How we are doing
CEO Jeff Skipp
Over the past year, Ability Housing Association has continued to focus on delivering high-quality housing and support services that enable residents to live independently and safely within their communities.
We now manage 649 properties across 31 local authority areas in London and the South East and continue to support people with learning disabilities, physical disabilities and mental health needs through our housing and care services. Our work remains guided by the priorities set out in our corporate plan Better Together, which focuses on providing good homes, delivering high-quality services, supporting and developing our workforce, growing our reach and maintaining financial sustainability.
One of our key priorities continues to be listening to residents and customers and using their feedback to improve our services. This year’s customer satisfaction survey for Care and Support services showed an overall satisfaction rate of 94.5%. We also continued to strengthen our housing services through tenancy audits, estate inspections and intensive housing management visits, helping us identify issues early and ensure residents receive the support they need to maintain independent living.
Maintaining safe homes remains central to our work. Compliance across key safety areas has remained extremely strong, with gas, lift and asbestos management inspections all achieving 100% compliance and electrical safety reaching 99.2%. These results reflect the robust processes, contractor partnerships and oversight that underpin our approach to property management.
We have also continued to improve the services that residents rely on day-to-day. Repairs performance has strengthened during the year, with over 82% of repairs completed within timescale and further improvements planned for the coming year. Arrears performance has also improved for the third consecutive year, falling to 3.4%, demonstrating the effectiveness of early intervention and close engagement with residents.
Our Care and Support services remain highly valued by those who use them. All CQC-registered services retained overall ratings of “Good”, with some areas achieving “Outstanding”. During the year we also strengthened safeguarding arrangements, introduced additional training programmes and continued to develop a workforce that is skilled, supported and committed to delivering person-centred care.
As with many organisations in our sector, we continue to operate in a challenging financial environment. Rising National Living Wage costs, National Insurance increases and ongoing pressures on local authority funding all present challenges. However, careful financial management has ensured that Ability remains financially stable and well positioned for the future, with strong reserves and continued compliance with lender covenants.
Looking ahead, our focus will remain on improving services, investing in our homes, strengthening resident engagement and ensuring that our organisation continues to grow sustainably while delivering the support our residents and customers rely on.
Finally, we would like to thank our Board for their continued guidance and support, and our staff teams whose dedication and professionalism make the delivery of these services possible every day.
To hear more about how we’re doing, please see our annual report below: