Community

New Government ‘Charter’ for Social Housing Providers is Launched

New Government ‘Charter’ for Social Housing Providers is Launched

A new Government Charter says social housing providers must be clear on how our residents’ money is being spent and make it easier for everyone to get more up-to-date information. Brian Moran, Deputy Chief Executive of Jigsaw Homes Group explains why we welcome these measures.

“The Social Housing White Paper, published last week, says the regulatory body that looks after housing will bring in more checks on standards including the quality of homes and repairs, landlords’ engagement with residents and their handling of complaints.

At Jigsaw Homes, we welcome these new measures, not least because we are already providing new and vital information to you, through our Financial Report, Tenants Annual Report, and daily updates through our website, Connect contact centre, via e-mails, and through our social media channels.

Our award-winning platform Jigsaw Rewards allows us to continuously ask our residents for feedback, for which they are rewarded points to exchange for vouchers or money off rent.

We have strong resident Scrutiny Panels that review and recommend changes to our services across a range of different topics selected by residents, from gas and fire safety to customer call-handling.

And now, we are about to begin our largest consultation exercise since we merged almost three years ago. The Jigsaw Conversation will involve us asking our colleagues, residents and stakeholders about where they think we should be focussing our efforts and resources in the next few years.

We will be sending questionnaires out to our employees who work directly with our customers as well as our colleagues who provide back-office services, and we want to hear from as many residents as possible through our Rewards survey and eventually wider.

It is really important that we hear from anyone we work with who has an opinion about the future direction of Jigsaw. We believe that by involving our residents we can gain a crucial perspective on the diverse needs of our customers and the issues impacting our neighbourhoods.

Together, with our willingness to be more accountable and transparent, we will look at how we improve the experience our residents have so that your homes and communities are places where you feel safe, secure and happy, and the services you receive are of the highest quality.

You can read the full Social Housing White Paper here