Our brands
During the year, we continued to further integrate and develop modernised services for all of our brands.
This includes; East Boro Housing Trust (EBHT), Central & Cecil (C&C) and Enham Trust, which follows our merger with EBHT during 2020,
and two mergers in 2022 – C&C in January and Enham in October that year.
Customers are now benefitting from Aster’s broader offering, and in turn Aster has gained from the specialist
housing and care expertise that each of the brands can offer. Within this year’s report, where possible, we’ve been
able to include our brands within the figures we report for the first time, which itself demonstrates how we have come together as a Group.
There have been some great success stories from our brands in terms of supporting, working on behalf of and with customers, making progress on integration and our overall customer services modernisation. You can read more about the results below.
With the sale of C&C’s old Head Office at Waterloo Road, the new registered office for C&C was confirmed as Grace House, C&C’s newest
170-apartment sheltered scheme in St John’s
Wood, North London.
In October 2023, Grace House won an “Inside Housing” industry award for “Best Supported Housing Development (Urban)” due to its innovative design and how it can generate its own electricity, keeping bills for residents lower, and the fact residents helped to co-design it. In November 2023, Grace House was also highly commended in the “Best Retirement Scheme” category at the House Builder Awards.
In June 2023, construction started on 62 new affordable homes in Silvertown, East London. and
it’s hoped these new homes will go some way towards helping address the substantial number of people waiting for an affordable home in the area’s housing list. The new homes are part funded by the Greater London Authority – Homes for Londoners: Affordable Homes Programme and are due to be ready for occupation in 2025. Also in June, C&C began construction of 41 new affordable homes in Southall, West London, which are due to be ready to move
into in 2027.
C&C completed 111 home lettings, 99 of which are for sheltered customers. Satisfaction among sheltered housing customers, which makes up the majority of C&C’s customer base, stood at 81%.
Ensuring your safety in our buildings is our number one priority. Over the past year, thorough surveys have been completed on our four highest buildings, all of which are C&C properties in London. This included all aspects of fire and structural safety. Customers were invited to share their views at on-site meetings to discuss how they’d like to receive new building safety information and ongoing updates on this. You can read more about this here.
C&C’s customer service hub handled 13,254 calls during the year, with an average answer time
of just 31 seconds. In 2024/25, there’ll be further improvements for C&C customer contact options, with the MyAster portal going live for C&C customers to make self-service payments, report/log repairs and arrange home appointments at their convenience.
77 customers were supported by the financial wellbeing team
28 customers were supported through our financial hardship fund with awards totalling £10,000
£25,000 of backdated Universal Credit awards
were made
£2,500 of discretionary housing payments were awarded to help customers in need
£4,500 of backdated housing benefit claims were
paid to customers
£7,000 backdated Personal Independent Payment
(PIP) benefit made on appeal for one customer
7 x £300 grants from St Pancras Grant a hardship
fund provided by St. Pancras Welfare Trust,
a community-based support organisation for local residents awarded to customers. A further grant
has helped redecorate the Rackstraw House
communal lounge.
153 hours of volunteering in C&C’s four care homes
546 external led activity classes for care residents
24 outings and trips organised for care residents
14 schools taking part in intergenerational projects with C&C and elderly residents
23 volunteers & placements have been working with
us throughout the year.
In March 2024, Her Excellency Conny Helder, Dutch Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport came to Rathmore House in Swiss Cottage, as part of a state visit, to find out more about our use of best practices working with key community health care providers and using innovative and connected technologies and systems to provide integrated care services for our elderly care residents, particularly those living with dementia.
All four care homes; Cecil Court, Compton Lodge, Homemead and Rathmore House, were inspected
during the year, and maintain their “good” Care
Quality Commission rating. We have averaged 94% occupancy (sector average is 88%) across all four
of our homes and strong recommendations and
referrals continue.
Customer feedback delivered an average 98% customer satisfaction response from C&C’s care home residents. Care services had an average rating
of 9.7/10 on the popular carehome.co.uk website,
based on further direct feedback from family and
friends of residents.
One review published to carehome.co.uk said:
“The staff have been exceptional in every way. It feels good to know your friend is in good hands. The managers are quite amazing. But I should say all the staff show great dedication to all the clients. Our friend has been here for just over 11 months. In a crisis, they deal with
the situation with compassion and competence.”
Care services
Customer engagement activities
East Boro Housing Trust Limited (EBHT) has been a member of the Group since 2020. During the year,
as with the wider Group, customers are at the heart
of the business at EBHT. This was reflected in the
80% overall customer satisfaction score, which demonstrates the exceptional service delivered by the team. EBHT delivered 24 new homes, surpassing its target of 22 new properties. EBHT has plans to continue delivering more new homes, including the development of the first ever Community Land Trust on the Isle of Portland.
Throughout the year the number of homes EBHT manages has increased to 536. Currently, 499 homes are rented while 23 homes are leasehold and 14 are shared ownership homes. Only 1.33% of customers are in rental arrears, and they are being supported by our financial wellbeing services team to find a solution forwards.
During 2023/24 over 41,500 hours of support and care were provided to adults with learning and physical disabilities by the EBHT Weymouth Supported Living
and Care team. Additionally, Sheltered Housing Officers completed over 25,000 visits / welfare checks to
sheltered housing customers in their own homes throughout Dorset.
The Weymouth Community Hub at the Waverley has been equally busy with over 1,130 people attending group art sessions held during the year. The Café and Community Shop run by the local charity “The Nest” has also continued to provide affordable food to thousands of people in the local Weymouth Community.
During the year, four formal complaints were received. All were resolved in line with the complaints policy, with two resolved at stage one and the remaining two resolved at stage two in the process.
During the year, Enham Trust reached over 6,900 individuals, through services which promote equality, dignity, and choice, and supporting disabled people to live, work and enjoy life as independently as possible. Since becoming a part of Aster Group, Enham Trust has successfully integrated central customer services, such as IT, Finance and Human Resources, offering the Trust access to a much wider set of skills and resources.
In addition, 6,481 individuals benefitted from accessing Direct Payment support services, to have an increased choice and control, as customers, over their care services. .
During the year, Enham Trust provided residential care and care at home services, supporting 63 individuals.
Enham has continued to work through a comprehensive action plan to make positive changes in care. As part of the improvement plans, the Care at Home service was set up as a separate service and has recruited a dedicated service manager, supporting 27 individuals in and around Enham Alamein to live independently
at home.
In addition, 6,481 individuals benefitted from
accessing Direct Payment support services, to have
an increased choice and control, as customers,
over their care services.
13,032 hours of care and support delivered by Enham’s Care at Home team supporting 27 individuals to live independently in their own home
1,750 hours broadcast live by disabled people for Radio Enham, Enham’s radio station helping individuals develop confidence and skills
34,625 hours of supported employment opportunities taken up in Enham’s social enterprise; E3PL
520 hours of sports and physical activities including archery, keep-fit, dance fit, boccia, boxing and yoga supporting disabled people to improve their physical and mental wellbeing
Enham Trust village charity shop and tearooms raised £131,000 in sales of mainly donated goods, an increased amount from last year
16 volunteers supported the running of the shop and tearooms, including 9 disabled individuals who gained new skills and confidence for employment
New lift installed at Coopers Chase scheme helped resident mobility
An occupancy of 83% of all its homes.
The average repair completion time for customers was just over 12 days, completing 82% of emergency repairs within 24 hours. 77% of repairs were completed as first-time fixes and 74% of routine appointments were managed on time.
A customer satisfaction feedback survey took place in November 2023, highlighting:
95% of customers confirmed they felt safe in their home at Enham
81% find staff to be friendly, caring and approachable
86% are happy with the overall condition of their home
76% of customers are happy with the maintenance work that has been carried out in their home, an improvement since the merger.
In October 2023, Enham’s housing and maintenance teams merged with Aster Group teams. This has helped customers benefit from wider access to many more skilled resources, including technical specialists and out of hours support for emergency repairs. Aster’s customer portal MyAster has been integrated for Enham Trust customers to now be able to use the online facilities at their convenience. This means more choices for residents to self-service online.
Enham Trust manages 279 customer homes in the village of Enham Alamein
20 empty homes have been re-let in the past year
18 homes for customers living with some form
of disability
Two homes for customers who have a local connection with the village
More customers have received support need assessments from social care teams
An increased number of housing surgeries / drop-ins to enable more customers to meet face-to-face with their housing team for support.
In June, Enham Trust were pleased to welcome the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Mel Stride MP,
to hear more about the work to support disabled people into work. He was keen to hear Enham’s thoughts and feedback on how the Department for Work and Pensions could further assist what we do for supported employees at Enham Trust, along with many other supported businesses and supported employment organisations.
As a Disability Confident Leader, Enham continued to
play a role in supporting employers to think differently about disability and to take action to improve how they recruit, retain, and develop disabled people. This included offering information, advice and guidance sessions
for businesses interested in becoming a Disability
Confident employer.
Care services
Key highlights
Maintenance and repairs
Housing and supported housing
Supported employment and ‘Disability Confident’