Performance Management

We are working towards a culture of achievement and we want to be accountable and honest with our residents. We report our performance to the Residents Forum and set out below are the targets and performance for 2008/9.

The Customer Services Team log all letters needing a reply and log all complaints. They acknowledge receipt and work with others in the organisation to ensure the response time is met.

Letters

In the past we have not always responded to all the letters and e-mails from our residents and other customers in time. This is an area where we plan to make major improvements. We will cut down on bureaucratic processes to ensure that all correspondence is acknowledged and, where requested, a detailed response is given.

Complaints

During the course of 2008/2009 we recorded 82 complaints (compared to 51 in 2007/2008). Of the complaints received during the year 72 cases were resolved with 10 cases ongoing.

We will continue to log all contact with the Association that could be construed as a complaint in order to achieve continuing customer service improvement.

Gas boiler servicing and maintenance

The gas maintenance contract states that a gas safety inspection shall be carried out for all appliances in dwellings between 1 April and 31 October each year. A target of 100% completed safety checks on properties by 31 March each year is the full requirement of the contract. This 100% was achieved once more in 2008/2009.

The Customer Services Team are working with our main contractor Shenstone (formerly known as Pathmeads) to deliver a quality repairs service. The maintenance response times for 2008/2009 are set out below:

Emergency - response time 24 hours - target 96% - on time 94.6%

Urgent - response time - 7 days - target 92% - on time 90.3%

Routine - response time - 31 days- target 92% - on time 93.7%

Rent collection is one of the main roles of the Housing Management Team and it is important to the whole organisation - because rent is Soho Housing's main source of income. If we don’t collect the rent we can’t afford repairs, planned and cyclical works, as well as day-to-day running costs. It is essential that we collect the full rent due.

In order to reduce arrears we need to maintain our collection rate at more than 100%. During the year 2008/2009 our collection rate was 99.6% (compared with 99.2% for the previous year).

We continue to show improvement in arrears control. The year-end figure of 3.6% of rent arrears of current tenants achieved our target of 4% - and was a good improvement on the previous year's figure of 4.2%. A new corporate target has been set for the year ending March 2010 at 3.6% or below.