Your services
A better view of the people who need help
The increasing cost of living impacted everyone in 2021-22.
We understand that financial stress and difficulty can happen to anyone and we’ve reached out to all of our customers to see how we can help over the past year.
With a proactive approach, new technology and a team of hardworking and understanding people, we’ve been able to get a better view of the people that need help. Where we’ve found customers potentially getting into trouble, we’ve been proactively contacting them to see if they could do with some support and, where they’ve told us they need some help, worked with them to ease some of the stress.
accessed in grants for customers
It’s through these honest and open conversations that we’ve been able to support customers to get discretionary housing payments, offering flexible payment plans, and helped customers access £500,000 of individual hardship grants through our charity partner, Longleigh Foundation. Where customers have told us about other issues they're having, we've been working with our other partners to offer support through the Circles of Support scheme.
This year we made the difficult decision to increase your rent and we know that this placed some extra pressure on many of you. As we did this, we reached out to all of our customers to let you know how we can help in one of the biggest customer consultations we’ve ever done. 855 customers responded to our survey, and we also had customers join us for a workshop on Zoom to give us feedback on our offer.
Based on what you told us through this consultation, we did a review of the support we offer to make sure we were meeting your needs. We also produced this guide for customers to explain why we increased your rent, your service charges, and how we can help if you're struggling.
of rent and service charges collected
Rent arrears
I’ve had the best night’s sleep
Parents are used to making sacrifices everyday to make sure their children don’t go without.
But when we found out that Sandra (not her real name), was sleeping on her sofa every night to make sure her eight-year-old daughter got a good night’s sleep in the only bed in the house, our income team did what they could to help.
With money tight, Sandra got in touch for some help to get her rent account in order, telling the team that she’d been sleeping on her sofa and often the floor as she couldn’t afford a bed for herself, affecting her physical and mental health.
After speaking to an income officer about the situation, the team was able to get her rent account sorted and applied for an individual grant to get her a bed. Sandra was awarded nearly £300 towards a new bed, which was ordered and delivered within a week.
Sandra said: “I had the best night’s sleep in probably over 10 years! The bed is so comfortable I cannot thank you enough. God bless you. Thanks again.”