Social housing landlords are now required to meet standards set by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). In September 2023, we told you about the changes that the regulator was proposing to the Consumer Standards to ensure that tenants live in safe, quality homes, have choice and protection, and can hold landlords to account.
The regulator consulted with over 2000 tenants in developing the new Standards and invited all social housing tenants and landlords to give their views. Citizen invited you to have your say on our website and in the September 2023 newsletter and we also responded directly to the consultation, including valuable feedback from our involved tenants.
The new Consumer Standards and Code of Practice will be available on the Government’s website herefrom 1 April 2024, when they come into effect. They relate to safety and quality, transparency, influence and accountability; neighbourhood and community; and tenancy.
Citizen fully supports the changes and remains committed to ensuring that we comply with them. We will continue to provide you with further information on these changes.
The first round of the Citizen Local fund for 2024 has opened and you have the chance to apply for up to £3,000.
The fund is for projects and initiatives which promote and support wellbeing, reduce isolation and enhance local areas.
Customers living in our communities can apply for a slice of the £50,000 funding which is available throughout this year.
In our previous round we supported 11 organisations across the West Midlands.
Customer engagement partner Caroline Arrow said: “We’re thrilled to be accepting applications for the latest round of the Citizen Local Fund.
“At Citizen we want to work with our partners to make a positive difference to our customers and communities – and the Citizen Local Fund sees us work with organisations across the West Midlands to do this.
“The fund is there for a range of projects – big or small. We’re keen to support anyone or any group that needs some support to help others.
“We’re looking forward to seeing the applications submitted over the next few weeks.”
Applications for the second round of funding close at 5pm on Monday 13 May. Our Customer Assurance Committee will help us to shortlist the successful bids.
Find out more about the Citizen Local Fund on our Citizen Local Fund web page.
Watch our Citizen Local Fund animation below for further information:
Energy efficiency improvements in Coventry have reached a key milestone with work completed on 500 homes.
Last year we announced we were successful in wave two of the Government’s social housing decarbonisation fund alongside Coventry City Council to carry out energy efficiency works to 2,000 homes across the city.
We worked with the council to submit a bid to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and were successful in receiving a £23.8m grant and we’re also funding a further £44m to create a £67.6m investment. The money is being spent on energy efficiency improvement works to bring the homes up to an energy rating of a C.
Carbon emissions from domestic properties are the biggest contributors to the city’s carbon footprint (30 per cent of total) so investment to make homes more energy efficient not only reduces energy bills but helps to reduce emission too.
Arthur Beale is one of our customers who has had energy efficiency works completed. These include external wall insulation, fans in his kitchen and bathroom for ventilation and loft insulation – and said he can feel the benefit of the works.
Arthur said: “I am very happy with the work – my house is much warmer now it’s been done.
“Before I had the work done the walls in my house felt cold but now they are warm to touch and you can really feel it when the heating is on. I don’t have to put the heating on as much as I did before the works which is a bonus and the work on the outside of the home makes it look much better too.
“I would definitely recommend these works to other people living in the city.”
Once the energy efficiency works are completed, they reduce the potential for mould growth and reduce the amount of energy the property consumes to keep it a comfortable temperature.
Our chief operating officer Mads Nelson said: “It’s fantastic that we have reached this milestone and completed energy efficiency works on 500 homes and are so pleased to hear the positive feedback from Arthur.
“At Citizen we are committed to working with our partners to make a positive difference to our customers and create better quality homes – and this project has made a huge difference to our customers with an average saving of £250 in fuel once the works are complete.
“We are continuing to work with Coventry City Council, DESNZ and our contractors to deliver warm and energy efficient homes to our customers living across Coventry. We’re looking forward to continuing with the project and completing the remaining homes over the next couple of years.”
As part of the project, we also worked with contractors and Coventry College to train the next generation of retrofitters and help them secure employment. The students complete a bootcamp at the college, following which they are interviewed by employer partners and, if successful, can join a training academy and potentially secure full-time employment.
Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities at Coventry City Council, Cllr David Welsh, said: “I’m absolutely delighted to see the progress of the work to create a better standard of homes for people, especially as it means savings on energy bills for tenants.
“As a council we have seen more and more organisations like Citizen work with us in partnership, playing a major part in improving lives for people. There is lots more to do -when you consider the desperate housing need in the city, but this is an excellent scheme. I hope we can find ways to expand the work to more homes in the future.”
To support the implementation of the programme, we commissioned director of GJK Consultants Gareth Keith. Gareth said: “It is great to recognise the significant milestone of 500 properties completed and we are delighted to provide project management services to Citizen’s decarbonisation team on this complex retrofit programme.
“The investment will eventually see over 2,000 properties benefit from new energy efficient measures installed in their homes, making households feel warmer and ideally improving their health and wellbeing. It is great to collaborate with Coventry City Council, Citizen, Coventry College, GJK consultants, contractors, and suppliers in this ambitious project which will have such an impact to so many people in Coventry.”
Environmental sustainability is important to us. The scale of our operations means that our impact and the influence we have on the environment is significant and we’re committed to becoming an environmentally responsible business.
To understand how Citizen’s environmental performance compares to other social housing providers we engaged SHIFT environment, a specialist in sustainability in the social housing sector, to carry out an environmental assessment. SHIFT environment operates an accreditation scheme which rates an organisation’s environmental performance as either bronze, silver, gold, or platinum.
The SHIFT environmental assessment took place from September to November 2023 and looked at a wide number of business areas which included:
● Existing properties
● New build standards
● Leadership and strategy
● Facilities
● Supply chain
The assessment benchmarked our environmental performance against a host of other social housing providers and provides recommendations on how we can improve.
We are proud to share that SHIFT awarded Citizen a silver rating which recognises our ongoing commitment to sustainability. Over the coming months we will be working hard to implement a number of improvements in the hope of achieving a gold rating for our next SHIFT assessment taking place during summer this year.
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