Our housing service is performing above the Scottish average in key areas, including providing value for money rents, tackling antisocial behaviour and carrying out more ‘right first time’ reactive repairs when compared alongside other Scottish landlords.
The Scottish Housing Regulator’s (SHR) Landlord Report (2022/23) rates the performance of social landlords against a key set of standards. These include homes and rents, tenant satisfaction, quality and maintenance of homes, neighbourhoods and value for money.
This year’s report shows our average weekly rents well below the Scottish average - £10 a week lower. The average rent for all North Lanarkshire properties was £76.95 per week, comparing favourably with the reported Scottish average for all landlords of £87.59.
Our rent collection levels were 99.5%, 1.7% more than our 2020/21 performance. Our rents team continues to secure more direct Universal Credit payments, which has had a positive impact on the overall arrears’ levels. We also introduced the Rent Assistance Fund to assist tenants falling into rent arrears which, to date, has provided almost £495,000 in support.
In the neighbourhoods category, antisocial behaviour cases resolved by the council is recorded at 97.7% at the year end, which was higher than the Scottish average of 94.2%. The remaining 2.3% of cases were carried forward to the following year and resolved within locally agreed targets.
Other performance areas highlighted include:
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80.4% of our homes meeting the Scottish Housing Quality Standard, a rise of 10% on the 2021/22 figure and compares favourably to the Scottish average of 79% and Local Authority average of 70.9%.
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Our time taken to complete emergency repairs was 3.3 hours on average, compared to a Scottish average of 4.2 hours, and our time taken to complete non-emergency repairs was 6.8 days compared to the Scottish average of 8.7 days.
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Satisfaction levels with the service received, for tenants who had repairs carried out, rose to 95.2% this year, which is again higher than the Scottish average of 88%.
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Our average days to re-let homes increased by 0.5 days to 32.3 days. This was mainly due to shortages in supply of materials and contractor recruitment and workforce retention. We’re liaising closely with our contractors to continually improve these timescales.
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Our void rent loss is reported at 0.9%, comparing well to the Scottish average of 1.4%.
Stephen Llewellyn, Chief Officer Housing Management, said: “We’re committed to delivering excellent housing services for our tenants and the SHR annual report gives us an opportunity to view our performance in line with other social landlords across Scotland.
“It’s pleasing to see we are performing well above the Scottish average in many areas and are committed to continuously improving year on year. One of the key indicators, tenant satisfaction levels, is an area we’ve focussed on, particularly following Covid. We found that face-to-face interviews and interaction with our tenants improved our satisfaction levels, which had fallen during the pandemic (a national trend) when we surveyed remotely. Our latest tenant satisfaction results show a strong performance in this indicator with an increase in levels to 86.6%.
“We will continue to work closely with partners, tenants and residents and our contractors to deliver housing services that support and meet the needs of our customers.”