Annual Report 2018

We are committed to building confident communities and teams across the business have contributed to this in a broad range of ways over the past year.

Over the last year, we have built on our partner relationships with other key organisations across the district.

Our relationship with Wakefield CCG and Age UK was strengthened as we expanded the Care Link Responder service to provide a 24/7 response and a wraparound service to patients leaving hospital. Care Link has provided peace of mind to over 15,000 customers and our Mental Health Navigators, which are jointly funded between WDH and the Clinical Commissioning Group, have supported 312 WDH tenants.

Our joint venture, Bridge Homes, has had another successful year, completing its first two developments at St Swithins and ThornesGate, and will begin developing its third site at Calder Fields in 2018 / 2019.

Over the coming year we will continue to invest in developing the properties, services and support that is needed by our customers across the district and beyond.

Tenant priorities

We strive to continually improve our services by making sure our work mirrors tenants' priorities.

These priorities are chosen following extensive consultation and engagement, along with feedback from our Tenant Survey. Last year our priorities for improvement were:

• Keeping promises
  and commitments
• Being easier
  to deal with
• The way we manage nuisance
  and antisocial behaviour

Among the actions already undertaken, we have:

• Delivered a customer service training programme to all front line employees.
• Reviewed our customer experience for our repairs service, including communicating what repairs are chargeable and non-chargeable.
• Consulted with our customers to review our Customer Charter Standards.
• Rolled out an update of the WDH App to make it easier for customers to deal with us digitally.
• Explored options to introduce Webchat to give customers greater choice in how they contact us.
• Reviewed the process for reporting antisocial behaviour.

We demonstrate our commitment to our environment and our local communities in all that we do. Click here to see more examples of how we achieve this.

We aim to deliver VFM for all stakeholders by continually improving our performance, scrutinising the value created and the benefits delivered against our strategic objectives.

We consider VFM from four key perspectives:

• Corporate
• Community
• Customer
• Commercial

Our key financial achievements are:

• Last year we secured £3.2 million cashable efficiencies against our business plan, which have been reinvested to achieve positive social outcomes, including providing more new homes and helping people into work.
• Our ability to generate year on year efficiencies is confirmed by HouseMark benchmarking. Our overheads amount to just 7.4% of turnover compared to last year’s 7.11%.
• Last year it cost an average of £318 to maintain each of our 31,000 properties.
• We spent more than £36 million directly and indirectly with local businesses last year, helping to support, grow and sustain the local economy.
• This year our regulator, the Homes and Communities Agency, has again awarded us the highest ratings in governance and financial viability, following a rigorous In Depth Assessment.

Tenant priorities 2018 / 2019

Our latest survey results have identified the following themes as the main areas for improvement which we will work on this year:

• Keeping promises
  and commitments
• Being easier
  to deal with
• The way we manage nuisance
  and antisocial behaviour (ASB)

Future challenges

Throughout 2018 / 2019 we will continue on our journey towards achieving our next milestone - becoming an enterprise delivering social impacts.

Below are the challenges we will work towards alongside our tenant priorities for the coming year in line with our revised 2020 Business Strategy:

By March 2019

• Provide a flexible workforce with skills for the future.
• Ensure the long term viability of pensions and other benefits.
• Increase stock through corporate acquisition.
• Provide a range of mixed tenure property where people want to live.
• Extend care and wellbeing support through partnerships.
• Implement Connected Care service model.
• Maximise the take up of digital services.
• Implement a comprehensive digital active asset management solution.