Blog: Investing in our homes

Mij Rahman Director of Capital Investment

Our strategy: investing in quality homes

Our investment plan is guided by a robust asset management strategy supported by long-term financial planning, with a commitment to meeting the government’s Decent Home Standards.

We aim to provide a comfortable, high-quality living environment for our residents through carefully planned home improvements on average:

Kitchens renewed every 20 years
Bathrooms renewed every 30 years
Roofs replaced according to their life cycle (10–60 years)
Windows and non-fire-rated doors replaced every 30 years.

These benchmarks go beyond aesthetics—they are fundamental to ensuring our residents live in homes that are safe, functional, and welcoming.

Adapting to changing needs

We recognise that circumstances can change, and unforeseen repair issues may arise. To address this, our asset management team completes a condition survey of each home every five years. This allows us to adjust our investment plans as needed.

We also use insights from multiple data sources, including reports from our repairs teams, to make informed decisions. For example, if a scheme not scheduled for roof replacement for 10 years begins experiencing increase in roof leaks, we re-assess and prioritise investment.

Continuous improvement

Our strategy is dynamic and evolves with the needs of our homes and residents. By combining long-term planning with real-time insights, we ensure that our investments are not only strategic but also responsive to the realities on the ground. This approach helps us maintain our commitment to delivering quality homes and creating lasting value for our communities.

Overcoming integration challenges

Following our merger, we are addressing the complexities of managing multiple systems and contractors. While this has introduced anticipated inefficiencies, we are making steady progress toward integration and enhancing and streamlining our approach.

Our plan includes:

Transitioning to a single data system to unify our processes
Procuring new contracts to:
- Remove duplication
- Align operational regions
- Reduce the number of contractors
- Improve internal operational capability
- Deliver unified services to our residents’ homes.

We’ve extended our existing contracts until 2026. This provides the necessary capacity and service continuity for maintaining the high standards we expect, whilst preparing for the new contracts.

Despite these challenges, we are proud to report a 96% customer satisfaction rate this year, based on feedback from 3,590 surveys. This demonstrates our ongoing commitment to delivering excellent service to our residents.

Future contracts for enhanced efficiency

As we prepare for our new 10–20 year contracts, it is crucial to design agreements that are built to last and adaptable to the evolving regulatory landscape.

Our vision is to appoint regional partners with well-established, local delivery contractors and specify the products we’re installing into a common standard. This approach will:

Enhance service delivery by aligning with local expertise and resources
Improve visibility and control over operations, particularly when contractors access our residents’ homes.
Foster stronger relationships with contractors who understand and respect the needs of our communities.

We are also committed to building long-term partnerships with new suppliers and contractors to ensure consistent service delivery. By working together and adopting standardised component suppliers, we can secure extended guarantees and service provisions, offering greater value for money. This efficiency enables us to reinvest savings into other critical areas.

Furthermore, we will explore opportunities to deliver additional benefits for our residents that align with our social value priorities, creating stronger and more sustainable communities.

By prioritising adaptability, local partnerships, and resident-focused benefits, we are laying the foundation for long-term efficiency, innovation, and excellence in service delivery.

Designing together

We are mid-way crafting our future long-term contracts, focusing on efficiency and consistency to ensure we collaborate effectively with our new partners to deliver the best possible service for our residents.

Our approach to procurement is innovative and flexible, designed to attract the best partners. Rather than prescribing every detail upfront, we’ve chosen to identify key outcomes and create opportunities for open dialogue. This allows potential partners to influence contract design, ensuring it meets their needs as well as ours.

Engaging with partners

We’ve been seeking suggestion from suppliers and contractors throughout the year – harvesting their ideas on how we can shape a fantastic service approach. This has been through informal and more formal questionnaires and surveys. This culminated in hosting contractor and supplier engagement workshops at the end of last year. These workshops are part of an ongoing process where potential partners can continue to influence our plans with sensible or practical suggestions.

Through the tendering process, we will invite shortlisted Bidders to ‘dialogue sessions’ with representatives from our Capital Investment team, Health and Safety team, Resident Procurement Panel, and other service delivery colleagues.

The goal of these sessions is to eliminate uncertainty and assumptions, helping Bidders understand our needs and tailor their final submissions effectively.

Residents at the heart

Residents play a central role in our decision-making process. Our Co-Creation team ensures that resident feedback informs every stage of contract design. By understanding what works, what doesn’t, and areas for improvement based on their experiences, we ensure the new contracts align with their needs.

We are also recruiting a Resident Procurement Panel to engage in the tender process, take part in the mobilisation phase, and offer input during the first six months of delivery as partners establish themselves. By designing these contracts together—with partners and residents—we aim to create a foundation for efficient, consistent, and resident-focused service delivery for years to come.

Benefits for residents

As part of our contract design process, working with the resident procurement panel and informed through wider resident communications, we are committed to destigmatising social housing by giving residents more influence over the aesthetics of their homes, fostering a sense of pride in their communities. To achieve this, we are exploring cost-effective ways to offer more choices, such as selecting tiles or kitchen doors. At the same time, we will maintain standardised components that meet our long-term operational needs, ensuring consistency and ease of future maintenance.

Improved communication with residents will also be a key focus. Contractors will be required to provide live project updates to keep residents informed, manage expectations, and improve satisfaction.

For example, residents will receive real-time notifications about appointment times, delays, and updates on their works. This is especially crucial for highly disruptive internal projects, such as kitchen and bathroom renovations, where a lack of timely updates can lead to frustration.

To enhance this communication, we have within our investment delivery structure: Resident Liaison Officers (RLOs). These officers will engage directly with residents and contractors, especially on more complex projects, ensuring smoother interactions and greater accountability.

Looking to the future

We are dedicated to ensuring that all our future investment plans deliver the best possible outcomes for residents, while maintaining value for money. By striking this balance, we aim to achieve more impactful results for every pound spent.

We are excited to embark on the procurement process in the coming year and look forward to seeing our newly designed contracts implemented in 2026, setting a new standard for resident-focused service delivery.