Social Housing Rent Cuts will Endanger the Vulnerable

Social Housing Rent Cuts will Endanger the Vulnerable.

How will an annual 1% reduction affect Housing Associations? On the surface it does not seem like such a big deal, but many Housing Associations are concerned that the cut will affect the quality of service they can provide to their residents.

The decline in income from the rent cut will mean that councils/housing associations do not have the resources to maintain the current homes standard. A backlog of work will build up, leading to deterioration in the quality of housing stock and tenants’ living conditions. Work that is delayed due to insufficient resources will increase the cost of doing it later’. Martin Wicks. Secretary, Swindon tenants campaign group.

The Housing Revenue Account in Swindon- made up of tenants’ rent and service charges- will lose more than £9m, resulting in a capital budget cut of around £2m per year- nearly 12%.

So with this in mind, Housing Associations need to save on costs, without affecting the quality of service that they provide to tenants.

The Guardian Housing Network recently published a post: 4 ways Housing associations can engage with their tenants:

•        Go to people, don’t expect them to come to you
•        Do more than talk: listen, promise and deliver
•        Seize the moment
•        Sweat the small stuff- never dismiss any feedback as trivial

For housing associations to successfully engage in these ways, just like in other sectors, staff need to be fully trained on how to communicate effectively, particularly with vulnerable or challenging tenants.

Face-to-face training, whilst valuable, after taking in to consideration all additional costs of room hire, logistics and staff cover, can be extremely expensive.

An effective alternative is e-learning. Companies who have implemented e-learning have reported up to 35% saving on cost and 50% saving on time. Completing an online course typically takes between 25% and 60% of the hours needed for traditional classroom based training. This, coupled with the flexibility of completing a course at any time, place or pace, is a sure sign that e-learning should be the chosen form of training for Housing Associations.

Example courses for Housing Association staff include:

·         Safeguarding Adults / Children

·         The Mental Capacity Act

·         The Care Certificate

·         Disability Awareness Courses

·         Fire Safety

·         Health and Safety

At Embrace-learning, we provide the highest quality, online training courses.  Click on any of the course titles above to view more information on our website, and to see what other courses we have on offer.

Although the 1% decrease will affect the quality of service, I feel that if Housing Associations were to switch their training offering to e-learning, and save up to 30% in the process, the money saved would then contribute somewhat towards continued high quality support for tenants, making the annual 1% reduction in rents less of a hit.

What else do you think Housing Associations should do to save money and ensure they still provide the best service possible to tenants?

If you would like any more information on any of our 50+ course titles, call us on 0161 928 9987

Or visit www.embrace-learning.com