ACHA staff praised for ‘normal’ service throughout pandemic

Staff at a social housing landlord have been praised for maintaining a normal service to tenants despite the 2020 pandemic.

Argyll Community Housing Association is Scotland’s eighth largest housing association and provides more than 5,000 affordable homes for rent, equivalent to more than 10 per cent of the population of Argyll and Bute.

Jim Milne MBE, the outgoing chairman, praised the workforce in the recently-published annual landlord report 2019-20.

Mr Milne wrote: ‘Every staff member from the chief executive Alastair MacGregor down has endeavoured to maintain as normal a service as possible given the restrictions placed on them.

‘I have been proud to have been your chairman during this period and been humbled by the efforts made by the staff, many ‘over and above’, to keep a safe roof over the heads of our tenants.’

He added: ‘We will come through this crisis, but the way ACHA operates will probably be different.

‘It would be wrong to speculate on the future at this moment in time.’

At ACHA’s annual general meeting in September, Mr Milne bowed out from the chairmanship after five years in the role and handed over to councillor Roddy McCuish.

Alastair MacGregor, ACHA’s chief executive, said of the report: ‘We are always pleased when we meet or exceed our targets but that doesn’t mean we are relaxing our efforts to provide the best service for our tenants and stakeholders.’

He said a major focus for the association is energy efficiency and tackling fuel poverty.

Figures for 2019-20 show that a total of £56.9m passed through ACHA during the financial year. There was £26m of income, the bulk of which was £22.5 million from rents, with grants worth £2.7m and other income amounting to £800,000.

The report said: ‘Over the year, we paid out £30.9 million.

‘Of this, £16.3m was spent on the existing houses, £9.8m through the investment programme and £6.5m on repairs and maintenance.

‘We spent £7.3m on services and running the organisation, £3.4m was paid out on building new houses, there is £2m of other costs and we paid £1.9m of interest on loans we have borrowed.’

Nearly 90 per cent of tenants feel rents they pay are good value for money – higher than the Scottish national average.

ACHA has houses across 11 islands and in every major settlement, employing around 200 staff.