Improving the Lives of Gypsy/Travellers – Design Guide Survey

Scottish Government and COSLA are working together during 2019-2021 to improve the lives of Scotland’s Gypsy/Traveller communities.

They are developing a design guide for Gypsy/Traveller sites for new sites or major refurbishments of existing ones. They want to take on board input from community members on what good quality, culturally appropriate accommodation should look like. They will use that knowledge to develop an action plan

To gather the current views of Gypsy/Travellers on what should be in a future design guide for Gypsy/Traveller sites provided by local authorities and housing associations, they are asking members of the Gypsy/Traveller community to complete the survey

Please complete the survey if you want to give you views on what should be included in the guide.

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Angus Antisocial Behaviour Survey

We have launched a Antisocial Behaviour Survey asking Angus residents about their experiences of antisocial behaviour.

Please take a few minutes to give your comments and suggestions on how we can improve our antisocial behaviour services in Angus. This will help us prepare our new Antisocial Behaviour Strategy.

The survey will ask you whether you have experienced antisocial behaviour in Angus, what impact has is had on you and whether you believe it’s got worse or better in recent years.

Help us develop the new strategy by taking part in a short survey

The survey will close on 23 December 2020.

Angus Food Growing Survey

Under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 we must prepare a Food Growing Strategy that identifies potentially suitable land for allotments and other food growing areas.

The Angus Food Growing Strategy gives the opportunity to link together different groups of people with an interest in growing and provide a framework for a joined-up approach to encourage an increase in food growing spaces across Angus.

The current pandemic has meant more of us are spending time at home with many spending more time enjoying outdoor spaces and gardens, growing flowers, planting and cultivating fruit, vegetables, and herbs, some for the first time.

Your opinion on this is important. Whether you already grow your own fruit and veg, have always wanted to but don’t know how, or have never considered it, we’d like to hear from you.

Help us shape the Angus strategy, by taking part in a short community survey.

The survey will close on 13 December 2020

Note: please use Google Chrome to access the survey

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Our Customer Satisfaction Survey 2020 is Coming Soon…

We want to make sure we provide good quality services to our customers.  Delivering a service that makes a positive impact starts with understanding what good service is from the customer’s point of view. What we do, how we do it, how well it’s done and being consistent are all fundamental to keeping customers happy.

Our Customer Satisfaction Survey will take place between August and September 2020. It’s the first large survey we’ve done since 2019, and we’re excited to know what our customers think. We’ve commissioned experienced and independent surveying company Research Resource who will be calling a random selection of 1000 of our tenants. The survey will be by telephone this year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey will take place between 1 August and 12 September 2020. It is completely confidential, and all information supplied will be anonymised by Research Resource unless you tell them you want us to contact you about anything. 

We always use survey results to inform how we improve our services, so the results are extremely important. We would encourage any tenant who gets the call to take part, and we thank everyone who takes the time to respond. 

We Want to Improve Tenant Involvement in Our Services – Tell Us How

Are you an Angus Council tenant?

We want to make sure that every tenant who wants to be involved in decision-making about the housing service has the opportunity to get involved. Please take our short survey to help improve how we involve tenants in shaping our service.

Rent Setting Survey results for 2020/21

Our Rent Setting Survey was carried out earlier this year, where we asked tenants to vote for the level of rent increase they would support for 2020/21. Option 1 (3.1%) received the most votes and this will be proposed to Communities Committee in February 2020. One disappointing feature of this year’s vote was the low response – only 88 tenants. We would hope that in future tenants would appreciate the importance of this survey, since it directly affects the level of rent being paid by Council tenants.

The survey results were as follows:

• Option 1 (3.1%): 61 votes 69.32%
• Option 2 (3.2%): 13 votes 14.77%
• Option 3 (3.3%): 14 votes 15.91%

 

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Housing Options – Customer Satisfaction Survey

The new Housing Options survey is open now.

If you met with one of our Housing Officers  to talk about your housing circumstances, please give us your opinions about our service by completing our short survey before 31 December 2019. 

 

 

Rent Rise Vote Now Open – Have Your Say!*

Are you an Angus Council tenant? We need your views on what the rent increase should be in 2020/21 and how your rent money should be spent.

The three options outlined below will continue to keep your rent amongst the lowest in Scotland.

Why are we proposing to increase the rent? 

We need to make sure the rent money we receive is enough to pay for existing services, such as repairs, but also to pay for larger improvements needed for tenants’ homes and to help build new homes.

Rent increases allow us to invest in our homes to continue to meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard. and to meet the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing by 2020.

The rent rise is partly based on the inflation measure of CPI (Consumer Price Index), as well as an additional set percentage of 1% which has been agreed between us and the Tenant Rent Setting Group. CPI+1% is the minimum rent increase required to allow us to deliver our current plans and manage inflationary cost rises. We need to increase the rent at least by inflation because that’s what it costs us to deliver existing services. If we were to increase by more than 1% we could also increase investment in tenant homes.

How we decide on the Increase

We’re carrying out a consultation to help tenants consider the rent increase options and clearly see how the rent money will be spent.

The results of this survey will be presented at the Communities Committee in February 2020, where the final decision on a rent increase for 2020/21 will be made.

Rent Increase – the options

The Tenant Rent Setting Group has agreed three options which the members feel will bring benefits to tenants while keeping rents affordable.

The three options are:

 

	Option 1 – Recommended by the Rent Setting Group	Option 2	Option 3
Rent Level	3.1%	3.2%	3.3%
Capital spend (this is money invested to buy or upgrade fixed, physical, non-consumable assets, such as buildings and equipment)	£18 million capital spend over the year	Additional £340,000 capital to spend in addition to Option 1	Additional £680,000 capital to spend in addition to Option 1
How many new builds?	70 new homes over the year	70 new homes – any additional funds will be used to improve existing stock	70 new homes – any additional funds will be used to improve existing stock
What stock improvements can tenants expect?	450 Gas & Electric Heating installations; 600 properties receiving external wall insulation & energy efficiency measures; 700 bathrooms.	In addition to planned improvements listed in Option 1, for example: 20 Gas Heating installation (including loft insulation); 20 Electric Heating installations (including loft insulation); 10 External Wall Insulation; 11 Window & Door Replacements.	In addition to planned improvements listed in Option 1, for example: 40 Gas Heating installation (including loft insulation); 40 Electric Heating installations (including loft insulation); 20 External Wall Insulation; 22 Window & Door Replacements.

The tenant representatives recommend that tenants choose Option 1 (the lowest option), which would mean a rent rise of 3.1 %. This option is the minimum rise needed to deliver the current Business Plan. It, along with Scottish Government grant funding, would enable us to build 70 new homes in 2020-21, as well as these improvements to existing stock: 450 Gas & Electric Heating installations, 600 properties receiving external wall insulation & energy efficiency measures, 700 bathrooms.

The graph below shows the average weekly rents of Angus Council over the past five years compared to other neighbouring local authorities (figures from the Scottish Housing Regulator).

How a rent increase of 3.1% would affect average Angus Council weekly rents

	Average weekly rent 2018/19	Average weekly rent 2019/20	Average weekly rent 2020/21
Bedsit	£53.25	£55.11	£56.82
1 Bedroom	£61.79	£63.95	£65.94
2 Bedrooms	£69.48	£71.91	£74.14
3 Bedrooms	£78.56	£81.31	£83.83
4+ bedrooms	£96.60	£99.98	£103.08
Angus Average	£67.99	£70.37	£72.55

 

To have your say on the rent options,

please complete the survey online by 30 September*.

*Please note this consultation is open to current Angus Council tenants only

 

New Repairs Satisfaction Survey

We have asked Edinburgh-based company Knowledge Partnership to carry out another Repairs Satisfaction Survey. The telephone survey will be similar to the one carried out in 2017-18, although will only run for 6 months. If you have a repair completed between April and September 2019, you could be contacted by Knowledge Partnership for your views. We would very much appreciate your participation in this survey if you are contacted, as we look to make improvements in our repairs contracts for the future.

The first telephone calls will be made after 8 May 2019 for those tenants who have had repairs completed in April 2019. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete.

Your views are very important to us and we are committed to listening and using your feedback to continuously improve what we do.

Please help us to improve our services 

by taking part in this survey.

Furniture Supply Survey

If you’ve applied for Council housing and want to respond to our Furniture Supply survey , you’ve only got until 19 March! Please click here to participate.