Across the Board – November 2025 update

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

As the year starts to rush to a conclusion and we all adjust to colder weather and longer hours of darkness, Connect remains busy on many fronts; so our November board meeting, and all day seminar for board members, had lots on the agenda.

Diane French, Chair

As a Housing Association, we are regulated by the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) and every three-to-four years they come and do a full inspection to supplement the information they collect on us each year. We are then allocated a grade against each of the standards they set for us, which are: Governance, Viability and Consumer.

This is the first time the consumer standards will receive a rating and that’s due to changes which were made after the tragedy of the Grenfell fire. Our inspection is happening now – November and December – and that means we have sent 99 documents to the Regulator and three of the regulators came to watch our November board meeting. Those of you that work with us on the Customer Voice Group know that the regulators also watched that meeting in November and met with our involved tenants afterwards without staff present.

Being part of the inspection process is a lot of work for senior staff and those that support them, but as a board we welcome any feedback that makes us better so we try to see regulation in the same way.

At the board meeting we heard a customer story about a new kitchen being put into a supported living scheme and how we involved tenants who are non-verbal to ensure the design worked for their needs. We talked about whether all the plans in our strategy are being delivered and, in particular, discussed our stock condition programme and our customer surveys. We know that filling in surveys and letting surveyors into you home is intrusive, but we undertake both because we are required to by our regulator, want to hear your feedback so we can improve, and so that we can ensure we keep your homes well maintained.

We also talked about development of new homes and reviewed lots of data on how the organisation is performing, for example in regards to repairs and safety, complaints, and finance. Board members have spent time with some of our front line teams and that gives us real insight into the frustrations they have sometimes with the systems, and the kind of feedback they get from you and the improvements we are making.

Finance and risk

We also talked about our strategies for how we work with others in partnership and how we borrow money through our Treasury strategy. We always talk about any risks the organisation is facing from the economy, the things we cannot control and internal factors which we can, and we discuss how we mitigate these risks.

We also think about the risks we will face as we plan our budget for the next years and how it might impact our business plan. We do this by running tests (stress tests) on the budget assumptions, for example, if interest rates rise or inflation rises – we have to make sure we know how we would respond to any shocks, as well as anything changing, so that we can protect the organisation and, in turn, your homes.

The most difficult decision we face each November is to agree the Rent and Service Charge policy and rent increase for 2026-27, because we know the impact this has on your lives and it is never a decision we take lightly. We are grateful for those involved tenants who reviewed this with us as well, because their feedback helped us in the board meeting.

In all board meetings we hear back from committees and working groups that have met. This time we got feedback from the Audit and Risk Management Committee and the Customer Experience Working Group, as well as two meetings of the Customer Voice Group.

Join our board

I hope these blogs give you a window into the work of the board at Connect. Next year we will be recruiting for new board members and we’d really love to get applications form our tenants so if that’s something you’d be interested in, or even interested in us working with you towards then please get in touch. We have developed a training programme for tenants and are always pleased for more people to get involved.

I wish all of you a very happy festive season and new year, and a happy Christmas to those that celebrate it.