CHAT
Spring 2017
The magazine for Cardiff Community
Housing Association tenants
Work gets
underway at
our two new
developments
What's
inside...
Find out more about the Welsh
Housing Quality Standard, and
how it affects your property
Nominate the unsung
heroes from your
neighbourhood
...pages 4&5
...page 6
Welcome to Chat
Spring is in the air, and there are lots of exciting
projects getting off the ground at CCHA.
We have recently started work on two new developments
(turn to page eight for more information), and are
continuing to maintain and improve our existing
homes – there’s more about this on page four.
As always, if you have any feedback on the
magazine, please contact Sarah Vining
at [email protected]
Win a Pamper
Hamper!
Office Closures
Your feedback is important to us, so that we
can continue to improve our service at our
Customer Services office (Meteor Street).
- Good Friday (Friday 14th April)
To be in with a chance to win this fabulous
Pamper Hamper, simply fill out one of our
satisfaction cards (located near the front desk)
next time you visit the office, and hand it to
a member of staff. The prize draw for this
hamper will take place on 10th April.
Stay up to date with CCHA
The best way to stay up to date with all of
our activities, projects and announcements
is to follow our social media accounts:
2
Please note that our offices will be closed on
the following bank holidays:
- Easter Monday (Monday 17th April)
- May day bank holiday (Monday 1st May)
- Spring bank holiday (Monday 29th May)
If you require an emergency
repair on one of these
dates, please call us
on 029 2046 8490
where you will be
connected to the
out-of-hours service.
www.facebook.com/CCHA9
@CCHACorporate
Changes to Housing Benefit
You may have seen in the news recently that the UK Government announced that they
would be ending housing benefit for 18-21 year olds. The change comes into place on
1st April 2017, and also applies to new Universal Credit claims from this date.
If you believe you may be affected by this
change, you can contact our Financial
Inclusion team for free, friendly money advice.
• Signposting to Basic bank accounts
Our Money Advisers can give advice over the
phone, by email or can arrange to meet you
at home or in our Meteor Street office.
• Debt advice referral
Home visits are often most effective as you
will have all your information to hand but
you can access the service in whichever way
suits you best.
• Finding affordable furniture and
kitchen goods
We can help with all of the following:
• Finding products and services online
• Household budgeting
Contact our Money Advice team on
029 2046 8493 or email [email protected]
to make an appointment or ask for advice.
There is also further information available on
our website: www.ccha.org.uk
• Maximising income and benefits
• Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit
• Gas and electricity bills
• Energy efficiency
• Affordable loans
• Signposting to independent/specialist
advice centres
• Combating loan sharks
A wide range of independent advice and
information is also available.
• Water rates
• TV licence costs
• Signposting to Credit Union membership
3
The Welsh Housing Quality
Standard and You
We are regularly contacted by our customers asking when
their kitchens, bathrooms, heating, windows and doors
are due to be replaced.
In the following article, we will:
for example:
• Explain the standard to which we
maintain our homes
• Kitchens 25 years
• Clarify our approach to maintaining
homes and what this means to you
• Bathrooms - 27 years
The standard of our tenants’ homes
CCHA must maintain homes to the Welsh
Housing Quality Standard (WHQS). This is a
standard developed and introduced by
Welsh Government which all social housing
providers must achieve as soon as possible,
but no later than 2020.
The WHQS aims to ensure that all dwellings
are of good quality and suitable for the
needs of existing and future residents.
• External doors and windows - 30 years
Therefore, if a kitchen is installed in 2017,
we will plan to replace it in 2042.
Reviewing a component’s condition involves
completing a survey which:
• Grades the overall condition of a
component
CCHA has already achieved the WHQS and
our priority is now to ensure we maintain the
standard.
• Identifies any repairs required that will
help achieve the estimated replacement
cycle; and
One way we will do this is through our
planned maintenance programme.
• Reviews, if necessary, the planned
replacement date
Planned maintenance
We complete stock condition surveys every
six years. Since 2014 we have completed
2,037 surveys. Nearly 500 surveys are
planned in 2017, and we will be writing to
tenants in June to arrange these. If you
receive a letter, it is important that you
allow the surveyor access to your home.
Failure to do so could affect the work
planned to your home.
Planned maintenance is where work to
replace components such as kitchens and
bathrooms is planned over a period of time.
4
• Heating (gas boilers and electric
heating) - 15 years
Our approach to planning which
components will be replaced and when is
set out in our Asset Management Strategy
and the WHQS Compliance Policy. They
currently state that we will take into
consideration a components age and its
condition before deciding to replace. This is
because we recognise that some
components will last longer than others.
Using this approach helps us get value for
money from our maintenance programme.
It also helps us keep tenants informed about
what work is due to homes and when.
Each component included in our planned
maintenance programme has a life cycle
which helps us plan for its replacement. This
is based on how long we expect it to last,
Over the next year we will be providing
more information on what we do. Look out
for our next update in the summer edition
of CHAT!
Engaging tenants in our approach
At our first Tenants' Conference, held in November 2016, we discussed our approach to
planned maintenance with our customers. It was useful to get their view on our approach and
to understand what we can do to improve.
We discussed scenarios which we at CCHA have to deal with on a regular basis, one of which is
the replacement of gas boilers.
Scenario: A gas boiler has a life cycle
of 15 years. As a tenant, if your hot
water and heating system worked well
at the end of 15 years and could work
well for a longer period, would you...?
Options:
a) Still want your system replaced
at year 15
b) Wait until the heating system failed
and received a full replacement
upon failure
Feedback: Our current approach with
this is to replace the boiler at year 15,
although feedback from tenants’ at the
event suggests waiting until the system
has failed before replacing.
Action: We will consider the
advantages and disadvantages
of changing our current approach and
discuss our findings with tenants before
making any changes to our processes.
We are grateful to the tenants who took part
in the discussions. While the feedback we
received was generally positive, one area for
improvement is that we can do more to keep
you informed on what we do. This article is
the start of our efforts to keep you updated
on our progress, and we will be publishing
more in the future.
workshops, questionnaires and other events
to better understand what matters with
regards to planned maintenance. You can
keep informed of these events through our
social media accounts and our website:
Over the next few months we will also
continue to engage with tenants through
- @CCHA9
- www.ccha.org.uk
- www.facebook.com/CCHA9
5
Is there an unsung hero
in your neighbourho
ood?
Things
aren’t like
they used to
be around
here.
No-one
cares about
their neighbours
anymore.
When I was growing up, you could
ow
leave your door unlocked and know
your house would be safe – but it’s
not the same these days.
Sound familiar?
Our tenancy empowerment team hear phrases like this frequently when they are out and about
conducting their visits. But being the positive people that they are, they have decided that this
can’t all be true – there must be some good neighbours out there, and we’d like to recognise
them and celebrate their contributions to their community.
We’d like to invite our customers to nominate a neighbour that has gone out of their way to help
or support them. Is there someone that makes a real difference to your community?
Betty is rewarded by the
team for her “amazing help”
with her neighbour Raymond
Please
s
end yo
ur nom
ination
Tenanc
s to:
y Empo
werme
nt Team
CCHA
Tolven
Co
Dowlai urt
s Road
Cardiff
CF24 5
LQ
6
We will collect
nominations for the
next three months, and
then feature our
winners in the next
edition of Chat.
Or email them to
[email protected]
Friends and Neighbours
(FAN) groups launched in
Tremorfa and Trowbridge
FAN stands for Friends and Neighbours.
Who is my friend? Who is my neighbour?
Come to a FAN group and you’ll meet friends
and neighbours and feel more hopeful for the
world. It’s a great opportunity for local people
to meet newcomers. Very few people know all
their neighbours these days, let’s try and make
a change to this!
Come to a FAN group and share an hour with
others – local resident or visitor – we’d love to
meet you. It is amazing what interesting
people you meet.
We have two FAN groups currently in place:
- Every other Monday in Trowbridge
Community Centre, 09.30-10.30
- Every other Thursday in Tremorfa Hall,
09.30-10.30
For more information on these groups
please contact the Communities &
Regeneration team on 029 2046 8496 or
email [email protected]
The first FAN group meeting in
Trowbridge Community Centre
7
New developments at
Schooner Way and the
Maelfa get underway
Construction has begun on our prestigious new development in Cardiff Bay – with the
developers gathering at the site for a sod-cutting ceremony.
Our Chief Executive Kevin Protheroe, Director of Development Caroline Lewis, and Chair of the
Board Kaniz Malekin join representatives from Morganstone and New Homes Agency for the
official launch of the scheme.
8
This new development of 85 apartments for
sale and 32 affordable homes will front and
overlook Bute East Dock, offering 1, 2, 3 and
4 bedroom properties, in a mix of social and
private housing.
“CCHA are excited to be able to offer homes
for sale within the heart of Cardiff in our first
open market development. Whilst offering
homes for sale, CCHA will also deliver muchneeded affordable family homes.”
Caroline Lewis, Director of Development
at CCHA says: “It is pleasing to see work
commence on the Schooner Way site.
CCHA is well established as a leading social
housing provider in the city and we are
delighted to be instrumental to the Schooner
Way development.
If you would like to find out more about
the homes for sale, please visit
www.schoonerwharf.co.uk
Maelfa shopping
centre in
Llanedeyrn
Work has also commenced on our
re-generation of the Maelfa
shopping centre in Llanedeyrn.
The phased redevelopment, part funded by
Welsh Government, over the next three
years will be built by contractors Jehu
Project Services and will deliver nine new
shops, off-street parking, pedestrian
crossings and public spaces as well as 54
affordable apartments and houses.
The new shops will be managed by the
City Council, and Cardiff Community
Housing Association will manage the
affordable housing.
The construction of 57 houses by Persimmon
Home for sale is also well advanced.
Ahead of the start of demolition work,
tenants including the local fish and chip
shop, opticians and Churches Together
have been relocated to temporary units in
the northern section of the centre. The
existing Maelfa shopping centre, which
provides valued shops and services for the
community, will remain open for business
throughout redevelopment programme.
Artist’s impressions of what the completed scheme will look like.
9
Tenant Conference
Feedback Report
The feedback report from our first tenant conference
has now been published, and is available to
download from our website (www.ccha.org.uk)
Overall, the feedback was very positive, with 94% of
attendees saying the found the conference “very
useful”, and 96% saying they would like to see it
repeated every year
Paper copies of the report are also available, and can
be requested by calling our Communities &
Regeneration team on 029 2046 8496 or emailing
[email protected]
Would you like to join us this year?
10
The tenants’ conference provides a unique
opportunity for you, our customers, to
engage with us and help us shape our
agenda for the year ahead.
If you would like to register your interest in
attending, or find out more about the event,
and other ways that you can get involved,
please contact Katie:
Following the success of last year’s event, and
the positive feedback received from the
tenants who attended, we are already hard at
work planning this year’s conference.
029 2046 8496 or [email protected]
Everyone who has registered their interest in
attending by 1st May 2017 will be entered into
a prize draw to win an iPad mini.
Are you a CCHA tenant?
Do you live in a household
where no one works?
Have you been unemployed
for more than 6 months and
live in the East of Cardiff?
We may be able to help:
We're
here to
help!
Fund training, such as CSCS card
d
or SIA licence.
Pay for childcare for you to comp
plete
a course or work placement.
Get accredited training to help
you got a job with the NHS.
We work with lots of different companies:
11
CCHA awarded Silver
Accreditation as an
Investor in People
We are very pleased to announce that CCHA
has been awarded silver accreditation
against the Investors in People Standard,
demonstrating our commitment to high
performance through good people
management.
Investors in People is the international
standard for people management, defining
what it takes to lead, support and manage
people effectively to achieve sustainable
results. Underpinning the Standard is the
Investors in People framework, reflecting the
latest workplace trends, essential skills and
effective structures required to outperform in
any industry. Investors in People enables
organisations to benchmark against the best
in the business on an international scale.
Kevin Protheroe and
Louise Sulley celebrate
our new Silver plaque
Commenting on the award, Louise Sully
Corporate Services Director said:
“We’ve come a long way in all areas since our
2013 assessment where we were assessed as
Bronze. Overall the report was very positive.
Having achieved “Bronze” in 2013 this has
given confirmation that the all the work
undertaken during this period has had a
positive impact for you and the organisation.
We agreed that the IiP accreditation process
should be used as a developmental tool and
not just “going for Gold” and this assessment
has validated that approach. Most areas were
12
assessed as either established or advanced
with only one area reported as developing.
We compared higher than the benchmarked
sector in 6 out of the 9 criteria. Some of the
strongest areas for CCHA were operating in
line with our values, participation and
collaborating, measuring and assessing
performance, creating autonomy in roles and
focusing on the future. The areas for
improvement were not unexpected and will
shape our priorities for 17/18.
Everyone at CCHA is extremely proud of this
achievement.”
Updates to our Community
Centres timetables
There’s always lots going on in our community centres – please note the below changes
and additions to the timetable published in the last issue of CHAT.
Tremorfa Community Hall
CMC@Loudoun
Flying Start: Stay and Play, Wednesdays
9:00am-11:15am
Stay and Play for birth to under 4’s. Drop in
with your baby or toddler and have fun.
Enjoy a range of play activities in our friendly
and welcoming sessions.
Trowbridge Community Centre
Caernarfon Way, Trowbridge, Cardiff, CF3 1RU
Please note that unfortunately Age Cymru have
cancelled their Wednesday exercise classes.
Thursday
CCHA FAN Group. 9:30am-10:30am
2nd and 4th Thursday each month
Friday
Rikashake: Free for families
6:00pm - 6:30pm & 6:45pm - 7:15pm
Monday
Rikashake 7:30pm-8:30pm
CCHA FAN Group, 9:30am-10:30am
(Open class, fee applies)
2nd and 4th Monday each month
Saturday
Tuesday & Wednesday
Rikashake: Free for families
LIFT Basic Skills Course, 9:30am-12:00pm
Tuesday & Wednesday
10:00am - 10:30am & 10:35am - 11:05am
Wednesday
Parent and Toddler
Rikashake:
Free for families 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Open class, fee applies 7:30pm-8:30pm
Sundays
Rikashake:
Free for families 4:30pm - 5:45pm
Open class, fee applies 6:00pm-7:00pm
CCHA manage three community facilities
in Tremorfa, Trowbridge and Butetown
which have space for hire and a regular
programme of activities.
Rikashake
If you would like to find out more about
any of the classes listed, or enquire about
hiring our facilities for your event, then
please contact James on 029 2046 8416 or
email [email protected]
13
The team accepting
their award at the
ceremony
Our Customer Culture story
In the last issue of Chat, we mentioned that our Customer Culture project had been
announced as the successful winner of the “Customer Excellence” prize at the CIH Cymru
Welsh Housing Awards 2016.
14
How did it get started?
Who was involved?
CCHA initiated a customer services
improvement project following disappointing
results in the national tenant survey of 2015.
The Head of Customer and Support Services
and the Corporate Services Director were
asked to jointly lead the initiative, as it was felt
that in order to see results in our external
customer services, we first needed to address
internal issues. Initially they met with
representatives from our tenant service
inspectors group to discuss how CCHA could
improve the tenant experience, and what they
expected from our staff.
Staff engagement and participation with the
project was key from the outset, and
workshops on customer service for all staff
were run by an external facilitator.
Following these workshops, a group of staff
volunteers met to identify what they
considered to be the principles required to
achieve excellent customer service, and they
also came up with a new slogan for the project
‘Be the Best’, which was launched at our staff
conference in 2015.
It was vital for the success of the project that
these initiatives and ideas be led by the staff
themselves, as we were trying to achieve a
‘ground-up’ rather than a ‘top-down’ change
process, to empower the staff who were most
likely to be interacting with you on a day-today basis.
new principles across the organisation, which
included T-shirts, wall canvases and computer
desktop backgrounds. Once again, staff
participation was key here, and volunteers from
across the organisation came forward to create
the artwork for these visuals, which are now
displayed across all of our offices.
Following the staff conference, we began to
produce visual materials to help to bed-in the
TSI chair Joan Lewis
presents one of our
customer culture
champions with a framed
copy of his artwork.
What happened next?
The visuals themselves were launched
at our December Corporate Briefing in
2015, and every staff member was
presented with a fold-out business card,
to serve as a constant reminder of the
new principles – please find your very
own copy of this attached to the right.
The group of champions are continuing
to meet regularly, and focus on one of
these principles every quarter: currently
we are considering “empowerment”
and what this means to our staff.
Discover our customer culture principles
in your own very own fold out.
+
15
YOU SAID
WE DID
How have we responded to
tenant feedback this quarter?
As always, thank to all of our tenants who have provided the feedback below - we are always
trying to become better at what we do.
You Said
We Did
You didn’t want to have letters
or leaflets about events that
were out of your area, or when
the information could be sent
out via email or text message.
We have started to send out information via other
communication methods and only sent information regarding
events that are specifically in your area.
That we often use jargon in
correspondences and this
makes it hard to understand
We have tried to make sure that recent letters, posters etc are
jargon free and easy for our customers to understand. We will
be doing further work on this suggestion.
Tenants wanted to see our
centres (Trowbridge and
Tremorfa) being used more
for customer involvement
and events.
Consulted with local people from Tremorfa and Trowbridge
about what they would like to see happen in the centres. We
have increased activities in the centres including exercise classes
and events such as Friends and Neighbours groups. We have
plans to further increase the use of this space for the benefit of
our customers including things such as community cinema.
Parking is difficult with such
limited space. People park
here that shouldn’t.
We have contracted a management company who will manage
the car parking initially at Aquila and Galleon but eventually with
a view to rolling this out to other schemes that experience similar
issues. This will begin in April 2017.
Following the tenant conference report, we intend to publish an action plan in 2017/18 which will focus on:
•
Involving tenants in discussions around
value for money
•
Improving digital services including the use
of social media
•
Providing better information about our
decisions around planned maintenance
•
Improving opportunities for involvement in
community regeneration projects
Tolven Court, Dowlais Road, Cardiff, CF24 5LQ
T: 029 2046 8490 www.ccha.org.uk
CCHA is a charitable housing association.
Registered Office: Tolven Court, Dowlais Road, Cardiff, CF24 5LQ
T: 029 2046 8490
Resource Housing Reg. No. 2111
Welsh Assembly Government Registration No. L035
Registered under the Co-operative
and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014,
with charitable status No.21667R