Step by step - getting back to business
2020 has been a difficult year for everyone and it’s meant massive changes to the way we live and work. Having started to remobilise our services to you over the past few months we are now seeing further lockdown measures being put in place that will again impact us all.
Second national lockdown
From Thursday 5 November 2020 England will be going into a second national lockdown. Despite the imposition of restrictions we believe - following a review of the government's guidance - that we can continue the remobilisation of our services while keeping you safe. We have been operating within the required safeguards for several months that include the necessary risk assessments being in place, protective equipment being worn and cleaning taking place.
You can find details of our current service levels here.
Service levels
During the first lockdown we had to suspend certain parts of our service and a backlog built up. We are striving to offer a full service but we’re still working on our remobilisation and prioritising emergency repairs and statutory safety compliance work. This means that in this second lockdown some of our services may take a little longer to deliver, or be delivered to you remotely rather than face to face.
We rely on our dedicated staff and lots of partners to help deliver our services, from repairs contractors to local authority support and advice. Covid 19 has impacted all in different ways. These can be operational, logistical or simply human and inevitably lead to change.
We simply ask that while we all adjust to the environment around us that you give us your patience and in return we will give you our commitment that we will get round to helping you.
Guidance for customers
What to expect if we need to visit your home
Our priorities for getting back to business are:
Safety first – We’ll prioritise the safety of our customers, colleagues and contractors. We’ll take our time to get it right, but make sure we cover the basics fast. We will support colleagues and teams as they work in new and different ways.
Understanding – we’ll take time understand and follow the government guidelines. We’ll be adjusting the way we provide services to ensure we are complying with the safety guidelines – taking a step-by-step approach.
Listening and communicating – we will consult with residents and colleagues about the longer-term shape of our services. We recognise that we must completely understand what our residents expect, need and want in the covid world. We are working with our colleagues to make sure they have everything they need to be safe.
Flexible – We will be flexible and agile about the way we work as we’ll need to respond to a fast-changing environment. We’ll organise our strategies around the government’s covid-19 alert levels to ensure we have a clear idea of what our service will look like at each of those levels.
Complaints during the COVID-19 lockdown:
If you’re unhappy with our service we want to hear from you so we can work together to put this right. You can contact us at service.centre@shgroup.org.uk or on 01403 220440.
Due to the current situation we have had to change the way we manage customer complaints. If your complaint is about the reduction of services during Covid-19, it is unlikely that we will be able to log this as a formal complaint, unless your complaint relates to staff conduct, or exceptional circumstances you think we should be aware of. Although we’re temporarily changing our complaints process, we still want to hear from you and will do our best to deliver services during this challenging time.
We will be posting any updates about our services to our website, Twitter and Facebook accounts first so please follow or subscribe to make sure you’re up to date.
