Our structure and standards

Bolton at Home – Our structure and standards

Bolton at Home Group comprises Bolton at Home and Arcon Housing Association, both registered providers and charitable community benefit societies. In addition, Bolton at Home has four subsidiary companies: R-haus, Starts with you, Maxmedia Communications and Stonecross Homes.

Arcon Developments Limited was a subsidiary of our subsidiary Arcon Housing. It transferred to Bolton at Home in 2022 and the stock transferred to R-haus. The company has since been dissolved.

Our group stock totals around 18,500 properties.

As well as providing homes, we offer a range of other services. These are available to our tenants, and some are open to other residents living in our communities.

Bolton at Home and Arcon are proposing to come together to form a single housing association, subject to consultation with Arcon tenants and gaining approval from our bank lenders.

Our vision and objectives

We want to provide homes and support services as a foundation that enables people and our communities to flourish.

We’ve four objectives:

  • To provide safe and secure homes to meet the housing needs of our current and future customers.
  • To support our customers and communities.
  • To grow our business and continue to be well run, responsible and financially secure.
  • To offer a great employee experience through a People Strategy that drives a ‘Bring Your Best Self to Work’ culture.

As registered providers, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) expects us to comply with a set of economic and consumer standards.

The RSH published its regulatory judgement on Bolton at Home in 2020, following an in-depth assessment. We were pleased to retain our rating of G1 for Governance and V2 for Financial Viability. It means we’re continuing to satisfy the regulator’s requirements.

Each year we assess ourselves against the latest set of regulatory standards and you can read more about these standards and how we’re performing against them, here www.boltonathome.org.uk/governance-and-regulation

Tenant satisfaction: changes for the social housing sector

In July 2023, The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 received Royal Assent, allowing the RSH to set proposed new Consumer Standards. A consultation on the proposed Consumer Standards has run, with a view to them becoming law from April 2024.

We invited customers to review the proposed standards and feedback directly to the Regulator.

We’re preparing for the new standards and will assess ourselves against them.

The RSH has also introduced a set of tenant satisfaction measures, which are intended to provide tenants with information that can be used to hold their landlord to account. We carried out a pilot perception survey in 2022 and will be carrying out another survey in 2023, in line with the requirement to carry out the survey each year.

We’ll report the results of the survey and the other measures relating to repairs, building safety, respectful and helpful engagement, complaint handling and neighbourhood management in spring/summer 2024.

Our governance structure explained

Both Bolton at Home and Arcon Boards are accountable to their tenants for our overall performance, with the day-to-day running of Bolton at Home and Arcon delegated to their respective management teams.

In April 2022 we introduced one Board covering both Bolton at Home and Arcon Housing associations, with the same membership on each board, thereby working in close partnership and providing value for money in terms of an effective and efficient governance structure.

The current makeup of the Board including our co-optees is:

64% Male, 36% Female.

90% White, 10% Asian or British Asian.

9% aged 20-29, 9% aged 30-39, 64% aged 50-59, 9% aged 60-69 and 9% 70+.

There are also committees which cover audit and risk, governance, people development, and operations. The Operations Committees monitor how Bolton at Home and Arcon deliver core landlord services and committee members include customers.

For more information about our board and appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of the organisation see www.boltonathome.org.uk/about-the-board