Repairs and Investment Panel - 28 May 2026
Location: North Tyneside Council offices, Quadrant, Cobalt Business Park
Attendees
Tenant members – Pamela, Christine, Evelyn, Kim S, Dawn, Janine (Guest)
Lee Nesbitt - Asset Intelligence and Logistics Manager; Tony Ormston - Service Delivery Manager Repairs & Maintenance; David Foster – Head of Property Services; Rachael Sanderson – Housing Policy and Development Officer; Angela Melvin – Housing Engagement Manager
Apologies
Irene, Ann, John, Heather
1. Notes of the last meeting and action log
These were agreed.
2. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion update
The Panel first discussed this work at its September 2025 meeting and an update report had been circulated with the meeting papers.
RS summarised why we collect demographic data from tenants – while it is a legal requirement, it allows us to understand our tenants and therefore tailor our services to better suit our tenants’ needs.
We had set a target to have this data from 90% of our tenants, however we have exceeded this to achieve 94%. RS highlighted that tenants can opt out of sharing this information, we can record this too.
A data cleanse on our IT systems has contributed to this, which was required as part of preparation for introduction of the new Unified IT system later in the year. All of our currently separate IT systems are now asking the same questions, which means that when Unified is introduced it will be easier to transfer the data over.
This work has also highlighted that sometimes our staff are not comfortable asking some of the questions. We are now rolling out training to our staff to explain why we are asking these questions and how to encourage people to answer if they wish to.
RS explained that the next target is to have 96% of data up to data by March 2027. The data cleanse will continue, and neighbourhood officers are asking tenants to update their data as part of tenancy home visits.
A separate piece of work being done at the moment is a review of the Tenancy Agreement, which legally requires us to write to every tenant. The letter that will go out about the Agreement will also invite tenants to complete a survey of their demographic data. This will be hosted online, with non-digital options such as paper copies in libraries and community hubs.
In addition, we will be rolling out some new procedures to ask tenants if they would be happy to update their data when they telephone us for any reason.
RS asked the panel for their feedback on this work and our approach. A tenant asked why the survey was not being sent with a reply-paid envelope to encourage returns, RS replied that we have to consider costs and are offering non-digital options. Another suggestion was to ask for volunteers to visit people at home, or be at libraries on busy days to speak to tenants and complete the survey with them. RS is happy to consider all options and will review in-person opportunities to speak to people, including at upcoming tenant drop-in sessions in July which AM is arranging.
RS thanked the panel for their suggestions and the group will be kept up to date as this work progresses.
3. Complaints report
The panel had received the regular complaints report with their meeting papers, reviewing 2025-26.
TO gave some context in that we deal with around 50,000 repairs per year. Each one is a customer interaction and some repairs jobs require more than one visit. Some can be very complex, with multiple trades involved.
We also need to manage customer expectations, for example whether to repair or replace. We will always repair where possible, but understand that can lead to complaints.
Nationally, there has been an increase in complaints to housing providers. We have done some work with our complaints team and a housing provider of our side ‘should’ have a far higher number of complaints than we do when we benchmark our numbers against other providers.
A trend has been noticed that a lot of tenants are now using AI to write complaints. This is leading to extremely long letters covering many different complaints. The AI-generated complaints also often contain errors. This then takes our team much longer to handle.
There were 247 Stage One complaints relating to repairs and maintenance in 2025-26, compared to 217 the previous year. Stage Two complaints were 100 for 2025-26, compared to 81 the previous year.
The number of upheld/partially upheld complaints nearly doubled in 2025-26 compared to the previous year. However, the number not upheld increased only slightly.
Our complaints team follow Housing Ombudsman guidance for complaints handling, to ensure a good, fair, response to each complaint.
There are some common themes with complaints, such as poor communication between ourselves and the tenants and also sometimes between internal teams or contractors. We are working to improve these, including providing feedback from tenants to contractors.
In addition, the team get a lot of enquiries from elected members, MPs and the Elected Mayor’s office. There are occasions where the same tenant will contact all of these for the same issue.
TO emphasised that we are trying everything we can to learn from complaints. Weekly team meeting with the complaints service to look at every repairs complaint and see what can be learned have proved to be very valuable.
DF added that we can nationally benchmark our performance and this shows that we are on the right track. We are not excusing the things that have gone wrong and continue to see complaints as an opportunity to learn. All our staff are currently going through drama-based training which demonstrates the impact of language and behaviour on a situation.
We are hoping the new Unified IT system will help, as more notifications will go to tenants around repairs jobs and operatives will be able to arrange follow-up visits at the first appointment, which will help with some of the communication issues.
The panel will continue to receive complaints updates.
4. Capital investment for 2026/27
LN explained that we have a 30-year business plan for investment in our homes and work is governed by the national Decent Homes Standard.
There has been over £28m of investment in 2025-26, including new kitchens and bathrooms, structural refurbishments, external redecoration, roof replacements and new boilers. Over 4,400 stock condition surveys were carried out.
Many of the jobs are carried out by external contractors, and we inspect the quality of work afterwards. If any work is not up to the required standard, we will get the contractor back out.
For 2026-27, over £28m will again be invested in homes. This is our last year of the main stock condition surveys programme, around 4,500 need to be completed this year. After that, our homes will all have been surveyed and the surveys will continue on a five-year rolling programme. The stock condition surveys will tell us the condition of homes and we use this alongside repairs data to target future investment.
There was then some discussion around experiences the tenants had had with work carried out at their homes.
Future panel meetings can focus in more detail on any particular aspect of the investment programme, if tenants would like to do that. DF suggested covering proposals around the new Decent Homes Standard at the September panel, and new requirements on energy efficiency. The panel agreed this would be helpful. AM will remind tenants nearer the time, to submit any specific questions in advance.
5. Quality and Safety update, and draft Compliance Policy
The panel had been sent the regular Quality and Safety report, and the draft Compliance Policy in advance of the meeting. The Policy has also been shared at this month’s Landlord Panel.
LN gave an overview of what ‘housing compliance’ is about. The Social Housing Regulations 2023 brought in new measures and standards, including the annual Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey (TSM) and a programme of inspection.
There are five national Consumer Standards, including one on Safety and Quality and the panel regularly receive a report on our progress against this Standard, which focuses on:
- Stock quality
- Decency
- Health and safety
- Repairs, maintenance and planned improvements
- Adaptions
The TSM measures cover:
- Gas safety
- Fire safety
- Asbestos safety
- Water safety
- Lift safety
- Electrical safety (from November 2026)
Data for 2025-26 shows that we are 100% compliant with all of these measures.
Stock condition surveyors are identifying issues relating to condensation, mould and damp; and also bannisters and handrails not being up to modern safety standards due to the age of the property. These are being remedied to ensure we meet Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) standards.
To help prepare for inspection, we have worked with our internal audit team on how we are complying with the safety measures. This has been useful and very positive. Several recommendations have been made around working processes and for many of them we were aware of improvements that could be made. Lift safety and water safety will be focused on next.
A lot of safety-related information is on the council website, and we are aware of the need to get these key messages out.
We also brought in an external consultant, Pennington Choices, to do a mock inspection to help us identify opportunities to improve. They did a thorough review, including interviewing staff in detail. Overall, their feedback was very positive. Penningtons made 57 recommendations and we are taking 54 of these forward with good progress being made. A lead officer will be responsible for each action.
Recommendations included:
- Compliance training for relevant staff and those responsible for governance to increase awareness and gain a more thorough understanding. Tenants on our Landlord Panel, as our scrutiny group, have been offered this training too
- Include our responsibilities to tenants in the council’s corporate Health and Safety Policy
- Develop a Housing Compliance Policy (the panel have received a draft of this with their meeting papers)
- Create a new suite of procedures and processes to ensure consistency and compliance
The panel welcomed this work.
Tenants were asked to send any comments on the draft Compliance Policy to AM by Sunday 7 June.
6. Performance update and review of targets
The panel had received the quarterly performance scorecard with their meeting papers.
TO explained that we are reviewing some of the targets for the current year. We are looking to continue to improve, while keeping targets challenging but achievable. We are focusing on what is important to tenants.
When setting targets, we need to consider factors such as unforeseen major storms, increasing materials and labour costs, staff sickness, works identified from stock condition surveys, and the requirements of the new Awaab’s Law.
Performance during 2025-26 was very good, 99.92% of emergency repairs were completed on time and 96.38% of appointments made and kept.
Target for repairs completed on time was 96.17%, exceeding the target of 93% and performance in the previous two years.
Improving these figures is difficult given how high they currently are. When considering targets for 2026-27, we are keen to consider what is ‘really’ important to tenants rather than what is ‘just’ important. We initially proposed taking 5% of the gap between last year’s figure and the remaining element of the target from last year.
Using this formula above would make the target for repairs completed on time 93.05% for 2026-27. TO asked the panel if they felt this was about right, however after discussion this was revised upwards and the panel agreed that a target of 94.5% for 2026-27 was more appropriate.
TO then brought the panel’s attention to the target for routine average number of working days from initial customer contact to completion. This was 26.31 days for 2025-26 against a target of 29.99 days. The formula led to a target for 2026-27 of 29.98 days, but in the last two years, we have performed better than that. The panel suggested that target be revised upwards, and after discussion a figure of 28.5 days was agreed on.
These targets will be amended for future performance scorecards.
7. Any Other Business
AM shared feedback from tenants who attended the training day in May, this had been extremely useful and very well received. Those tenants who had not been able to attend in May were encouraged to join the second date, in August. AM will follow up with those tenants separately.
A tenant brought up not receiving feedback cards after repairs visits. TO said that teams have been reminded about the importance of these in gathering feedback. He confirmed they should be left after every visit and will pick up with the teams. The new Unified IT system will make it easier for tenants to submit feedback after a visit.