A message from Gloria, ARK Participation Officer

Transcription

1 Autumn 2018 Wednesday 19th September was Scottish Housing Day celebrating the impact that housing makes to the lives of people and communities across the country, as well as communicating to people about their housing options. Part of the campaign was to share housing stories: what you want politicians to do to help you and your family get a home. the challenges of finding a suitable home. the excitement of getting your dream home. anything else related to your housing story. It is very important that we hear about peoples housing experiences, the good stories and the not so good stories. There is a lot of work being done in the Scottish Government and by ARK and other organisations to make sure that people with particular housing requirements do not get overlooked when housing is being allocated or built. Continue on page 3 A message from Gloria, ARK Participation Officer A big part of my job is to support ARK service users to speak up about their service. If there is anything I can do to help you, please give me a call at

2 What you can read about here... PAGE Universal Credit Housing Costs 4 to 9 Changes to Scottish Secure Tenancies 10,11,12 Property Updates 14,15 ARK Performance Report 2017/ ,17 Fire Safety in Communal 19 Areas Complaints Update 22 2

3 Your home is the foundation of a good life From our work we know that there are many people either still living in hospital or with their parents or in accommodation that makes them unhappy. We also know that there is not nearly enough thought given to how we meet the housing requirements of people who have disabilities. Not everyone is treated equally and this goes against everything that both the Equalities Act and the Fairer Scotland Duty expect of public bodies. There are 2 key groups that need your information to help inform how Scotland meets the housing requirements of people with disabilities. The Accessible Housing Group is a group that was set up to support the national delivery plan for housing and focuses on: Improving access for disabled people to suitable housing. Increasing supply of accessible housing. Delivery. Design: flexibility and innovation. The SCLD Improving Outcomes for housing delivery group is particularly focussed on the housing requirements of people with learning difficulties. If you have anything you would like to contribute to either group please contact Jane Gray. ARK is committed to meeting the housing and support requirements of people with disabilities. A good life is not made up of support alone. Everyone should have a home where they feel happy, safe and secure. 3

4 Changes to The Way Tenants Receive Rent Costs For the last 3 to 4 years ARK have been telling tenants through our newsletters about the changes affecting Welfare Benefits. You may have already been affected by the change from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to Personal Independence Payments (PIP). Tenants in Moray, Angus, Midlothian and East Lothian who claim Universal Credit (UC) have started to see this change in the last month. A big change is how the Rent or Housing Costs are paid. Before this would have been paid with Housing Benefit and usually paid directly to ARK. Under Universal Credit, these will be paid to the tenant and the tenant will then be in charge of paying the rent. 4

5 Universal Credit Claiming Housing Costs When you make a new claim for Universal Credit (UC) your housing costs will usually be paid as part of your UC payment. If you are claiming Housing Benefit (HB) the Department for Work and Pensions will contact your local authority to stop your HB payments. You will receive an additional payment of 2 weeks worth of HB to support you as you move to UC. It is your responsibility to make sure you pay your rent and other housing costs to ARK in full. If you are having trouble managing your money and have an online UC account, you can ask that your housing costs are paid directly to ARK. It s a good idea to tell ARK that you are claiming UC so that we understand your situation. You will need to tell ARK that you have made a new claim to UC and that a claim for housing costs has been included as part of your claim. 5

6 Universal Credit Making a Claim If you are applying for housing costs for rented property as part of your UC claim, you will need to give evidence of how much your rent is during your new claim interview. This could be - A current rent statement A current tenancy agreement The Department for Work and Pensions will contact ARK for verification of this information. Service Charges Some people pay a service charge on a rented property, in addition to their monthly rent, this is for things like gardening, cleaning of communal areas and stair lighting. Universal Credit can help towards this cost, but you will need to show evidence of any service charges that you have to pay. 6

7 Universal Credit Reductions in Universal Credit Housing Costs The amount you receive towards your housing costs may be reduced if - Your home has spare bedrooms. This will be reduced by 14% if you have one spare, or 25% if you have two or more spare bedrooms. If someone aged 21 or more lives with you who is not a dependant. Supported Housing If you live in supported housing where ARK is providing your support you wont be able to claim housing costs through Universal Credit. You can claim Housing Benefit from your local council. This will be the case even if the rest of your money comes from Universal Credit. If you rent your house from ARK but receive care from another care provider you will need to claim Universal Credit housing costs. 7

8 Universal Credit If You Are 18 to 21 Years Old If you are 18 to 21 years old you will not usually be able to get help with housing costs when you make a new Universal Credit claim. However, there are times when 18 to 21 year olds can get help with their housing costs. For example, you may be able to get help from Universal Credit housing costs if you - Are unable to live with your parents. Are looking after a child or children. Are sick or disabled. There are many other circumstances that may mean you could get this help. So you should make a claim to see if you can receive these payments. 8

9 Universal Credit Reporting a Change of Circumstances Changes to your circumstances could mean that the amount you get towards your housing costs will change. It is your responsibility to let the Department for Work and Pensions know about any changes in your situation right away, so that they can make sure you are receiving the right UC payments. If you move address during an assessment period, the amount you get in housing costs for the whole month will be based on where you live at the end of that period. If you are two or more months behind with your rent, your landlord can apply to have the housing costs part of your Universal Credit paid directly to them. if you fall behind on your rent you may want to talk to your landlord about this. If changes to your benefits mean your receive less money, you may be able to get extra help towards your housing costs from your local council. These are called Discretionary Housing Payments. You will only be able to get Discretionary Housing Payments if you receive Universal Credit housing costs and you need more help. It is important that you let your Housing Services Officer know if you have made a claim for Universal Credit. 9

10 Changes For Tenants With a Scottish Secure Tenancy This page explains the changes to Scottish Secure Tenancy rights made by the Housing (Scotland) Act To make sure that your tenancy rights are protected it is very important that you tell ARK of any changed to your household. This includes - Telling ARK about anyone who has previously moved in with you that you haven't already told us about. Telling ARK when anyone moves into or out your home in the future at the time they do so. The Following Changes Take Effect from 1st May 2019 Circumstances will include - Change from a Scottish Secure Tenancy to a Short Assured Tenancy. A tenant or someone living with the tenant has acted in an antisocial manner or pursued a course of conduct amounting to harassment of another person. This conduct must have been in or around the house occupied by the tenant and have happened in the 3 years before the notice is served. 10

11 Changes For Tenants With a Scottish Secure Tenancy Ending Scottish Secure Tenancy after a conviction for serious antisocial behaviour or criminal behaviour. Court does not have to consider whether it is reasonable to make an order for eviction where the landlord has grounds for recovery of possession. Recovering adapted properties. Court can be asked to end a tenancy of an adapted property that is not being occupied by anyone who needs the adaptions. This only applies where the landlord requires the property for someone who does need the adaptions. Notice would be need to be given and suitable alternative accommodation would need to be offered. 11

12 Changes For Tenants With a Scottish Secure Tenancy The Following Changes Take Effect from 1st Nov 2019 Joint Tenancy The potential joint tenant must have lived at the property as their only principal home for the 12 months before you apply for them to become a joint tenant. 12 months only start when we have received written notification from you that they live there. Subletting You must have been the tenant of the house throughout the 12 months immediately before you apply for written permission to sublet your house. Assignation Succession The house must have been your only home during the 12 months immediately before you apply for permission to pass your tenant to someone else. The person who is not the lawful spouse or civil partner of the deceased who wished to succeed to the tenancy must have lived there 12 months prior. 12

13 National Involvement Network Do you like taking part in groups? Do you like meeting new people? Do you like having a say? Then the NIN meetings might be for you! The NIN, National Involvement Network, is a group of individuals and organisations that meet to talk about how people with learning disabilities can take part in their support services and in their communities. At our last meeting in Dundee we talked about taking part in the community, what would make living in the community better and how to keep well. If you live near Glasgow there is a NIN meeting on Tuesday 27 November. You can get support to attend meetings from Gloria, the ARK Participation Officer. ARK will pay for your travel expenses. You will get lunch at the meetings. There are also smaller groups that regularly meet in Edinburgh and Dundee. If you would like to get more information, please get in touch with Gloria at To see more about the National Involvement Network go to: 13

14 PROPERTY UPDATES Upcoming property improvements We will shortly be making improvements at two of our developments 1 in Edinburgh, and 1 in Musselburgh. We will be installing brand new upvc windows and hope that the tenants there will benefit from the upgrades before the colder winter months. Further North we will be upgrading boilers at a development in Aberdeen, and 2 developments will benefit from brand new kitchens in Fraserburgh and Inverurie. Contract renewals The maintenance team are also working on upcoming contract renewals- there will be a new Gas contract in November of this year, and we are working on a new cyclical painting programme for external and internal communal areas to cover a 5 year period. 14

15 Tenant Responsibilities Occasionally the maintenance department are asked to undertake repairs which are not covered by our repairs service. Although we are able to arrange these repairs, there will be a cost to the tenant for it (a rechargeable repair). Below is a small list of common examples detailing what tenants are responsible for: You are responsible for changing light bulbs; You are responsible for blocked toilets; You are responsible for blocked sinks; You are responsible for broken toilet seats; You are responsible for smoke alarm batteries; You are responsible for pest problems; You are responsible for replacement keys. A list of all the repairs you are responsible for is in your tenant handbook. 15

16 The role of the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) is to protect the interests of tenants and other people who use the services of social landlords. At the 31st March 2018 ark owned 274 homes. The total rent due to ARK was 2,773,971. Ark increased its weekly rent on average by 2.90% from the previous year. 16

17 Average Weekly Rent Size of home Number owned ARK Scottish average Difference 1 apartment % 2 apartment % 3 apartment % 4 apartment % 5 apartment % 80.8% of ARK tenants said they were satisfied with the service ARK provided. The average time it took ARK to complete no emergency repairs was 5.6 days compared to the Scottish average of 6.4 days. For every 100 of ARK homes 2.2 Cases of antisocial behaviour were reported in the last year. 100% of these cases were resolved, compared to the Scottish figure of 87.9%. The amount of money ARK collected for current and past rent was 97.3% of the total rent, compared to the Scottish average 17

18 Brian Gunn ARK H&S Adviser Kitchen appliances - fire safety advice Fire in kitchens has been known to have been started by large kitchen appliances that are switched on and left unattended when people go out their home for long periods. REMEMBER: If you are out of the house and a fire starts there will be no one there to hear the alarm and call the fire and rescue service (999). This could affect your neighbours and also damage your home and belongings. Do not switch on and use washing machines, tumble dryers and dishwashers if you are planning to go out of the house for a long time. Do not overload electricity sockets in the home or kitchen. Make sure your heat detector in the kitchen and other smoke detectors in the home are checked regularly to see if they are working. 18

19 Members of ARK staff who have been carrying out site visits have noticed that in some developments there are a number of items being left or stored in the common stairs and landing area. Considering the terrible tragedy at Grenfell Tower in London last year, ARK wants to minimise any risks to all our tenants, members, staff, guests and visitors. We would like to urge tenants to make sure all landings are cleared of any potential fire hazards, and especially anything left out in the landings or common areas which could burn in the event of a fire. Scottish Fire and Rescue say that no items of a combustible nature should be left on landings or in common areas at any times. This means things like bin bags of rubbish, old mattresses, mail delivery catalogues, charity donation bags. ARK hopes that tenants will work together to ensure that items are not placed in the common areas, or are removed immediately to improve fire safety for all. As part of Scottish Fire & Safety Services commitment to building a safer Scotland they offer everyone in Scotland a free home fire safety visit. They can also fit smoke alarms free of charge if your home requires them. Get in touch with them, it's so easy to arrange: call text "FIRE" to from your mobile phone complete our online form call your local fire station 19

20 The Hub Group The ARK Hub Group job is to scrutinise - or look very carefully - at different parts of what ARK does. Paddy Carstairs from ARC Scotland is the independent facilitator of the HUB Group The ARK Hub group met again on 13 August. All members of the Hub group were present. At the meeting we looked at a summary of ARK s policy on Restrictive Practice. We had been concerned about the possible use of restraint and what it meant. We felt satisfied with the arrangements that are in place. CEO Jane Gray attended the meeting and the following topics were discussed with her: Banking hours Relationships between staff and service users Telling people about changes Fundraising Staff retention and why staff leave Paying for staff meals The Hub Group were invited to talk about what we do to the ARK Board of Directors. Joanne and Paddy did this on 23 August. 20

21 ARK Working Group We talk about ARK Policies that affect people s lives. Lorna Petrie, the Borders Area Manager comes to the meetings as a link with all Area Managers. Fiona Taylor will also attend the meetings from now on. Fiona is the Area Manager for Grangemouth, Alloa, Livingston and Linlithgow. We welcomed 2 new members, Angela from Galashiels and Ross from Grangemouth. It s great to have you in the group! Boundaries a new policy for ARK staff Keeping boundaries at work is important. We made some comments that Lorna will bring back to the managers. ARK policies We and the ARK managers agreed the list of ARK policies that most affect us. We will make a plan for the next 3 years so that we can help to write these policies. We will make sure that these policies are made in ways we can understand. If you would like to join the ARK Working Group get in touch with Gloria at

22 Complaints Update 2018 Here is our update about complaints in ARK between April and June 2018 For a full report please see the ARK website. During this 3 month period ARK had 24 complaints. Most of the complaints were about Care and Support (20), 3 were about Maintenance and 1 was about Organisational Development. ARK looked at each of these complaints. We found out that we agreed with 14 complaints, we partially agreed with 7 and we did not agree with 3. Of the 24 complaints received: 6 were about ARK staff s behaviour or attitude. 11 were about ARK service issues. 7 were about both ARK s service and ARK staff s behaviour or attitude. Here is an example of how we used what you told us to think about our service during this time... In cases where we have agreed or partially agreed complaints, we have made changes to improve our service delivery. For example, in 7 cases, we have worked with individuals to review their support, in particular their Good Life Plans. John Rankin Quality and Compliance Manager Although it is always disappointing to hear about times where people aren t happy with the service they receive from ARK, it is important to remember that these complaints are only a very small number of the contacts that we receive from people every day. We also want to make sure that, if we do make a mistake, we do our very best to put things right and to say sorry to the people affected. If you re not happy about the support you receive from ARK, or with any other aspect of the service we provide, please let a member of staff know. 22

23 Staff Updates Hello, my name is Kelly Patterson and I work in ARK s Quality and Compliance team. As part of my job with ARK, I provide support with complaints. It is important that you tell us if you are unhappy with the service that you receive from ARK. If you do this, this is called a complaint. I help ARK staff to look at your complaint and to respond to you. If we find that we have made a mistake, we will say sorry and we will do our best to make things better for you. Another part of my job is helping out with some of ARK s Participation work. So, if you come along to the ARK Voices or ARK Working Groups, you are likely to see me there! In August this year, I also started a new role as ARK s Data Protection Officer. I am working closely with ARK Managers to look at the personal information we hold about you. We are thinking about how we use and look after your information, and what improvements we should make. We are also giving staff training on how to help you with your personal information. If you have any questions about how ARK deals with complaints or your personal information, you can call me on

24 The Care Inspectorate checks that service providers like ARK are doing a good job supporting people. Many of you who get ARK support have spoken to a Care Inspector and told them how you are getting on with your support remember you can always get in touch with them if you are unhappy with your support. enquiries@careinspectorate.com Telephone: If you made a complaint to ARK and you want something more to be done, you can ask the Ombudsman to look at your complaint. Telephone: enquiries@scottishombudsman.org.uk Keep in touch with what is happening in ARK Visit our website Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/ark_housing Like us on Facebook facebook.com/arkhousingassociation Quality & Compliance Manager Tel: john.rankin@arkha.org.uk Housing Team Contacts Tel: housing@arkha.org.uk Maintenance Team Contacts repairs@arkha.org.uk Participation: If you have any questions about this Newsletter get in touch with Gloria Greganti gloria.greganti@arkha.org.uk This newsletter was produced by ARK Housing Association Ltd, Scottish Charity Number SC015694, Register Number 1899RS. 24