Since the start of April, we rented out 78 homes. The average time it took us to turnaround empty homes reduced from 118 to 96.6 days. This figure still remains high as we let some homes that had been empty for a long time due to low demand. Covid continues to have an impact on how quickly we can turnaround properties as we to leave the property empty between the tenants moving out, any work being carried out, and new tenants moving in.

Our target for turning around empty properties by the end of the financial year is 71 days. With effective void management, we hope to meet this target.

Tenant arrears has declined for the third quarter in a row. Making sure we collect all the rent due to us is hugely important so that we can continue to provide quality services to our tenants. Our customer service team engage proactively with tenants to prevent and reduce arrears. We help them make sure they are claiming all the benefits they are entitled to and this approach has resulted in a reduction in current tenant arrears over the last three quarters.

Our former tenant arrears remains consistent over the last three quarters. We will try and recover money owed to use by former tenants where we can. We have procedures in place and will consider all cost-effective means, including court action, to recover money owed to us.

The percentage of rent lost through properties being empty is falling and is now at 1.8%. We are now below our target of 2%, which is down to the hard work and collaborative effort of the whole Cairn team.

Covid-based restrictions were eased further at the end of April 2021 which meant we were able to address the backlog of non-emergency repairs. Through Q3, Q4 and early Q1 this year we have had a focus on emergency and urgent repairs for tenants whilst continuing to carry out gas and electrical servicing and other safety work as well as turn around our empty properties. The dip in non-emergency repairs includes all those repairs which were on hold pending the end of restrictions, now being completed – the number completed on target continues to improve as the delayed jobs work their way through the system.

We value all complaints as we believe it helps us to improve. The number of complaints we received has decreased. They had risen during lockdown where we received more noise and neighbourhood disturbance complaints than usual.

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.