A ‘ROBUST’ action plan has been drawn up in an effort to improve council housing tenants’ satisfaction levels amid soaring complaints which increased by 73 per cent in a year, the Chronicle can reveal.
Berneslai Homes’ performance was recently discussed by a scrutiny panel at Barnsley Town Hall, which resulted in bosses - including chief executive Amanda Garrard - revealing more than 180 damp and mould complaints are currently being dealt with.
A total of 777 enquiries from councillors on behalf of their residents were submitted in 2024/25, or 80 more than the previous year.
Compliments from tenants were down by 38 per cent, while £110,845 was spent on compensating tenants.
Eight investigations were escalated to the Housing Ombudsman Service or the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
A report said: “A robust action plan has been produced to focus on ensuring continuous improvement, putting our tenants at the heart of housing service design and delivery.
“However, there remains significant pressure on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) model in being able to deliver repairs and maintenance to stock within the new legislative and regulatory framework with additional and significant asks which were not accounted for in the self-financing models agreed previously.
“This means that funding to support wider environmental or communal area works must be deprioritised as we must focus on essential safety, decency and regulatory works.
“It is important to note that, whilst locally set targets may not have been met across all satisfaction areas during 2024/25, performance exceeds peer group medians in most measures.
“During 2024/25 there was a 73 per cent increase in ‘stage one’ complaints to 1,199 and a 114 per cent increase in ‘stage two’ complaints to 284.
“Similar increases are reported nationally and follow a trend over the last few years.”
At the meeting, councillors on the scrutiny panel were presented with reports that showed the increase in complaints, a loss of £1.6m in rental income due to hundreds of empty properties and an increased turnover of staff.
Coun Jake Lodge, who represents the Worsbrough ward, led the grilling and focused on estate standards and management, repairs and antisocial behaviour.
“It was revealed that over £8m has been given to Berneslai Homes by the council this year to bring back hundreds of properties in to use, but when pressed on how many had been brought back in to use, an answer couldn’t be given.
“It’s clear to me and many others that Berneslai Homes has a mountain to climb.
“More needs to be done to win back trust of tenants and communities, not just in Worsbrough but across the borough.
“At a time when we have a local and national housing crisis, we need as many properties as possible and to see hundreds standing empty is disappointing.
“There’s also much more the organisation need to do around estate management and repairs to ensure that everyone feels safe and live in a thriving and vibrant community.”
