Significant welfare reform by the UK government will continue to pose extraordinarily difficult challenges for individuals and housing providers alike, Thenue Housing has warned.

Chair Owen Stewart and chief executive Charlie Turner sounded the warning at the Association’s well-attended AGM held in the Calton Heritage and Learning Centre last week.

Owen spoke of the successes of the past year notably the momentous achievement of creating brand new homes at the former Commonwealth Games Athletes’ Village.

He told the meeting that the Association remained committed to its regeneration work and that Thenue was pleased to have had the second lowest rent increase across Glasgow.

In his remarks Charlie Turner said the Association was always striving for value for money but that welfare reform – running to £12 billion of cuts - continued to pose real challenges for individuals and families.

He said: “These are very significant cuts indeed which continue to have an impact on people’s lives. We are very clear however that we will always do our best to help residents in financial trouble.”

Charlie said that Thenue’s ongoing efforts to ensure more people were using the internet was bearing fruit - rising to 53 per cent of tenants now online compared to 40 per cent two years ago.

The Association’s “Smart Communities” initiative offering free support and guidance on using the internet and computers was undoubtedly contributing to that increase.

Charlie also pointed to a range of statistics gathered from a wide- ranging and independently-carried-out customer service survey which outlined a number of strengths which Thenue can be proud of.

Customer overall satisfaction stands at 89 per cent while approval of the repairs service was 93 per cent.

Customer contact was rated highly with 93 per cent of tenants saying it was easy to get hold of the right person and there was praise too for communication activity which hit 92 per cent.

Charlie added: “We will continue to place great emphasis on delivering value for money in everything we do.”

@ThenueHousing