New lets in 2020/21
During the Covid pandemic, the lockdowns and other restrictions meant that we could not allocate our properties as quickly as we normally would have been able to. In addition, fewer properties became available for let. However, we were still able to allocate 2,303 empty properties to people on the housing waiting list. Our performance and that of other landlords also dipped because of the pandemic. The average number of days it took to re-let properties fell to 29 days; however, this was still well below the Scottish Local Authority average of 59.4 days
We don’t receive any rent when a property is empty, so we make sure that properties don’t stay empty for too long. Therefore we will continue to focus on allocating our empty houses quickly and efficiently getting back to pre-pandemic performance levels of below 22 days.
Tenancy sustainment
Supporting tenants to remain in their homes is important to us, our aim is for tenants to sustain their tenancy long term. We measure this target against 1 year. When a tenancy ends with the first year, we look at the reason for this and determine if there was anything we could have done to prevent it. Often the reason is outwith our control.
Our 2020/21 performance shows an increase of 2.83% on the previous year but is 1.16% below the Scottish Local authority average. We will continue to monitor and make improvements to support our tenants to remain in their homes.
Adaptations
To help tenants to continue to live independently in their own homes a range of adaptations can be made. In 2020/21 despite the restrictions from the pandemic we still managed to complete 635 adaptations to our tenants’ homes. The time taken to complete these adaptations can vary depending on the type of work required and the different needs of each tenant. However, we had an average timescale of 38.6 days to complete the adaptations. There was an overall investment of £741,266 spent providing these adaptations.