Housing Matters - May 2022
CEO Welcome
CHIEF EXECUTIVE WELCOME
Welcome to Housing Matters
Michael Newey Chief Executive
As Broadland approaches its 60th birthday next year, I’m also looking forward to celebrating my 20th anniversary of joining the association in 2003.
I'm incredibly proud to work for Broadland. We are an organisation that has a massive social impact in the neighbourhoods we operate in and on the lives of our tenants.
However, as I explained at our recent AGM (see page 4), we are working in difficult times. Inflation is affecting us all and putting pressure on our budgets – we had not anticipated the war in Ukraine or the energy crisis when we finalised budgets and economic assumptions back in January. Our maintenance costs, and materials in particular, have risen well above the 4.1% increase to tenants’ rent that we announced in April.
Our new Corporate Strategy 2022-26 (see page 4) outlines how we plan to optimise our delivery of services despite the economic pressures, and the challenges of the journey towards a low-carbon future. Our new focus on scheduling efficiency, for example, is already bringing down the number of outstanding repairs, and we are getting positive feedback from both tenants and our Repairs team operatives.
Since the adoption of our new Strategy, the cost of living crisis has become more significant and the Government, at the time of writing, are consulting on rent caps for the next financial year. We are pleased that the Government recognise that many people, including social housing tenants, are struggling and need assistance, but we know that below inflationary rent increases will have an impact on what we can achieve over the next few years.
The Government’s September Fiscal event has also had a major impact on the cost of debt and forecast interest rates over the next four or five years. Whilst about 66% of our debt is at fixed rates, we do have £70 million on variable rates and our interest costs are going to be significantly higher than we expected in June, when we last submitted our business plans to our Regulator. Again this will impact what we can achieve over the next couple of years.
We want our tenants to be actively involved in shaping our services, and for us to be accountable to them on how services are delivered and money is spent. The launch of our new Tenant Assurance Panel (see page 5) is an important new platform for tenants to work in partnership with us directly to help us continue to improve our services. We also continue to listen to our tenants at community events and activities around the region.
Naturally, Broadland’s values infuse our new Corporate Strategy. ‘Ensuring Broadland is a good employer’ is one of the 12 strands. As an accredited Living Wage Employer since 2015, we are proud to have helped Norwich become a Living Wage City. You can read more about our part in this successful campaign, and an account by Jesse, our Cleaning Coordinator, about the positive impact of receiving the Real Living Wage, on page 6.
We continue to promote equality, diversity and inclusion in our communities and workplaces. We actively support the Independent East #Flourish campaign (see page 6), acknowledging that everyone needs to feel comfortable to express themselves in order to thrive at work and in life in general.
Last but not least, we continue to provide new affordable homes for the people of Norfolk and north Suffolk. We recently celebrated the ‘topping out’ the final phase of our major development at Canary Quay and the start of work on new schemes (such as Kett’s Hill in Norwich), which are helping us deliver our social purpose.
I hope you enjoy reading this latest issue of Housing Matters.