About Swan Housing

The year 2020-2021 has been an extraordinary one. As Swan continue to emerge, carefully, from the Covid-19 pandemic, at Swan we have taken the time to reflect on our response to these unprecedented times and to plan for a future where Swan as an organisation as well as our Customers, the Communities in which they live, our partners and our staff, can all thrive.

This introspection has enabled us, as a Board and Executive Team, to revisit Swan’s purpose, mission, and values. We have adopted a new Corporate Strategy as a result. We believe our new mission statement expresses exactly what we exist to do:

“To deliver brilliant customer care and great places to call home”

and that focus on customer care and great places to call home is central to everything Swan do.

As an organisation we have always sought to try to be creative and think differently and that ethos is now firmly embedded in our new purpose:

“To find better ways of doing things so that we can improve lives and communities. Every day.”

The new strategy was adopted in October 2020. This report sets out its key 7 Aims, which then form a golden thread running through our performance reporting herein. 

I am extremely pleased that, despite all of the challenges, there are some significant performance highlights this year. Our Income and Welfare Benefits teams have worked tirelessly to support residents to pay their rent and secure the benefits they need. This has resulted in the team achieving 2.2% current tenant arrears, helping our customers protect their home and delivering financial resilience for our business.

In partnership with Axis, we carried out over 30,000 repairs despite Covid-19 restrictions and continued to improve customer’s homes through our planned maintenance programme. Our Customer Engagement team made almost 5,000 calls to support residents who were isolated due to the Pandemic and our frontline services including Estates Services, NHS accommodation and our Care and Support team all worked tirelessly to support our residents in their homes and communities.

Although completions of new homes were expected to reduce this year due to our development cycle, our construction sites and modular housing factory remained operational throughout most of the year and the factory team built a module a day despite Covid-19 operational restrictions. We also secured planning permission for our Better Queensway Regeneration Scheme (which we are delivering through our Joint Venture with Southend-on-Sea Borough Council) and started on site on Phase 1 of our 2,850 home regeneration at Purfleet-on-Thames.

During my time as Chief Executive, we have seen exceptional growth in our ambitions and in our delivery, but the new Corporate Strategy with its emphasis on Financial Resilience and planning for the future including zero carbon, post -Brexit increased material and labour costs and building safety as well as the focus on Customer Trust as our Aim 1, will ensure Swan is prepared for its future.

I would like to thank you for your interest in joining me and the Executive Team and I look forward to reading your application.

John Synnuck