As part of our improvements to services, we have worked with our customers and our staff to develop the standards of service that we believe you should receive (Setting the Standard [PDF] ).

We monitor our services using a variety of techniques and regularly report performance to our key stakeholders. We recognise there are times when we cannot get things right, but we will take every opportunity to correct our mistakes and improve our services.

A summary of our service standards are outlined below:

Customer service and equality in housing - We are committed to providing a good quality housing service by valuing adn treating our customers as individuals.

The Housing Register - We operate and maintain a Housing Register. We use this to allocate housing to new applicants, to allocate housing to applicants wishing to transfer within the stock, to undertake Mutual Exchanges and to nominate applications to housing associations within North Lincolnshire.

The Housing Register together with the Company's Allocations Policy enables us to allocate housing to our customers in a fair, transparent and equitable manner.

Resident involvement - We recognise that excellent service delivery can best be achieved by genuine and active involvement of our residents in the decision making and monitoring of services and activites. With this in mind we will continue to actively seek to encourage more people to get involved in consultation and participation with us.

Empty homes - We aim to provide homes that are safe, clean, secure and in a good state of repair. The empty homes process covers the activities that are carried out from the ending of a tenancy of a property, to the property being ready to let as a new tenancy. We have a dedicated Empty Homes Team to co-ordinate and ensure our empty homes are ready to let as quickly as possible.

Allocations and lettings - We are committed to providing quality services to all customers. The Allocations Policy ensures that customers are at the heart of the policy in meeting the needs of customers, providing choice and making the best use of our stock.

All allocations to our housing stock and all nominations to housing association stock within the North Lincolnshire region are made from the Housing Register in accordance with the Allocations Policy. Exceptional circumstances may be dealt with outside of this policy.

Tenancy management - We are committed to providing efficient and effective tenancy management services. The role of tenancy manegement is to support tenants in sustaining their tenancies and deal with any issues which may affect them. Good tenancy management is important and helps to build strong communities.

Anti-social behaviour - We are committed to taking decisive action to deal effectively with anti-social behaviour and other types of nuisance. North Lincolnshire Homes will not tolerate any forms of nuisance harassment or anti-social behaviour from its tenants, tenants' families or people who may be visitors to a tenant's home.

We will also look at taking action against private owners or other people if they are guilty of anti-social behaviour that affects the quality of life of North Lincolnshire Homes' tenants or other people living or working in the area.

Estate management and caretaking - We are committed to maintaining the appearance of our estates to a high standard.

Income management - We will ensure that all rents and service charges remain affordable and that we maximise rental income and help prevent, and minimise, rental arrears.

Providing value for money - We are committed to providing value for money services to residents and have developed a strategy and action plan to help achieve this objective.

Repairs and maintenance - We are committed to providing a quality repairs and maintenace service for our customers' homes and estates. We have been working to improve our repairs and maintenance service over the past two years and will continue to make improvements to our services to customers.

Planned works and improvement work - We are committed to providing a good quality service for our customers when we are carrying out planned work and improvements to homes and estates.

We are committed to bringing and maintaining all properties up to the Decent Homes Standard and will plan an extensive programme of work to achieve this objective.

Special needs and older people - We are committed to providing a quality housing service to older people and people with special needs. Our aim is to provide a service that meets individual needs, promotes dignity, choice and independence and continually improves; helping to build stronger communities.

Leasehold service - We will provide an accessible and efficient leasehold service that provides value for money.

Getting it right

We want to get our services right. It is you our tenants who are best qualified to tell us what works well and what doesn't. Please contact us with any comments, complaints or compliments you may have.

Please contact us if you would like a hard copy of the Service Standards posting out to you.