vouchers, advice on how to find energy savings, money and debt advice, and personalised employment and training support.

Over the last few months of 2021, we continued providing a full range of services and supporting customers and their communities - despite the ongoing challenges of high Covid levels as the Omicron variant emerged.

And it continued to be a very challenging time for many residents. Following our successful welfare calls to certain customer groups during lockdown, we’ve been sending SMS messages to about 4,000 residents aged over 70. These are a chance for a check in and offer support around heating, finances or other help. Customers can just reply ‘yes’ for a call back.

We want to offer more services digitally too – giving you access where and when it suits you and freeing up our people to get out into neighbourhoods or provide individual support.

During December we moved MySovereign to a new platform and improved the look and feel. Thousands of customers have now re-registered or signed up, getting online access to pay their rent, check their balance, request a repair – and more. It’s quick and easy, just visit https://my.sovereign.org.uk/.

Please get in touch if you’re struggling financially or need help at the moment. There’s lots of support and advice available – you can also find out about some of these support offers on our advice and guides pages.

Below are some highlights of our performance between October and December on some of these key services and areas of support that matter to customers.

Thank you.

Services and support

We let 753 homes: 604 relet homes and another 149 new homes we let for the first time.

• We completed 192 mutual exchanges.
• We completed nearly 54,000 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• Although Covid has delayed us from returning to full delivery of planned works, we’ve still managed to prioritise and install 227 new bathrooms and 458 kitchens in the first ten months of the year.
• We completed 1,018 Neighbourhood Standard inspections (and, since July 2021, we’ve also carried out 86 neighbourhood improvements across our estates - totalling £194k).
• We saw a drop in Universal Credit (UC) claims but were still able to support 148 customers with UC claims and issues.
• We supported 470 people with aging well projects and services and 106 residents to get into work or better work – a huge increase on the three months before. Residents also completed another 349 training outcomes. 
• We supported 54 community groups and worked with communities and partners on 15 environmental projects, engaging with nearly 2,000 people across our community development projects.
• We helped hundreds of people get back on their feet - tailored support like providing 92 with equipment to get online and 326 with digital training, as well as working with 1,264 residents through our money and digital services. We helped our residents make savings of £34,562.
• Our quarterly ‘STAR’ customer survey showed that measures are back on trend with the previous two years - overall satisfaction was 79% and satisfaction with neighbourhood was at 86%.
• Repairs satisfaction was at 90% as we continued to catch up on non-urgent repairs and were also affected by national labour shortages and some materials.
• The challenges of the period were also reflected in more complaints (1,051) with ‘communication’ still being a big part of dissatisfaction – with satisfaction at 38%.
• Work continues on transforming our complaints service: around making sure we keep customers updated while we’re managing their complaint, and how we improve the experience we deliver to them.  Early in 2022 we also began the phased launch of a new way of dealing with repairs issues in ‘real-time’ - helping to reduce the number of complaints and giving customers the opportunity to resolve issues quickly and easily.

Role of residents

Resident and Board Partnership (RBP)

• Key focus areas for the RBP included reviewing the new customer metrics and performance - areas such as ‘our service’, ‘your home’, ‘your neighbourhoods and ‘your safety’. All these are related to our customer impact strategy and the Housing White Paper.
• The group also found out more about our strategic asset management strategy and how it will look to develop a blueprint to help meet housing need and bring current homes up to standard for future customers.
• There was also an update on the Enhanced Empty Homes pilot and feedback on how the project’s developing.   

Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG)

The SCG completed its review of Sovereign’s social media just before Christmas and are now developing recommendations to improve the service. They interviewed key staff about how we use social media to communicate with residents and others. They also analysed how customers use social media to contact us and looked at what we do compared to other housing providers.

• The group also heard how we’re implementing actions recommended after the scrutiny of the anti-social behaviour (ASB) service in autumn 2020 - and tracked progress on other recommendations, making sure they keep holding us to account.
• In preparation for their next scrutiny, starting in spring 2022, the SCG also heard from the Responsive Repairs team and analysed the latest customer satisfaction data around repairs – all good background to help them look into what drives satisfaction with the repairs service.

Youth Panel

The Youth Panel is the voice for our younger residents. Over the autumn its members gave their insight into various services and continued with their own community projects, such as ‘safe space’ - connecting isolated people with others in the area.

Other activity

A successful recruitment drive (including email and Facebook campaigns) led to 100 customers saying they’d like to get involved with us. As well as new potential resident scrutineers and a pool of people we can contact for feedback on specific topics, we welcomed a number of new members to the RBP and SCG.

• In October, residents played a pivotal role in mapping two customer journeys: the Market Rent service when someone is looking to rent on an Assured Shorthold basis with a choice of flexible tenancy lengths; and the journey our Keyworker customers experience.
• The two projects involved 67 customers interviews and led to 70 service improvement actions, such as providing Keyworker customers with an in-room welcome pack and making customers aware of upfront costs on property adverts.
• In December, RBP and SCG members also provided valuable insight and feedback in some discussion groups on sustainability – helping us gather a customer perspective on our plans to reduce our impact on the environment, as we move towards our target to be carbon neutral by 2050.

The government’s national Covid-19 recovery plan continued over the summer but it remained a difficult time for our customers and a challenging one for delivering some services.

We worked hard to catch up on demand for services such as non-emergency repairs and an increase in requests to move. But we were also affected by national issues like national shortages of skilled labour and certain materials, alongside price increases in things like fuel.

We explained more about this in an update email to residents and on our Covid-19 pages.

Despite this backdrop, we continued to complete thousands of repairs; build and let hundreds of homes; support our customers and communities; work with residents to review and improve our services – and much more. Below is more information about our performance between July and September on some of these key areas that matter to customers.

As always, please get in touch if you’re struggling financially or you need advice and help. There’s lots of support and advice that we and our partners can offer.

And don’t forget that you’ll need to register to do some things on MySovereign (like pay your rent or log a repair) but there are also 100s of pages of useful information which you can access without logging in.

Thank you again.

Services and support

• We let 753 homes: 676 relet homes and another 77 new homes we let for the first time.
• We completed over 50,000 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• Income teams continued to help and advise residents claiming Universal Credit, supporting with 227 cases.
• We supported 385 community organisations and 68 residents to get into work or better work. Residents also completed another 27 training outcomes. 
• We helped hundreds of people get back on their feet through tailored support – like providing 25 with equipment to get online and 51 with digital training, as well as working with 300 residents through our money and digital services.
• At the end of September there were just over 34,000 registered users of MySovereign. We’re continuing to develop the site and will be moving to a new platform and improved look and feel at the end of the year, paving the way for some extra features in 2022.
• We’ve also set up a ‘living together’ fund to support our teams and residents find innovative, often simple, solutions to local anti-social behaviour issues – for example, by fitting underlay in a flat if there’s a major problem with sound travelling to neighbours below.

Role of residents

• Key focus areas for the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) were reviewing and contributing to the Customer Impact Strategy as well as customer performance indicators and building safety. They also found out more about the national political landscape and how that’s impacting on housing, and about some key communication projects where we needed input from residents.
• The RBP is following up all these areas with further in-depth meetings or incorporating them into resident-led scrutinies to help us understand the voice of our customers better.
• The Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) reported back on its investigations into how we distribute community grant funding. Recommendations included increasing visibility of the grants by producing an impact report, revising the web pages about the grants and producing an ‘offer’ document to make sure the application process is simple and robust for smaller, grassroot community groups.
• The SCG also discussed MySovereign and how they’d like to see it develop, as well as reviewing progress on actions from previous scrutinies – including presenting back on the ‘scrutiny tracker’ to the RBP as part of making sure Sovereign remains accountable to customers.
• RBP and SCG members have also done ‘deep dives’ to look at a number of service areas including Universal Credit, tenancy support, money and digital services as well as our Customer Impact Strategy and how we measure customer-facing services.
• In April, residents also mapped the journey that our home ownership customers experience when they’re looking to staircase (buy more shares in their home) or sell their home and move. This involved video interviews with 24 customers and led to 12 service improvement actions, such as having a dedicated case manager so that a customer only has one person to speak to.
• The Youth Panel is the voice for our younger residents. Its members have given their insight into our building safety information and discussed how they could get involved in some of our environmental projects. In May, Ebony - one of its members, also spoke about her experiences at a national ‘Understanding the tenant of the future’ conference.

This spring and early summer, the national recovery from Covid-19 began but things remain difficult for many people. We continued to provide our services and support, reopening various aspects of some of these in line with the government’s four step recovery plan. But we received a lot more contact about things like repairs and requests to move – alongside needing to catch up on work that had been postponed. This meant some services took longer to provide than we would like.

We also began to feel the effects of external factors affecting organisations across the country and making front page news.

The information below gives you a flavour of our performance between April and June  on some key areas that matter to customers. We remain grateful for your ongoing patience and support. Do continue to interact with us on MySovereign where you can (you’ll need to register to do some things like pay your rent or log a repair but lots of useful information is available without logging in).

But please get in touch if you’re struggling as there’s lots of support and advice that we and our partners can offer.

Thank you again.

Services and support

• We let 753 homes: 676 relet homes and another 77 new homes we let for the first time.
• We completed over 50,000 emergency, routine and out of hours responsive repairs.
• Income teams continued to help and advise residents claiming Universal Credit, supporting with 227 cases.
• We supported 385 community organisations and 68 residents to get into work or better work. Residents also completed another 27 training outcomes. 
• At the end of June there were over 29,000 registered users of MySovereign. We’re continuing to develop the site and there’ll be improvements later this year to help if you’re facing a damp and mould issue or need to report a defect in a new-build home.
• We’ve also set up a ‘living together’ fund to support our teams and residents find innovative, often simple, solutions to local anti-social behaviour issues – for example, by fitting underlay in a flat if there’s a major problem with sound travelling to neighbours below.

Role of residents

• Key focus areas for the Resident and Board Partnership (RBP) were reviewing and contributing to the Customer Impact Strategy as well as customer performance indicators and building safety. They also found out more about the national political landscape and how that’s impacting on housing, and about some key communication projects where we needed input from residents.
• The group is following all these areas up with further deep dive meetings or incorporating them into resident-led scrutinies to help us understand the voice of our customers better.
• The Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) reported back on its investigations into how we distribute community grant funding. Recommendations included increasing visibility of the grants by producing an impact report, revising the web pages about the grants and producing an ‘offer’ document to make sure the application process is simple and robust for smaller, grassroot community groups.
• The SCG also discussed MySovereign and how they’d like to see it develop, as well as reviewing progress on the recommendations made in previous scrutinies – including presenting on this ‘scrutiny tracker’ to the RBP as part of that group’s role in making sure Sovereign remains accountable to customers.
• RBP and SCG members have also done ‘deep dives’ to look at a number of service areas including universal credit, tenancy support, money and digital services as well as our Customer Impact Strategy and customer metrics.
• In April, residents also mapped the journey our home ownership customers experience when they’re looking to staircase (buy more shares in their home) or sell their home and move. This involved video interviews with 24 customers and led to 12 service improvement actions, such as having a dedicated ‘case manager’ so a customer only has one person to speak to
• The Youth Panel is the voice for our younger residents. Its members have given their insight into our building safety information and discussed how they could get involved in some of our environmental projects. In May, Ebony - one of its members, also spoke about her experiences at a national ‘Understanding the tenant of the future’ conference.

When we shared our last quarterly report, we’d resumed most of our services but were restricting non-essential repairs within people’s homes. Our aim was to help reduce infections during the third lockdown by minimising our direct contact with you where we could. 

Three months later, the national recovery is well underway and the roll out of vaccinations is continuing, but we know things are still very difficult for many people. 

We’ve had another busy few months providing a range of services and support – and you can read more about our performance below. 

Here are some highlights of the quarter:

• We let 673 homes. 
• ​We completed over 37,700 emergency and essential repairs, despite the third lockdown from early January.
• ​We supported 122 community organisations, 69 residents to get into work or better work, and another 202 with training. Other teams and specialist partners offered support and advice on a wide range of issues. 
• The Scrutiny Coordination Group (SCG) has finished reviewing our community grants programme and made recommendations about how we can better promote this in our communities. 
• Our quarterly customer survey showed overall satisfaction slightly down at 79% but 81% for the year. 
• ​Despite not being able to carry out routine repairs inside people’s homes, satisfaction with repairs was at 69% and satisfaction with your neighbourhood up slightly to 87%. 

October to December remained difficult for everyone as we faced different tiers of restriction to help stop the spread of Covid-19. Adjusting to the latest guidance meant multiple short notice changes to our services, so thank you for your patience. We also sent 112,000 ‘Covid update’ emails to keep you in the know. 

Here are some highlights of the quarter:

• We let 800 homes, completed 220 mutual exchanges and 55,000 repairs. 
• Income teams supported 616 residents claiming Universal Credit.
• We supported 194 community organisations, 59 residents to get into work or better work, and another 217 with training 
• We continued to provide support and advice on a range of other issues 
• Our resident scrutineers completed their investigations into ASB and are working on recommendations to improve the service for our customers.
• To deliver the best possible residents’ voice, we recruited eight new members to our Scrutiny Coordination Group and Resident and Board Partnership after a successful recruitment campaign which included a focus on attracting a diverse range of residents.
• Residents have also helped us look at the stages customers go through with our Home Ownership external management service (known as customer journey mapping). We’ll use this to help us design better processes and customer communication.
• Our quarterly ‘STAR’ customer survey showed overall satisfaction remained at 83%, despite post-lockdown pressures on our services. It was a particularly challenging and uncertain period for repairs but satisfaction with these stayed stable (0.3% change).
• We know that satisfaction with our complaints handling isn’t as good as it should be. In December, we self-assessed against the Housing Ombudsman’s new code. While we performed well against most measures, we identified some key areas for improvement and are working on these.