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A welcome boost for the North Ayrshire Foodbank
Ancho, a housing association based in Irvine with nearly 700 homes, would usually celebrate Christmas by delivering hampers to tenants over 60 years of age. This year, in recognition of the hardship facing many people across North Ayrshire, Ancho has made a £2000 donation to the North Ayrshire Foodbank. The North Ayrshire Foodbank provides a lifeline to people across the region who are experiencing financial difficulties. 1 in 5 people in the UK live below the poverty line and the Trussel Trust, who support the North Ayrshire Foodbank, anticipate that as the impact of coronavirus takes hold the demand on foodbanks will have increased by 61% from October to December this year. Mary Black, Chair of Ancho, said: “The North Ayrshire Foodbank provides an essential service to our communities and we are proud to have had the opportunity to give them some much needed support at a time when their services are in greater demand than ever. We are inspired by the amazing work they do.” Craig Crosthwaite of the North Ayrshire Foodbank said: ”This is an amazing act of compassion for those facing a food crisis. We thank everyone at Ancho for this act of generosity and concern for their communities. The Foodbank can only do this work due to the support of concerned organisations such as Ancho. Whilst 2020 has been a challenging year for us all it has been terrible for a significant proportion of our neighbours. It has also been one of amazing kindness and sacrifice, of which this is a shining example. Thank you on behalf of those we will be supporting with these funds”. There is always a lot going on at ANCHO – we never stand still. Our attitude to customer service is focussed on delivering whole solutions - if we can’t help someone ourselves, we always know someone who will. Our aim is not customer satisfaction – it is customer delight! ANCHO is a partner of the Cairn Housing Group. For further information, contact Neil Golightly, Cairn Housing Group’s Business Service Manager, on 0800 990 3405 or neil.golightly@cairnha.com. For the North Ayrshire Foodbank contact Craig Crosthwaite at nafoodbank@btinternet.com or 07908469556.
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You can report emergency repairs 24 hours a day while we are closed by calling 03030 300 999. Thanks very much for giving your feedback on our repairs service through the last newsletter email. Your feedback is really useful and lets us know what is important to you. It is reassuring that most of the feedback is positive and supportive of our service delivery.
Overall, our tenants value the quick response times of our contractors, and their overall professionalism. The most pressing concerns are about communication and timing: tenants would like to be more informed about contractors coming to do work with better response times. We will work through the comments and suggestions as part of our review process and see what we can take into account as we move forward. You can click here to look at all the responses we received. Cairn Housing Group is preparing for 2021 with a reshaped Executive Team, designed to support a step change in services to customers, continued modernisation, and investment in homes.
The Group recently celebrated the second anniversary of Ancho tenants voting in favour of a constitutional partnership with Cairn, and discussions have resumed with Pentland Housing Association about a proposed transfer of engagements. A new look Executive Team has been designed to support a One Team approach across the Group, with a focus on service delivery and improvements in key performance areas. Morag Boyter is the new Director of Business Services, Meg Deasley is the new Director of Business Services, and Derek Adam is the Director of Finance & People Services. Cairn Housing Group are now recruiting for a Director of Customer Services to complete the new look team. Jason MacGilp, Chief Executive of Cairn Housing Group, said: “We have made great progress over the last five years in modernising services, investing in systems and people and raising new finance, all underpinned by values that drive what we do and how we go about our work. The new team bring a great mix of skills and experience to help drive Cairn in the next stage of our journey to achieve our vision of Great Homes, Great Services and Great People.” For more information about the new role at Cairn visit https://www.aspenpeople.com/cairn/ In addition to the highlights report we sent out last month, we have created an online report where you can see our full range of performance information.
Our aim for 2021 is to repurpose the report and start to publish our quarterly performance. We hope that this will not only improve the quality of data on offer, but will also increase the level of transparency we provide to tenants. You can view our online report here. When we asked you to vote for our partnership with Cairn Housing Association we made some promises about what the partnership would mean for you. These were:
The partnership between Ancho and Cairn is now firmly established in both organisations, with a lot of work going on behind the scenes to ensure better value for money and equip our team to provide better services in our communities. We are facing challenges with the impact of coronavirus but the partnership with Cairn has given Ancho the strength and resilience to face the problems that lie ahead. We know there is much more to do, and in the year ahead we’ll be looking at how we can work together to provide better services to our tenants and other customers. We have completed the second year of the five year planned maintenance programme, with £1,159,962 spent on upgrades in 2019/20. These included:  Ancho has celebrated their 20th anniversary at their 2020 annual general meeting, two years after tenants voted to become a subsidiary of the Cairn Housing Group.
Reflecting on the last year, Mary Black, Chair of the Ancho Board, said: “We have faced up to a challenging year as we responded to the national lockdown that put restrictions on our ability to provide housing services. Housing associations are not immune to the impact of Covid-19 and the benefits and support of our partnership with Cairn Housing Association are clearly showing. Being part of Cairn Housing Group has made both organisations more resilient to the challenges of this year and those that are still to come. In the year ahead, we will be looking at how we can further integrate operations and strengthen the bonds between our organisations, to plan for the best possible services to our communities.” Mary Black said, “The AGM gave an important opportunity to mark the retirement of Jackie Brown after 19 years’ dedicated service as a member of the Ancho Board. Jackie served as Vice Chair and Chair and her commitment and energy to the work of Ancho, including steering the Association into the partnership with Cairn, is very much appreciated and we wish Jackie well for the future. “Our Board are delighted to announce Bill Finlay’s election as Vice Chairperson. Bill brings many skills to Ancho from his career as a Chartered Accountant, where he provided audit, accounting, corporate governance, legal compliance and business advice to company boards and CEOs. Bill’s wealth of experience is a great asset to our team and I look forward to working with him in his new role on the Board.” Jason MacGilp, Chief Executive of Cairn Housing Group, said: The Ancho team has kept focus on service delivery in a challenging year. As part of the Cairn Housing Group we continued to roll out our five-year programme of improvements in Irvine, with £2.1m spent on upgrades including kitchens, roofs, windows and doors. Ancho tenants are also benefitting from a five-year rent guarantee as part of the partnership with Cairn, which offers reassurance of continued affordability at a time when every penny counts. “We are grateful to our team for their hard work and commitment during an incredibly difficult time for everyone, and the incredible support they’ve offered to our tenants in North Ayrshire.” Did you know that for just £1 you can become a shareholding member of Ancho?
Shareholding membership is open to anyone over the age of 16 that is a tenant, service user, or anyone who makes an active contribution to Ancho activities. As a member you can get involved and shape the future of the association by:
If you are interested, please get in touch with Carolyn Owens by emailing carolyn.owens@ancho.co.uk or by calling 0800 990 3405. We really want to involve tenants in a more meaningful way in how decisions are made. Traditionally this has always been about bringing tenants together in a room but with all the other pressures on people’s time, we struggle to get people to come along. We want to shake up how we do things and try something new, so we drafted a new Customer Involvement Strategy for how we see this working over the next three years.
We recently sent this draft strategy out for consultation and here are the results… What kind of involvement would you participate in? Completing surveys or questionnaires (online) 10 Estate walkabouts with staff to find improvements 8 Feedback about our publications 3 Focus groups or meetings in person 3 Scrutiny projects lasting one or two full days (in person) 3 Completing surveys or questionnaires (by post) 2 Long term scrutiny projects (lasting many months) 2 Focus groups or meetings by video conference 2 Scrutiny projects lasting one or two full days (online) 2 Total 37 Are you more or less likely to participate online or face to face? I'd prefer to get involved online 5 I'd prefer face to face meetings 1 I have no preference 7 Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond. We will take this feedback into account when we are planning ways to involve you in decision making and consultations. At the time of writing we’re updating the strategy to reflect your feedback and ideas. We’ll have more detailed feedback on this consultation shortly and the final strategy will be posted once its been approved by our Board. |
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January 2021
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