15 minutes with… Julie Wittich, executive director of assets and sustainability at Accent

What changes have been made and what are your plans?

[We didn’t have] the right contracts in place so we’ve changed the way that we’ve contracted. We’ve got so much to do and we know if we don’t get the basics right, we’ve got no chance. I’ve worked in housing for more than 30 years. I love it – it’s my passion.

I’m really quite appalled by some of the stuff that you see on the news in the sector – there’s absolutely no reason for that. We have got the funds to do repairs, we do collect rent – we should be doing it properly. In my experience, what our residents want is for us to keep our side of the bargain.

We look at our data in terms of things that could turn into disrepair, damp and mould, and we run reports to check on repairs that have been reported in that way.

But I go back to my point: what I want to do is sort our service out so we don’t have disrepair. Because we shouldn’t have disrepair; nobody should have to complain to us that their property is in such a poor state because we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

One of the things I’m really excited about is we’re going to have a technical repairs hub at Accent. Instead of having a kind of one-stop shop contact centre, we’re actually going to take it back and have a physical, technical hub in our eastern region where we’re going to train the customer advisors just in repairs.

They will do repairs diagnosis, they’ll learn about decarbonisation and about talking to people about fuel poverty. We should be going live with it later this year.

It’s about going back to basics. A lot of organisations have moved away from it and I just think we’ve de-skilled as a sector. I’ve recruited at a very senior level somebody who’s technically very good as director of property. She’s coming in to look at responsive and planned repairs.

One of the things that I’m trying to do is recruit and bring in some additional skills. I’d like us to have some trainee surveyors – so we’ll start a programme in September.

What is Accent doing around decarbonisation?

I want all of the surveyors and all of the project managers trained [in decarbonisation] so that whenever they go out to do specs it should all be business as usual. 

We can only spend our pound once, we have to make sure we spend it in the wisest way. 

Our response to zero carbon has to be something that we just do, because I think we talk ourselves into a problem sometimes in housing. We create this massive issue, and we don’t actually do anything about it because we’re so busy talking about how we are going to pay for it and actually, we could be doing some stuff.

For example, we could be putting extra insulation in lofts when properties are void.

If we’re really pragmatic and sensible with our approach, we can be so much more efficient.

We’ve got two pilots at the moment - we got some Social Housing Decarbonisation funding this year - one in Bradford and Surrey Heath. We’re at the design phase of those and they will be full house retrofit. 

We do stock condition surveys - but I think we need to talk to our residents. Ask them ‘what’s it like to live in your property?’ Are there cold spots? Do you get a draft? How do your windows perform? Who knows better than our residents? That’s something I want to include in our surveys going forward. 

What will be the biggest obstacles for Accent over the next year?

We really need to win back trust and confidence and the only way of doing that is by making proper changes that people can feel. In every interaction you have, it’s about doing what you say you’re going to do and if you can’t, telling people. Communication is just the most important thing.

I’d also like us to be an employer of choice – for people to go and work for Accent because they train you really well, they expect high standards, they’ve got values.