Chair's Blog - May 2024

Hi everyone,

Here’s my latest update to you as Chair of Community Gateway Association’s Board, following our Board meeting on 16^th May. After each board meeting, I’ll share with you the highlights of what we discussed.

• We heard from Chief Executive, Rob Wakefield, on the Regulator of Social Housing’s new regulatory framework which went live on 1^st April, and what Gateway is doing to ensure we’re fully compliant in all areas.
• An update on our Service Transformation Strategy reminded us how this will support the business in delivering improved services to tenants. As an example, it was good to hear that there has been a substantial improvement in reducing call-wait times.
• We heard that our teams have been working closely with the Police and other neighbourhood partners to tackle local issues, including holding days of action in the city centre and St Matthew’s areas, to help understand and tackle anti-social behaviour.
• The board was delighted to hear about the handover of The Atrium – our second extra-care scheme, which is located on Miller Road, Ribbleton. This fantastic development is due to welcome its first residents in June. Keep an eye out for details of an open event for your chance to take a look around.
• Every quarter we review CGA’s performance, including its financial management, risk management and health and safety compliance measures.  Having our Tenant’s Committee and then Board checking the health of the business against our key performance indicators is crucial to keeping CGA running well, to recognise when things are going well and identifying areas for improvement.
• We had an update on customer insight from our Service Transformation Manager. Our customer insight dashboard gives us key information on complaints, compliments, customer satisfaction and scrutiny recommendations. The Housing Ombudsman has recently updated their Complaints Handling Code and CGA has reviewed its self-assessment against this code.  You can read that self-assessment here. How to make a comment, complaint or compliment | Community Gateway Association
• Following the launch of our new 2024-2030 Corporate Plan, we looked at some of the key strategies that underpin it: our Development and Regeneration, People, Risk Management and Value for Money strategies were all approved.  A range of other strategies will be considered at our next board meeting in July.
• We discussed succession planning for the Board - you might have seen that we’ve recently been looking for a new member.  We were looking for someone with a diverse range of skills, with specific knowledge and experience in relation to financial management, as well as a good understanding of the views and needs of our tenants. I’d like to emphasise that it is possible to be a board member at CGA whether you work or not.  Personally, I have worked during all the time I have been on the board, complementing my working life with learning new skills and experiences, which I have found very rewarding.
• Finally, we thanked Aimee Stansfield-Law and Jonathan Saksena, as this was their last meeting as members of the Board.  They have both provided a wide range of extremely valuable contributions during their tenure as Board members and I hope you will join me in wishing them both well in the future.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll be bringing you more key updates in August following our next Board meeting at the end of July.

Phil Parramore
Chair of the Board