Nigel Wright, Chair
Foreword
2020/21 has seen incredibly challenging times for all of us. Like the rest of the world, we have had to respond to the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis. However, I am proud of all our colleagues who kept services going, using collaboration, innovation, and teamwork across the organisation.
At the start of the pandemic, the Digital Services Team worked around the clock to get as many people as possible working from home, practically overnight. As a result, hundreds of colleagues have delivered services effectively from home – often against a backdrop of childcare, other caring commitments, ill health, bereavement and financial security concerns.
Our Progress Living service provided accommodation for NHS staff, including those working on Covid-19 wards; keeping the accommodation COVID-safe to ensure medical staff could live next to where they worked.
Other teams also adapted to provide extra services like the Here to Help service, making over 100,000 welfare calls to vulnerable residents. In addition, our women's refuges remained open, and a text and live chat service was set up to help support women experiencing domestic abuse.
Our newly created emergency community fund also provided much-needed funding to support local projects from supporting local foodbanks to helping fund Christmas Eve boxes and craft packs for struggling families.
Our Progress Lifeline service was one of the few telecare providers in the country not to reduce services to over 50,000 vulnerable people.
Despite the pandemic, we also let over 550 properties and completed 90 new homes, including the sale of Concert Living homes at Edward Gardens in Bamber Bridge.
Our new Business Plan sets out several challenging targets for our continued work over the forthcoming years and we are thrilled that we have been regraded to our G1/V1 status by the Regulator of Social Housing. Enormous thanks go to everyone involved in our continuous improvement work. We are determined to do our very best to achieve our targets and make a positive difference in people's lives.
Nigel Wright, Chair