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More head scratching for South Tyneside Homes

One of the Corner Shop customers has been in touch with some more bemusing interest stories regarding South Tyneside Homes. The arms length management company is still facing an enormous challenge to meet the needs of it’s clients/customers and the audit team it hopes to score well with - remember, millions of pounds of government grants are at stake. Our customer here relates some very interesting (and it would be amusing if it weren’t so serious) anecdotes about the service received at South Tyneside Homes office at Jarrow Town Hall. Our customer (for their pains) lives in a high rise block of flats in the town. Here are some excerpts from their emails:

” I have a Monday to Friday 9 to 5 job in Jesmond, Newcastle. I live in the high rise flats in Jarrow; the flats have a machine that operates the hot water and heating. These machines take a 200 unit ticket that is only available from cashiers in the Town Hall, Jarrow - once you run out of units no hot water or heating until you refill!

During a very cold snap in December I finished work early, approximately 3pm to arrive at the Town Hall about 4pm to be told that the cashiers close 1 hour prior to the building being locked up so they can count up the days takings. I explained that I had no heating or hot water as I needed a heating ticket to put in the machine; the receptionist told me I should come back on Monday blindly taking no notice of what I had just said! I then went home and wrote them a fairly strong letter about what happened. on the 14th of December I received a reply from a Housing Support Officer that was very blunt and to the point (see attached).

Again after the Bank Holiday weekend (Tuesday 4:30pm) I went to the Town Hall for my hit of heating tickets to be told they closed at 4pm and I would have to come back tomorrow.

I work Monday to Friday 9 till 5and it is hard to get away early… for a start my boss thinks I take the **** by asking to leave at 3:30 so I can have heating and hot water (two basic requirements!). South Tyneside Homes do not seem to give two hoots about my problem.

On Tuesday I wrote to Mr Harris the acting Chief Executive of the Housing Company (attached), copying a councillor and my MP on the correspondence. I will be surprised if there is any resolution any time soon, but in this age of technology it seems backward that I have to finish early from work and buy a ticket over the counter where we could have a solution where it could be done on the internet, in a post office or even have a machine in the block that sells tickets! (They could even take a cheque and post them out!)

Also if I had wanted to go to any of the Housing Company Meetings, I would need a Tardis to get there! if they start at 5pm and I finish work at 5pm in Newcastle I don’t know how they expect anyone to go. This excludes anyone that works normal office hours. I am not surprised the housing company are in such a bad state of affairs!”

Arkwright would probably be a more suitable employee for the company, at least he was “open all hours” , quite how they expect to meet the aspirations of their tenant customers is difficult to imagine, we have already seen in this blog how South Tyneside Homes holds interactive consultative meetings with it’s community representatives in the intimidating environment of it’s head office and at times of the day to suit itself rather than the tenants.

A further email to the Corner Shop revealed a little more about tenant problems and the officious response:

“I went a few weeks ago to complain that a notice had appeared in the lift here that along with other things asks you to “Refrain from spitting in the lifts”. I went and spoke to one of the housing people again at Jarrow and they said they had to put the poster up as people do spit in the lifts. I said in the two years that I had lived here I had never seen that in the lift; apparently they had some complaints from another resident and felt the poster going up was needed to enforce the point. I explained that I felt it was embarrassing that my family had to see the poster when they visited. The housing officer then said I should write a letter if I wanted to complain - I then asked what he thought I was doing sitting in front of him!I then got the spiel about the STH complaints process.. which to this day seems to be what ever suits them!

Also in the block of flats you can’t have a shower fitted, this is something to do with the way that water is supplied to the block, many complaints later from more than one address here also yielded nothing.

I really enjoy reading your blog… its good that you make a platform that the ordinary man / woman can stand on and be seen. I heard that most of the people in the council check it daily and that many of the others at least know about it!”

The whole consultative process between South Tyneside Homes and it’s clients needs to be revisited and reviewed if a half decent audit score is ever to be achieved, at present the arrangements are little short of shambolic. Meetings need to be held at a time and a place that is more convenient for the residents rather than the managers, and if this involves some out of hours working, I’m sure they could achieve it with a little flexibility on the time sheets!

Recent procedural reviews and management reports revealed a gulf between customer expectations and service achievement, we are now almost a further six months down the line, yet the paying customer (tenant) does not appear to be sounding any happier with his/her lot. The greatest complaint still revolves around easy access to service and a less than “customer friendly” approach from the ALMO. I think they could do with half a dozen “Arkwrights”, or at least someone with retail experience to help drive change forward with a business plan to be more effectively customer facing, and with a more streamlined complaints procedure and and a simplified repairs structure which is easier to understand and impliment.

O.K. G….G….G……Granville g…g..get on that b…b…bike and get round to J….J….Jarrow Town Hall!

Response letter from South Tyneside Homes - click to enlarge