New approach to Housing Services

The new Neighbourhood Strategy has been launched meaning that there a few changes in the way that we deliver our frontline housing services.

We have created new patch pods, which are made up of a number of both our homes in general needs and those that benefit from our Independent Living Service. There are six Patch Pods that sit in either the East or the West Team. Each of the Patch Pods includes a Neighbourhood Services Advisor, Independent Living Advisor and a Caretaker and will focus on delivering outcomes efficiently and effectively.

There will be a focus on the frontline staff being out on the patch more, and this way of working will be supported by the new Business Support Hub. We hope that the new structure and way of working will increase satisfaction levels, build a new and closer relationship between us and our customers, give us more visibility in our communities and more joined up working with others. We will shortly be launching an interactive map that will clearly illustrate each of the patch pods, who works in them and will include lots of information about each of the areas.

One of the key upcoming priorities of the Housing Team is to complete a range of keeping in touch visits. The visit covers a range a topics, but primarily is intended to help us identify our customers that are most likely to be impacted the introduction of Universal Credit. The visits will take place over the coming months in readiness for the full service role out of Universal Credit (now September 2018) and will really allow us to assist and support our customers through the transition to claiming Universal Credit.