Transparency Policy and Other Key Policies

Transparency Policy

Being transparent means, we are open and honest with you and we are committed to accounting for our actions and performance. This commitment is to our customers, local communities, partners, regulators and other stakeholders. We publish information about how we perform, what we spend and how we are governed, so that anyone who has an interest in our work can find out about the services we provide and how effective we are. We will not publish information that is commercially sensitive or that would put the Group at risk of non-compliance with data protection legislation.

Transparency about what we do

Our website provides up to date details of the services we provide to customers, and how to access them. We also publish key policies including our policies on allocating housing, repairs to our properties and customer complaints.

Customer Voice and Influence

The Group hears the customer voice in a number of different ways, including but not limited to transactional surveys, Tenant Satisfaction Measures, complaints and compliments, annual Customer Scrutiny Conference and colleague and customer feedback sessions. We will consult with our customers about policies that affect them under the ‘No Voice No Approval’ agreement.

Regulation and Accountability

We are required to comply with the Economic and Consumer Standards set by our regulator, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). Our Board has adopted the National Housing Federation’s (NHF) Code of Governance 2020 (the Code). We undertake an annual review of compliance against the Code and against each of the Standards and publish a statement of compliance in our Annual Report and Financial Statements. We comply with all legal and regulatory requirements of our business and this includes publishing details of the Gender Pay Gap in our business and compliance with the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.

Transparency about our priorities and performance

It is important that our customers and other stakeholders are able to openly access information on our priorities and are able to review our performance.

• We publish our strategic plan
• We publish our financial performance annually in financial statements
• We report annually on our performance against regulatory standards within our customers' annual report and our financial statements
• We publish our latest customer feedback from the Tenant Satisfaction Measures quarterly and annually.

If you would like any information about Board, their decisions or priorities, please email your request to info@bchg.co.uk.

Transparency about what we spend

We publish a value for money statement in our Financial Statements. The Financial Statement outlines a range of information including:

• Operating cost per social housing unit
• Total operating cost per unit
• Operating surplus on social lettings
• Spend per unit on maintenance, management, services, new supply and overheads
• Arrears collection (and bad debt generally)

Below you will find a link to all of our key policies: