Openness & Transparency

Commitment to accountability

Southdown is committed to accounting for its actions and performance in an open and transparent manner. This commitment is to our tenants, clients, 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 our effectiveness.

Openness about what we do

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

We publish our Strategic Business Plan, annual Statutory Accounts and an annual Impact Report on our website each year. We also publish our annual Tenant Satisfaction Measures Report highlighting how we provide good quality homes for our tenants.

In addition, copies of all our policies, including our policies on housing, repairs and complaints, are available on request.

For our tenants, we also share information on rent arrears, repair targets and compliance on our website.

Data protection

We’re committed to protecting individual’s personal data. The policies and procedures we have in place are to protect the integrity and confidentiality of your personal information, to comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and other UK and EU regulations.

Southdown Housing Association is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office, registration number Z6895951.

Our Privacy Policy explains how Southdown Housing Association collects, processes and uses personal information. Information on data protection at Southdown is also available on this page.

Equality, equity, diversity and inclusion

We pride ourselves on creating a culture that challenges prejudice and values diversity. We’re committed to ensuring that our employees and clients feel welcome and are not discriminated against or treated unfairly. Our Equality, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (called ‘This is us’) is available to read here. You can also read our Gender Pay Gap on our website here.

Complaints

We encourage feedback so we can learn what we are doing well and where we need to make improvements. Southdown has a formal policy and procedure to ensure all comments, compliments and complaints are treated fairly and dealt with in the same way.

For more information, visit our Contact us page on our website, where you can download our comments, compliments and complaints leaflet.

Complaints Handling Self-Assessment Against Housing Ombudsman’s Code

Every year, we carry out an annual self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman’s revised complaints handling code. Our self-assessment sets out how we comply with the Housing Ombudsman code and the further actions we’re taking to improve how we handle and learn from complaints and how we make this information available to tenants and other stakeholders. You can download the latest self assessment document below.

Tenants’ Complaints Annual Review

We also produce an annual Tenants’ Complaints Review. You can download the latest Review document below.

Regulators

Southdown Housing Association Limited is an exempt charity. We are also a registered society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. Due to the range of services we provide, we are registered and regulated by a number of organisations, including:

• RSH (Regulator of Social Housing): We’re registered, monitored by and work to their best practice standards. The RSH’s role is to promote a viable, efficient and well governed social housing sector, able to deliver homes that meet a range of needs.
• NHF (National Housing Federation): We’re a member and work to their best practice standards. As the trade body for the housing association sector, the NHF influences, campaigns and engages with the media, politicians and the public on behalf of its members.
• CQC (Care Quality Commission): We’re registered, monitored by and work to best practice standards. Where we deliver care services, we must show evidence that we comply with The CQC’ Essential Standards. The CQC regulates all health and adult social care services in England to ensure they meet the essential standards of quality and safety.
• FCA (Financial Conduct Authority): We’re registered, monitored by and work to their best practice standards. The FCA is the conduct regulator for nearly 60,000 financial services firms and financial markets in the UK.
• ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office): We’re registered and work to their best practice standards. Our Data Protection Officer is Tara Mackintosh, our Risk & Information Governance Manager. The ICO is the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights.