Tenants' Annual Report 2025

This report has been written by members of the Tenant Scrutiny Panel and the Check and Challenge group. We come from across South Tyneside.

We have worked together on this report to show customers parts of the service we believe are important and useful for you to know.

We act independently to the Council. By producing this report we have examined performance to assess how South Tyneside Council Housing Services is delivering against regulatory requirements. We also look at how well the service meets customer expectations.

We met and discussed performance with those responsible for delivering services for tenants. We spent around 250 volunteer hours to create this report.

During the year the delivery of housing services moved back into the Council. We have worked hard to make sure that the voice of tenants is heard at the highest level in the Council.

We made sure that a member of our Tenant Scrutiny Panel got a seat on the Councils’ Housing and Environment Scrutiny Committee. This makes sure the customer voice is heard. It will enable us to raise issues with this important Committee. It means our reports and views to go to the Councils’ Cabinet if needed.

As involved customers we take our responsibilities very seriously. We challenge the organisation to make sure that it is meeting its regulatory requirements. The publication of this Annual Report is one way to show this to tenants and the Regulator of Social Housing.

View of the lead member for housing

As the cabinet member for housing and community safety, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the dedicated tenants of South Tyneside Council Housing Services. It has been a year since our housing services moved back into the Council, and the progress we have made together is truly remarkable.

The commitment and hard work of both tenants and staff has been instrumental in achieving our goals. Your involvement and scrutiny have been central to many of the advances we have made in the past 12 months. This collaboration must continue to be a cornerstone of our approach at South Tyneside Council Housing Services.

We have accomplished so much over the past year, including significant advancements in our capital investment programme, progress in building new, sustainable homes and improvements to our ways of working. This work is vital to building strong communities, and it is essential that we continue this momentum.

I am keen to continue to hear the voice of the customer, ensuring it influences positive change now and in the future. I hope you find this report as interesting as I have. I believe it significantly enhances transparency and accountability in our housing services. I look forward to working with our involved tenants and the Housing Services delivery team over the next year to support the continued delivery of this and other involvement work.

Involving customers in service development

Customers get involved with South Tyneside Council Housing Services to produce reports like this one. We also work on projects to help improve services for customers. This section of the report covers some of the things that customers have been involved with over the past year.

If you would like to find out more about being an involved customer, please get in touch on:

• 0300 123 6633
• involvement@southtyneside.gov.uk

Watch this video on why customer's get involved.

Tenant Talk is a way for customers to give feedback and give views from home and currently has 278 members.

You can join the Tenant Talk Facebook group as one way to have you voice heard.

The types of things involved customers do:

• Meet with customers to understand their experience of accessing services.
• Meet with customers who have made a complaint to find out more about their experiences of what happened.
• Carry out site visits, for example to view property condition.
• Discuss issues with managers of services and look at data and information.
• Meet with front line staff to discuss their experience of how services are being delivered.
• Listen to anonymised customer calls into the Customer Contact Centre.
• Carry out mystery shopping to test services.

Customers were engaged in a variety of ways:

• 891 Customers Engaged with through local involvement and outreach activity.
• Customer panels There are 27 members of panels: Tenant Scrutiny and Check & Challenge. We review how services are provided and make recommendations to senior managers and Council Committees.
• Housing Plus 512 Housing Plus customers engaged about their services.
• High Rise Safety 18 customer engagements with the High-rise building safety group.
• Customer Journey We worked with 26 customers to see how they experience repairs and complaints. This helps us make things better.
• 253 survey responses
  
  Topics cover:
  • Housing Plus customer opinions
  • Energy roadshows users
  • Tenant Participation Advisory Service survey of involved customers
• Training is provided to support the work that we do

Some of the work carried out by the Check and Challenge group:

Complaints process review

We carried out a review of the complaints service. We checked compliance with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. We made 16 recommendations.

These focused on:

• increasing the quality and detail of response letters to tenants
• advice for tenants on the complaints process and timescales.

Visit Check & Challenge group for more information.

Some of the work carried out by the Tenant Scrutiny Panel:

A review of communications within the responsive repairs service.

• 16 recommendations have been implemented.

A further 14 recommendations are on targets for delivery focusing on:

• Improved record keeping.
• Better understanding of customer communication needs and preferences.
• Improved appointment time slots and timescales.
• Improvements to the diagnosis of jobs.
• Improvements to quality control inspections.
• Pro-active communication with customers about repair jobs.

Progress with previous Tenant Scrutiny Panel reviews:

For more information on the Tenant Scrutiny Panel, see What we've been working on: Tenant Scrutiny Panel

Next year Customer Panels will carry out work to:

• Develop a new Tenant Involvement and Engagement Strategy and a new High Rise Resident Engagement Strategy.
• Extend and promote more tenant involvement and engagement opportunities.
• Improve customer satisfaction and meet regulatory requirements.

If you have suggestions for areas customer panels could look at, please e-mail your ideas to: involvement@southtyneside.gov.uk

How the Customer Service Centre helps you

The organisation uses customer feedback to help identify where service improvements are needed. Improvements to services this year have included:

• Improved information to customers on timeslots allocated for repairs jobs.
• Making sure people who do the repairs have all the materials needed prior to attending jobs.
• Getting better at diagnosing damp and mould issues.

We are developing telephone feedback surveys to:

• Get the views of customers who have been through the complaints process
• Identify and make improvements

Stats at a glance...

• Stage 1 complaints reduced to 783 this year from 1,038 last year
• Over 50% of Stage 1 and 2 complaints were upheld or partially upheld
• 37 Housing Ombudsman cases increased from 27 in 2024
• 636 compliments received this year
• Stage 2 complaints (taken to the next stage) were lower at 150 this year compared to 152 last year

Make a complaint or give feedback

To make a complaint or give feedback:

• use the online feedback form
• connect2@southtyneside.gov.uk
• 0300 123 6633
• Customer Service Team, South Tyneside Council Housing Services, Town Hall and Civic Offices, Westoe Road, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, NE33 2RL
• www.southtyneside.gov.uk/housing

The organisation is working hard to understand customers better.

• The aim is to find out more about tenants’ communication needs and preferences and if there are more complex needs such as where adaptations may be required
• 3500 referrals were made including for welfare advice, help to improve living conditions, for adaptations or where there were safeguarding concerns

Improving website accessibility

• The Housing Services website contains a facility to improve accessibility for users. 9142 web pages were viewed enabling users to change fonts and text sizes and for translation into different languages. The most used tool was the screen-reader and the most required playbacks were in English and Persian.

How the organisation is meeting the expectations of the Regulator of Social Housing

• Improving response times to investigate and respond to instances of dangerous damp and mould. The team responds within set time periods and tackles confirmed emergency hazards within 24 hours. This follows legislation introduced following the tragic death of Awaab Ishak following prolonged exposure to damp and mould.
• Tackling tenancy fraud to ensure homes are let to those with a genuine housing need. Tenancy fraud happens when a home is used in a way that breaks the tenancy agreement. This could involve someone living in a home without permission or giving false information to secure a tenancy. The new approach will tackle unlawful subletting and tenancy misuse and make sure homes are occupied by the agreed tenants.

During 2024/25 the Housing Services Team invested £27 million in homes to ensure they are well maintained, meet the Decent Homes standard and keep customers safe.

New homes

Following the recent completion of 10 new ‘B’ energy rated properties at Hindmarch Drive the organisation continues to focus on investment in low carbon homes:

• This year the Council has started the development of 29 energy efficient ‘A’ energy rated homes at Lizard Lane and Reynolds Avenue. Homes England gave £2.8m of funding to help build these homes.
• 17 of these homes will be ‘passive house’. Passive house is a super-insulated home. They can warm up to temperatures of between 20 and 24 degrees celsius without the need for heating.

Retrofit improvements

A retrofit programme completed upgrades to 21 non-traditional construction properties in Hebburn. This included external wall insulation, improved ventilation systems, new windows, doors and loft insulation. This has improved the energy ratings of these dwellings cutting energy bills, and creating healthier, more comfortable homes for occupants. Customers have said:

£30 monthly saving! I’m hardly using the heating now

Adaptations are installed to customers’ homes to help them to continue to live independently at home. During 2024/25 the following were installed:

Healthy Homes Team

The Healthy Homes Team focus on tackling cases of damp, mould and condensation. This year the team surveyed 5,000 homes following reports of damp, mould and condensation. The team will make sure homes comply with Awaab’s Law. This law comes into force in October 2025. It means reports of damp and mould hazards must be dealt with, within fixed timescales. Confirmed emergency hazards must fixed within 24 hours.

To report damp, mould or condensation you can

• Call the Customer Services Centre on 0300 123 6633
• Visit: housing.southtyneside.gov.uk/repairs

Gas safety

• 100% of Gas Servicing Programme - 100% compliance. 14 years in a row!
• 1,116 Gas Safety checks for new tenants.
• 36 applications for gas safety access; 14 warrants executed.
• 15,856 gas servicing appointments completed.

Electrical

• 5,200 electrical inspections completed in 2024-25 – 100percent compliance achieved.
• 125 Magistrate Warrants gained for access to complete essential safety checks.

Customer support

Some customers do not want to use gas or they are not able to add credit to their utility account. These customers are visited by the Housing Team to provide regular support. This might include signposting to the Green Doctor or Welfare Support team.

Compliance checks

To make sure customers are safe in their homes compliance checks on gas, asbestos, passenger lifts, stair lifts are completed. 828 void properties have been re-inspected for asbestos-containing materials.

Water safety

• 1,353 domestic water safety checks completed.
• These help to minimise occupants’ risk of Legionnaires disease which can be found in domestic water systems

Fire safety

• The Building Safety Champions Group involved residents in building safety inspections
• 12,390 fire and building safety inspections carried out in high-rise, low-rise, day rooms, community rooms and Housing Plus ensuring residents can evacuate buildings safely
• Evacuation assessments are conducted with residents living in High-rise and Housing Plus buildings to ensure they can evacuate their building safely
• 4,000 fire door inspections completed

Rent and Housing Management/Tenancy Support Visits section

• If you have any health support needs, such as advice from the Health and Housing Team.
• Tenancy Support Visits also help to provide more tailored support for customers.

Repairs services

• 91,051 requests for the repair service during the year
• 86% of repairs were completed at first visit
• 14,498 emergency repairs completed
• 6211 emergency heating repairs attended - 99.98% completed within timescale
• 6.5% of visits where there was ‘no answer’ from the customer
• 7.4% of repairs required a follow-on appointment for further work

Customer Feedback has driven improvements to repairs services

You said - We did: Customers said that communications about repair jobs needed to be better so Housing Services:

• Has improved systems and processes.
• Significantly reduced avoidable contact with customers (people ringing the Customer Service Centre enquiring about the status of their repair job) from 169 in April 2024 to 6 in March 2025.
• Requires all appointments to be agreed with customers prior to sending text confirmation.
• Included information about trades people attending and job status in texts about repair jobs.
• Improved IT systems so that surveyors can now book repair appointments whilst with customers

During the year ahead the service aims to:

• To develop a new repairs policy.
• Improve repairs satisfaction surveys.
• Develop a repairs handbook to give to all customers.

Reporting a repair

• via Typetalk - textphone users please prefix our telephone number with 18001
• connect2@southtyneside.gov.uk
• 0300 123 6633
• Customer Service Team, South Tyneside Council Housing Services, Town Hall and Civic Offices, Westoe Road, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, NE33 2RL
• housing.southtyneside.gov.uk

Emergency repairs can be reported 24/7 on 0300 123 6633.

The Voids and Allocations Team manage properties from the ‘keys in to keys out’ stage. They make sure empty homes are re-let as quickly as possible and to the correct quality standard.

This year the team:

• Allocated 939 homes to customers.
• Consistently remained within the 14-day re-let target.
• Completed 512 tenancy support visits within the first couple of months of the tenancy starting.
• Saw 310 new applicants registered on House Exchange.
• Processed 79 Mutual Exchange requests.
• Made 16 referrals to the Tenancy Sustainment Team for in-depth support.
• Worked closely with Health and Housing to make sure adapted homes were matched to those who need them.
• 419 households avoided homelessness with housing team assistance.
• 432 households supported to find a home after being homeless.

I was so happy with the process and the property and I’m grateful to be close to my family.

Miss Wilson

I was impressed with the overall service. The process was very quick, which I never expected it to be. I am so impressed with the flat and the layout.

Jade

Supporting those in care and care leavers

Local authorities and their partners have a corporate parenting responsibility. This means they must provide care and support for children in care and care leavers to give them the best possible start in life.

As part of South Tyneside Council’s responsibility, 9 ‘taster flats’ have been developed for young people leaving care This includes a support network to help them settle, sustain their tenancies and thrive in the community.

Veterans service

A Veterans Outreach Support Officer works with veterans in the South Tyneside area. There are 4 fully furnished, dispersed properties for veterans. These are managed by the Armed Forces Outreach Officer, who also provides support to access other services.

• South Tyneside Council is proud to hold the Gold Award from the Ministry of Defence in recognition of its support for the Armed Forces community

Customers can get help from the Health Assessment Support Service to:

• Look at the impact their home has on a long-term illness or disability.
• Look at their housing needs by considering medical issues, welfare circumstances and any personal hardship.
• Support people moving into pre-adapted properties. This can help to make best use of available housing stock.
• Provide equipment or recommend minor adaptations to help them maintain independence at home.

Customers can get help from the Pre-Tenancy Support Service to:

• Help them through the re-housing process if they need it. This includes those moving for the first time or who are struggling with the process.
• Access Housing Plus and Extra Care properties, support effective hospital discharges and transitions from supported accommodation.

The team is now qualified with Trusted Assessor Status to independently consider a wider range of support including:

• Bathing assessments
• Stair assessments
• Ordering medical equipment and advising on minor adaptations.

Did you know...

• 12% of South Tyneside residents, over 18,000 people, have long term health conditions or disability. This is higher than the regional and national average of 10.7 and 9.3 percent.
• The wait time for assessment is now only 22 working days – down from 41 days last year.

Tenancy support visits

Housing teams regularly carry out Tenancy Support Visits (TSVs) to help them to understand tenants’ needs better. From April 2024 to March 2025 teams visited 6,635 properties. This helps people to maintain their tenancies and feel secure in their homes.

During a visit you can tell your housing officer:

• If your contact details have changed or about your contact preferences
• If you have any health support needs, such as advice from the health and housing team
• If the property is meeting your needs
• If adaptations are in place or required
• If you need help regarding rent payments or welfare advice
• Your next of kin details
• If you need advice regarding repairs
• If there is any damp or mould
• About other help we may be able to provide you

Tenancy support visits also help to provide more tailored support for customers.
The team made:

• 1,639 referrals to Welfare Support Team. This helped secure financial support for tenants to sustain their tenancies.
• 153 referrals for safeguarding support.
• 19 referrals to the Pre-Tenancy Support Team.
• 867 referrals to the Healthy Homes Team for assessment (see Healthy Homes for more information).

Case Studies

The Welfare Support Team offer specialist advice and casework for benefits and debt issues. They support residents across the Borough by:

• Carrying out benefit checks and helping with applications.
• Supporting appeals and Mandatory Reconsiderations when benefits have been refused or stopped.
• Offering debt advice, casework and court representation for possession hearings and County Court Judgements.

Secured over £11.1 million in financial gains for residents of the Borough during 2024/25

Local welfare provision

Local Welfare Provision provides support to any residents across the Borough who are in crisis or financial hardship. 3,418 applications for support were received during 2024-25.

Support included:

• Emergency food, gas and electricity vouchers
• Essential household items such as white goods and furniture through Community Care provision

Social navigators

Social Navigators work with vulnerable residents that are financially excluded. It works closely with over 34 organisations and supports people to stay in their homes, get into work or training, and access the help they need.

Case Studies of support from the Welfare Support Team

Where to find the team:

The team can offer help to you in person at the following local venues:

• South Shields Town Hall
• Boldon Lane Action Station
• Jarrow Town Hall
• Hebburn Central

They also attend Welcoming Places and community hubs, offer telephone appointments and carry out home visits when needed.

Need help?

• welfaresupport@southtyneside.gov.uk
• 0191 424 6040
• southtyneside.gov.uk/article/1467/Welfare-Support-Service

Housing Plus is South Tyneside Council’s independent living service. It offers safe, self-contained homes with support tailored to older and vulnerable residents. This allows people to live independently for longer.

To ensure the safety and wellbeing of residents in the Housing Plus Schemes, regular checks and ongoing support is provided.

Key Performance Highlights:

• 100% of wellbeing calls with residents completed
• 100% of fire safety and advice checks took place
• 100% of communal area checks were carried out
• 320 properties have had new digital alarms installed

To support customers and loved ones at difficult times

Customer feedback highlighted the need for better support during bereavement. In response to this the team had bespoke training. They also developed a new ‘Information for families following bereavement’ booklet to guide and support loved ones.

Improving Grounds Maintenance

There is now a new grounds maintenance contractor. This is in responses to residents’ concerns about the standard of grounds maintenance. The Councils’ Social Enterprise Team also provide a bespoke approach for each site.

Social events

The organisation is helping to reduce social isolation by offering regular opportunities for people to get together. Over the past year 2,368 engagement activities were held. This includes coffee mornings, craft sessions, meals clubs and social events like parties.

Late Bloomers

A residents wellbeing group, The Late Bloomers, at Patrick Cain House were awarded funding by the Lottery to develop a creative wellbeing activity programme. This builds on their existing work with Equal Arts.

The Late Bloomers and Equal Arts were successful with a funding application for their work. They did this with support from Housing Plus Officer, Sharon Chisholm. The group will now explore exciting ways to support creativity, connection and wellbeing.

Euryalus Court - Wellbeing Group

At Euryalus Court a Wellbeing Group was set up in February 2023. The aim of the group is to provide activities for residents, and family and friends, with support from Housing Plus staff.

In addition to running social activities, the group has raised over £3,000 for local charities. They have supported Cancer Connexions and the Mayor’s Charity, which supports local groups. The group also purchased a defibrillator that is accessible for the local community.

Community Safety and Tenancy Enforcement Team

Over the year the team has worked closely with local partners to keep communities safe and tackle antisocial behaviour (ASB).

Through strong partnership work and enforcement action, the team are helping create safer, more secure neighbourhoods.

Key Highlights:

• The team used a variety of tools and powers to tackle anti-social behaviour, including issuing Community Protection Warnings and notices, partial and full closure orders, civil injunctions, criminal behaviour orders and evictions.
• Collaborative work with police and Business and Community Responders has led to joint visits and tenancy action to address youth disorder and motorbike-related nuisance.
• Neighbourhood issues have been tackled through focused partnership work as part of the Neighbourhood Priorities multi-agency meetings.
• The team has safeguarded vulnerable adults and families, ensuring the right support is in place when it’s needed most.
• The team has worked with the New Build and Major Works Team when they were unable to access properties for compliance work.

Need to report ASB?

• www.southtyneside.gov.uk/asb
• asb@southtyneside.gov.uk
• 0300 123 6633
  (8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday)
• Visit the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit at Town & Hall & Civic Offices, Westoe Road, South Shields, NE33 2RL

Incidents of violence and abuse towards staff have been increasing. It’s important to treat people with respect. Abusive behaviour can put your tenancy at risk.

Safeguarding

The Safeguarding Team continue to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of residents. They do this through strong safeguarding practices and working with other key agencies.

• Following incidents of domestic abuse, measures such as improved locks, lighting and alarms, were installed at 93 properties to enhance safety and stop it happening again.
• The team submitted 17 domestic abuse risk assessments to the Safeguarding Coordinator for review or potential MARAC referral.

If you wish to raise or discuss any safeguarding or domestic abuse concerns, please contact the Housing team on 0300 123 6633. Alternatively, you can contact Adults or Children’s Social Care directly

• Adults Social Care: 0191 424 6000 (office hours) or 0191 456 2093 (out of hours).
• Children and Families Social Care: 0191 424 5010 (office hours) or 0191 456 2093 (out of hours).
• For advice, call NSPCC: 0808 800 5000.

The Social Enterprise Team continues to create local opportunities, supporting skills development, and enhancing services in our communities.

Key highlights:

• Successfully attracting funding for the New Start programme. The team supported 6 trainees with 8 months of paid work experience.
• Recruiting 14 apprentices across a range of trades and roles. Several trainees received awards and recognition. This included Apprentice of the Year and an APSE (Association for Public Sector Excellence) Award nomination.
• Investment in new equipment to support day to day operations.
• Extended its work streams by taking on more ground maintenance and painting work and making improvements on sites.

Streetscene

Keeping our Borough clean

The Streetscene team delivers all cleansing services across South Tyneside. They cover neighbourhoods, parks, open spaces and shopping areas.

Did you know?

• 760 miles of road is mechanically swept every week
• 97,000 square metres of sandy beach is cleaned daily
• 2176 litter bins are emptied each week
• Around 6000 fly tipping reports are responded to every year
• The team operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year

Greenspace

Caring for our outdoor spaces

The Greenspace team manages contracts for grass cutting and horticultural maintenance across the borough (excluding tree work).

At a glance:

• Maintain 5.1 million square metres of grass each cycle

Look after:

• 400,000 square meters of shrub beds
• 20,000 linear metres of hedges
• 25 parks including six Green Flag parks
• 69 playgrounds and multi-use games areas

Customers can have their say on the performance of South Tyneside Council Housing Services through an annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey (TSM). The survey is sent to quarter of customers each year.

Involved customer panels actively scrutinise this performance information and the steps that are being taken by the organisation to drive improvements for customers.

Some of the things being done to raise customer satisfaction:

• Satisfaction overall (65%): to understand how this can be improved surveys are being implemented to get customer views straight after a service has been received. The Tenant Scrutiny Panel have also carried out surveys in locations where satisfaction was lower.
• Satisfaction that my home is safe (72%): external validation was completed that showed compliance with all legal requirements relating to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas.
• Satisfaction that my home is well maintained (67%): one of the actions implemented is the use of property and customer data to prioritise damp, mould and condensation works.
• Satisfaction that communal areas are clean and well maintained (57%): service standards are being reviewed.
• Satisfaction with the repairs service over the last 12 months (71%): processes and systems have been improved to make sure customers are updated regularly regarding outstanding repairs.
• Satisfaction with the time taken to complete your most recent repair after you reported it (67%): the repair-job scheduling system has been upgraded to help provide better information and updates on progress.
• Satisfaction that my views are listened to and acted upon (56%): an external review of tenant engagement processes has been completed by the sector experts the Tenant Participation and Engagement Service (TPAS) and recommendations from this are being put in place. In addition, more information is also being published online for tenants including on delivery of landlord services.
• Satisfaction that I am kept informed about things that matter to me (58%): visits are being carried out to every property to better understand tenant needs including communication preferences, and a monthly e-newsletter is sent to tenants, which is in addition to the printed resident newsletter.
• Satisfaction that I am treated fairly and with respect (69%): work is taking place to increase staff understanding of customers’ different communication needs and preferences and to ensure communication is clear and understandable.
• Satisfaction with the organisations approach to complaints handling (34%): action is being taken to improve areas where there are higher numbers of complaints.
• Satisfaction that the organisation makes a positive contribution to your area (54%): this year delivery of housing services moved back to the Council enabling a better alignment with other teams providing services in neighbourhoods.
• Satisfaction with the organisations approach to handling anti-social behaviour (ASB) (49%): A new system has been introduced to improve how anti-social behaviour (ASB) is managed and tracked, including referrals to partner agencies. Communication is also being enhanced to share successful outcomes, available support, and the tools and powers used to tackle ASB.

For more information on what is being done, see Annual Tenant Satisfaction Measures Survey and how we're performing.

Focus on expenditure

Focus on income