Chief Executive's Statement

At settle our purpose is to help people who are struggling to find a place to live, for our customers to stay in their homes comfortably, so that they can live the lives they choose. Throughout the year, as we have all been affected one way or another by the pandemic, this purpose seems as relevant as ever.

It has also been a year that has made me incredibly proud to be settle’s Chief Executive. I have been in awe of the way in which colleagues have continued to deliver services and supported our customers. Whether focusing on vulnerable residents, delivering core services or supporting colleagues’ wellbeing, the response of settle to the pandemic is one we can all be extremely proud of. We also ensured that we carried on doing business; the numbers for 2020/21 demonstrated to me that not only did we do the right thing but we did things right.

Listening to our customers is absolutely central to how we work at settle. Throughout the year, we have adapted our usual approaches to ensure that we can continue to build our services around what our customers are telling us is important. Every three months the whole business is involved in getting feedback from customers through our ‘Big Check In’. Whether on the phone or in person nothing beats meeting residents and talking to them about how they feel about settle. What are the services really like, do they feel respected and heard.

As a direct result we have increased investment into our communal spaces as well as making changes to the way in which we manage repairs. But there is more to do – we need to ensure that residents feel confident and comfortable to tell us what it is really like so that we can work with them to make the improvements that mean we provide the best possible services, homes and neighbourhoods.

We supplement customer engagement with being data-led and have continued to invest in our systems that enable us to generate richer insight and analysis from the data we hold. This will underpin our developing Neighborhood Model – an approach that will see services being demand-led and a wider focus on the neighbourhood whether that is green spaces, sense of community or improving life outcomes for residents.

Throughout the year, we have maintained a strong focus on ensuring that our homes are safe and comfortable. Despite the challenges of lockdown, we were still able to invest £3.8m into our existing homes. We have plans to accelerate our investment in homes and this is built into our long-term financial plans.

There continues to be a housing crisis across the country where there are insufficient affordable properties being built. We have remained committed to playing our share in solving this crisis with 172 homes being delivered; with many development sites being closed during the first phase of the pandemic this number is inevitably lower than we had originally planned.

Our strategic ambition is to have delivered 1500 homes by 2024; we remain on track to achieve these ambitions and I have been really pleased to see our pipeline of committed properties grow to 955 with many more already identified. This underlines the demand for the properties we are building and the growing reputation that settle has as a ‘partner of choice’ in our localities.

Our successful delivery has been underpinned by our strong financial position. You will see throughout this report that we are a well-run business with good financial metrics and the capacity to be ambitious for the future. This was reinforced by the investor roadshow that we carried out during the year. Interest in settle was high and we were delighted to secure a £75m private placement with Aviva that helps fund the next stage of our development programme.