A service of quality
This tells you what standards of service you can expect from us and how to give us feedback on our performance.
Our aims
- We aim to achieve excellence in our housing service. We will:
- Create a motivated staff team
- Develop effective partnerships with other organisations
- Work together with our tenants and customers
- Improve our properties and the living environment
Please see the leaflet on Housing Needs for issues relating to the housing register, homelessness, housing associations and temporary accommodation.
Housing Services deal with rent arrears, maintenance and repairs for all temporary and permanent accommodation.
General standards
We will:
- Open our office at Fort Road Newhaven from Monday to Thursday (9am to 4.45pm) and on Friday (9am to 4.15pm). There is another reception at 4 Fisher Street, Lewes.
- Carry official identity cards
- Respond efficiently and sensitively to the needs of our customers, speaking plainly and trying not to use jargon
- Have a welcoming and helpful family-friendly reception
- Prepare staff for all meetings and interviews, giving enough time and ensuring a suitable and confidential environment
- Keep notes of all meetings held and provide on request a written account action to be taken and timescales
- Make home visits at a mutually convenient time
- Make alternative appointments with customers, if they cannot be kept
- Leave a card saying who called if a customer is out. If the information on the card is of a sensitive nature, or the customer lives in a multi-tenanted property, an addressed envelope will be used
- Provide up-to-date information and advice
- Provide a translation or interpreting service on request
- Carry out interviews in a confidential environment. Personal information will only be disclosed to other agencies with a right to this information
Correspondence
We will
- Respond to 85% of letters and emails within seven working days
- Give an explanation for a delay within seven days
- Give customers the contacts of all other departments dealing with their letter
- Inform relevant departments of known changes in customer details
- Respond in 'plain English'
- Print email addresses at the top of letters where possible
Telephone calls
We will
- Answer 95% of phone calls within 15 seconds
- Take a clear, concise message and make sure it is passed on to the appropriate person
- Try to transfer customers to the proper person, arranging for a call-back if necessary
- Return all telephone messages, including voicemail messages by the end of the following working day
- Contact customers in writing within seven days, if they cannot be called back
Estate management
We will
- Inspect all communal areas every six weeks
- Remove all abandoned vehicles on LDC land within eight weeks
- Respond to complaints against anti-social behave, taking the most appropriate action.
- Deal with simple tenancy matters within four weeks
- Minimise the time to relet empty properties to within 25 days
Tenant participation
We will:
- Encourage, support and consult tenants and residents groups as well as individual tenants
- Help or advise tenants wishing to start a group
- Meet each group annually
- Send a newsletter out three times a year
- Meet groups when invited to attend
- Carry out service assessments as set out in our District Compact with tenants
- Develop Neighbourhood Compacts on request
Rent collection and arrears recovery
We will:
- Advise new tenants of payment options
- Seek to maximise income, to provide sustainable, efficient and affordable services
- Take action on rent arrears after two weeks
- Provide advice and/or support for tenants with payment difficulties with paying their rent
Repairs
We will
- Carry out all emergency repairs which we categorise as an emergency within 24 hours
- Provide an all–year emergency out–of–hours service
- Investigate poor service on job notification letters
- Investigate repairs where needed within two weeks
Transfers and exchanges
We will:
- Acknowledge all transfer applications within seven days of receipt and let customers know about their eligibility within a further 14 day period
- Advise customers about their prospects of moving
- Take into account any preferences for a specific area, type of accommodation and/or any special needs
- Process all applications for mutual exchange within the statutory limit of six weeks
Supported housing and lifeline
We will:
- Provide an emergency-warden call-service to our sheltered accommodation with 24 hour monitoring
- Provide scheme mangers on all sheltered schemes
- Encourage social activities on our schemes
- Provide a lifeline service to vulnerable residents
What do you think?
We are always looking for ways to improve our services and are keen to hear our customers' views. Please ask for a complaints form or freephone 0800 3288648 or contact:
Housing Services
20 Fort Road
Newhaven BN9 9QF
Tel 01273 471600
Fax 01273 484260
Email: housing@lewes.gov.uk
Housing Services webpages: www.lewes.gov.uk/council/9840.asp
Other formats
This leaflet is also available in large print format, on tape or on disk. Contact the Access Officer on 01273 484409. It can also be seen on our website.
Our promise to you
Your council's overall aims, based on the priorities chosen by you, are:
- To strive for continuous improvement in the quality and cost-effectiveness of our services
- To protect and enhance the environment
- To help people improve the quality of life in local communities
- To promote equality of access to Council services
