Our Promise

For each service, we set out what you can expect so you can tell us if we fail to deliver our promise. In ‘keeping our promise’, we commit to being accountable to you by being open, honest and transparent about our performance and how we operate.

Our Promise

A customer experience that lets you know we care about you. Our people will be friendly, helpful, respectful and flexible to your needs.

To make sure it’s easy to do business with us, we’ll:
• Provide a range of easy and simple ways for you to contact us and ensure that your most
popular enquiries can be self served online 24/7
• Always treat you with respect, take time to understand your enquiry and be polite and
courteous in our response
• Aim to deal with your enquiry quickly and effectively at the first point of contact. If we are unable to solve it right then, we’ll get back to you within an agreed time to keep you updated
• Keep you informed if something goes wrong and aim to resolve your issue as quickly
as possible.
To show you we care we’ll:
• Train, develop and empower our people to put you first
• Provide a complaints service that is easy to access and simple to understand
• Learn from your feedback and let you know what happened as a result of it
• Ask you about and understand your needs so we can make reasonable adjustments to tailor our services to suit you
• Ask you about your experience as a customer
• Apologise when something goes wrong.

A quality and reliable repairs service that’s easy to access and gets repairs done right first time wherever possible.

To do this we’ll:
• Provide easy and simple ways to report repairs
• Let you know as soon as possible if we can’t make an agreed appointment or what happens next if we can’t complete a repair at our first visit.

A place to call home which makes you feel safe and secure and where you are proud to live.

In doing so we’ll:
• Listen to your concerns about your property and provide advice or take action
• Undertake planned improvements and let you know when work will take place at your home
• Agree, with our involved tenants, a Bernicia modernisation standard
• Make sure all our health and safety responsibilities are fully met.

A Fair process for letting properties, making it easy to understand the allocations and letting process and how we can support you when you’re living at home.

A fair process for letting properties and support to help manage your tenancy making it easy to understand the allocation and letting process and how we can support you when you’re living in your home.
In this respect we’ll:
• Provide clear information about how homes are allocated
• Carry out checks to ensure applicants are eligible for rehousing
• Offer support and advice to help you manage your tenancy
• Promote aids and adaptations that are available to help make life easier in your home

A neighbourhood that is well maintained, clean and safe, enabling you to enjoy the community and place where you live.

In achieving this we’ll:
• Be clear about what our responsibilities are on your estate and what are the responsibilities
of others
• Work with you and partners to maintain and improve the appearance of your neighbourhood
• Have staff that are visible and accessible on your estate or at your scheme
• Not tolerate anti-social behaviour and will have effective processes to both prevent and deal
with this.

Rent and charges that are easy to understand, are affordable and provide value for money. Simple ways to pay and view your account, open and transparent about how your rent is calculated and spent.

To make this happen we’ll:
• Provide choice on how you pay and how you can view or obtain your rent statement
• Let you know how your rent and service charges are calculated each year
• Every year, tell you how your rent and service charges are spent.

Diverse office workers couple having a coffee break

Keeping our promise

By being accountable to you through openness, honesty and transparency. So you can challenge and hold us to account we’ll:
• Publish quarterly performance information including customer satisfaction and feedback
• Produce and publish an annual report
• Publish our statutory accounts and value for money statement
• Produce more detailed standards for key services so you can check against these
• Make all our policies and procedures available