Across the Board – May 2025 update

The latest update from our Chair, Diane French, about the May board meeting.

So, our May board was a very full agenda! Lots of papers to read and the board all work very hard to raise issues and questions in advance, as well as on the evening of the meeting.

Diane French, Chair

We always start with a customer or staff story and this time we heard a great story about the work of our Engage team. In the report from the Leadership team – which they provide each meeting to give us an overview of all the activity going on at Connect – the board was pleased to see more development opportunities and activity than we have for a while. It is important for us to keep building new homes, not just to house people in need, but also to ensure that we have a sustainable future.

We had a report on how delivery of the corporate strategy was going and noted lots of positive performance. The same report went to our involved customers who also confirmed good performance. We noted an update on Awaab’s Law and the implication for this coming into force, the board was pleased to hear that we have a good handle on managing damp and mould in line with the new law.

The board talked about the rent standard and approved the 30-year business plan which has to be updated and submitted to the regulator each year. We approved continuing with the Newsome Mill development and also the Treasury Strategy, and we reviewed the compliance report to check our health and safety standing alongside the annual report on health and safety.

Most importantly on the agenda, we reviewed a series of reports on our customer data – the results of our tenant satisfaction survey, our annual complaints report and a report which brings together lots of data to show us overall trends in how things are going.

We also had a series of usual performance reports on the fourth quarter of 2024/25 including a finance report. We heard feedback from our involved tenants and were glad to note that we are increasingly building the feedback loop between the board and our tenants.

So, as I say a very busy agenda – I’m grateful to everyone for the time and effort they put into Connect, an organisation I am so pleased to be a part of.