South Tyneside Homes Asset Management Principles 2023-2028

At South Tyneside Homes we understand the financial performance of our assets, the income generated, and all costs associated with managing the maintenance of them. We know which properties need improvement and can therefore address any Health Safety considerations ensuring our buildings are compliant with all relevant regulations.

We make sure that our stock is sustainable by using a robust Asset Management System, where our survey data is recorded and monitored to form our investment programs. We work in partnership with South Tyneside Council to align and deliver our plans effectively.

The main objectives of our plan are to:

• Deliver great customer service
• Be an employer of choice, efficient and well governed
• Engage with customers to improve services and influence decisions
• Sustain tenancies and neighbourhoods
• Provide quality homes

The development of South Tyneside Homes Asset Management Principles ensures that we continue to:

1. Comply with building legislation and regulatory standards
2. Achieve stock energy efficiency
3. Provide digital involvement
4. Increase customer satisfaction
5. Achieve value for money
6. Use of innovative technology
7. Sustain and improve our stock

The Charter for Social Housing White Paper was introduced to bring significant changes for tenants. Our aim is to ensure the charter is incorporated into our vision and service delivery, with the customer being at the forefront. The following is what we aim to achieve.

South Tyneside Homes is the arms-length management organisation (ALMO) established by South Tyneside Council on 1st April 2006. We manage, maintain, and improve homes on estates throughout South Tyneside. South Tyneside Council retains ownership of the homes and is the landlord for all tenants.

The Borough of South Tyneside is split into five Housing Management areas, these promote and champion our local communities.

• East Shields and Whitburn
• Hebburn
• Jarrow and Boldon
• Riverside
• West Shields, Cleadon and East Boldon

Charts showing how much % of each category fall into each Management area

A home should provide safety, security, and dignity. An opportunity to settle and contribute to our community.

The Charter for Social Housing Residents sets out to raise the standard of social housing and meet the aspirations of residents throughout the country, today and in the future. It sets out what we will do to ensure we live up this charter with our service delivery to our customers. The way these are measured is summarised below.

Be safe in your home

The safety of our customers is our principal concern at South Tyneside Homes. We are committed to ensure our tenants feel safe and secure in their home through robust building and fire safety procedures ensuring housing stock meets all legislative requirements and robust processes in place to minimise risk.

We ensure our customers have well serviced and maintained gas appliances in their homes. We carry out regular electrical inspection programmes ensuring the electrical systems in our buildings are safe. We ensure we have the correct levels of knowledge of all responsible staff and specialist contractors to fulfil our legislative requirements.

To know how your landlord is performing

It is important for us that our tenants are fully aware of our promises to them and how they can challenge our service delivery. We will be clear and report how we are performing. Our involvement groups will be involved in decision making where our work impacts on customers. We have robust performance indicators including customer satisfaction to ensure we use feedback to improve our service delivery.

To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly

Asset management will respond to all customer complaints swiftly and effectively using our corporate feedback system. Residents should receive effective resolution of their issues and where this cannot be achieved will also assist with access for the resident to the Housing Ombudsman.

To be treated with respect

Our Asset Management Team follow the South Tyneside Homes Promise to our customers where we will be open and honest, polite when we speak with our customers, caring and listening. We will be respectful to homes and efficient when providing services to our customers. We will be supportive and ensure our services are accessible to all.

To have your voice heard by your landlord

We aim to put our customers at the heart of all we do by understanding their needs and providing excellent services to meet those needs.

We will achieve this aim by involving our customers in service improvements and developments, to ensure our services meet their needs. We will also meet this aim by developing an understanding of what it feels like to receive services from South Tyneside Homes and adjusting services where required.

To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in

We know tenants are proud of our communities and want greater investment in them. We want to ensure our customers have good quality, decent homes and neighbourhoods, including access to green space and support for wellbeing.

Changes in legislation have a large impact on how we invest in our properties and which areas require most investment can depend on the Government issuing risk based guidance. This places increased emphasis on the Asset Team working alongside colleagues within our Compliance Team to ensure investment programmes are targeted to those areas that could fall out of compliance in the future. Robust Asset Management is integral to ensuring our customers feel safe within their home.

It is important that we provide quality homes that are safe and well maintained to protect our customers on behalf of South Tyneside Council. We ensure our assets are protected and safe for our customers and other users through extensive cyclical servicing and inspection programmes, carried out by qualified staff.

Where legislation changes, we are prepared to react and change areas of investment to ensure those areas most at risk are targeted to ensure safety of all, whilst also protecting the reputation of the company. The Building Safety Act will come into force between April and October 2023. This will apply to buildings of more than 18metres in height such as our High Rise Blocks. Therefore, we manage our buildings considering all changes in legislation and to comply with new guidance we will:

• Continue to review our assets and enhance organisation understanding of the Building Safety Act, new guidance and lessons learned
• Ensure high standards of safety by implementing the necessary building and fire safety standards to comply with new regulations
• Work collaboratively to strengthen our arrangements to ensure organisational compliance
• Create robust mechanisms for residents and landlords to raise safety concerns
• Ensuring high quality installations that protect the rights of our customers

Managing our risks is an integral part of the Asset Management Team. We will adopt a cautious approach when faced with any risks that relate to the management of Council’s assets. All risks associated with our Asset Management Strategy will incorporate key legislation and statutory obligations, and we will implement any additional assurance checks if deemed necessary.

We employ a host of internal controls to mitigate risks, ensuring any impact or likelihood is minimised where achievable. These are reviewed quarterly as well as revisited annually to ensure they are at the forefront of our business plans.

Our senior team across the Asset and Property Services directorate are qualified in their field to make certain we have the expertise at hand guiding us through our legislative responsibilities.

As an Asset Management Team we effectively manage risks by the following:

• Conducting regular reviews of our stocks condition including adaptations and ensuring this is updated within our data system in line with agreed quality process
• Have both an Asset Management Plan and Affordable Warmth Plan with defined set of actions and deliverables
• Have a Repairs and Maintenance Policy to identify potential repairs along with Capital Investment Programme designed around a cyclical programme of works

Our objectives

• Regularly assess stock information and continue to update our database to plan for future investment works
• Improve financial planning by reviewing key component costs annually
• Ensure refined processes are in place to maximise capital budgets

Our Planned Investment Programmes ensure our housing stock is maintained to the Governments Decent Homes Standard and are thermally efficient with the introduction of supplementary energy efficieny measures.

We have developed a Sustainability principle, to support South Tyneside Council’s objective to reduce fuel poverty in South Tyneside.

The Sustainability principles sets out our strategic proposal on how South Tyneside Homes aims to address issues relating to fuel poverty, ensuring all homes are warm, wind and watertight and our customers living in them remain healthy and comfortable. South Tyneside Homes Asset Management are currently delivering a planned Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) programme to help us understand how our homes perform to ensure we invest in the correct areas. The recommendations outlined in these energy certificates will be used to allow South Tyneside Homes to plan future investment to assist in achieving this goal and maximizing the benefit to our customers.

Asset Management’s priorities to reduce fuel poverty

• A fabric first approach to reduce space heating requirements
• Researching and learning from best practice
• Investigating options for generating low carbon electricity on site
• Working with our customers to increase energy awareness and engagement
• Delivering Environmental awareness training to staff and supporting our customers to tackle fuel poverty
• Investigating options and working with South Tyneside Council to achieve net zero

In 2020 the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 was introduced, imposing an implied contractual obligation upon the landlord that all properties must be ‘fit for human habitation’ at the start of a new tenancy and will remain so for the duration to ensure customers are happy with their home.

In the lead up to March 2020 South Tyneside Homes reviewed our strategy and procedures and worked to provide our staff with the tools and confidence to identify issues at an early stage.

We provided staff from across all sections of the organisation with disrepair awareness training. South Tyneside Council and South Tyneside Homes manage disrepair claims effectively by working with and investing in our Repairs and Maintenance Teams.

As a social landlord, it is important that we match our housing stock to the needs of our customers. Many of our homes have been improved to meet modern expectations and brought up to our ‘Decent Homes’ Standard.

Targeted long-term investment will free up more money to be able to provide a better standard in our properties which will then lead to higher standards for tenants.

In order to achieve this, we will:

• Have a better understanding of our stock by using modern technology to capture property information and ensure information is regularly reviewed and updated
• Target long term investment to support stock sustainability and strengthen rationalisation decisions
• Keep our customers and stakeholders informed
• Improve the overall feel and look of our neighbourhoods to improve demand
• Deliver value for money and maximise funding opportunities where possible to support our delivery

• STH Customer Service Strategy
• STH Risk Management Strategy
• STH Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy
• STH Complaints and Compliments policy
• STH Repairs and Maintenance Policy
• STH Environmental Policy Statement
• STH Asbestos Policy
• STC Integrated Housing Strategy
• STC Tenancy Strategy
• STC Climate Change Strategy

This document is reviewed on an annual basis to ensure any changes to statutory requirement, best practice and linked policies are incorporated.