Our ability to rent out empty properties has been impacted by Covid-19 restrictions and because we’ve had a number of properties that have been ‘out of management’. These challenges are reflected in our average number of days to let empty homes.

As restrictions ease, a key focus has been supporting our local authority partners and working with our contractors to ensure that we turnaround our empty properties and get them to people most in need.

Rent arrears has increased from 0.1% to 2.6% in the previous quarter. The increase in the number of tenants on Universal Credit is thought to be behind this. Across the housing sector, it’s still unknown what impact Covid-19 has had on rent arrears and is difficult to predict. Our rent collection performance remains strong despite challenges faced during the last year or so. We are continuing to support tenants, including providing money and benefits advice.

Our repairs service has been impacted by the pandemic and we have had a range of restrictions over the course of the year due to Covid-19. Throughout this time, we have been able to continue delivering emergency repairs well within the 4-hour target timescale. Non-emergency repairs were restricted during both Q2 and Q4 last year, with a backlog of repairs to carry out each time restrictions were eased. These have taken us longer on average to attend to, but we are working our way through these and expect to return to the target timescales as restrictions continue to ease. We have continued to deliver a repairs service during the past year and appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we work within the continued restrictions.

We value all complaints as we believe it helps us to improve. Whilst our complaints have risen slightly, the majority of these complaints relate to noise and neighbourhood disturbance that could relate to lockdown. We have and will continue to give advice, guidance and support to tenants while restrictions remain in place.

We continue to experience growth in all our digital channels with tenants increasingly taking advantage of options to contact us by webchat, Facebook Messenger, email or through My Cairn. We have also continued to improve upon our bi-monthly email bulletins as an alternative to paper newsletters, alongside making better use of social media to communicate with tenants and other customers.

We hope you found this quarterly report interesting.

We’d love to hear what you think about the report or our performance.