Chair's Statement

I am pleased to introduce these financial statements, which look back on the first year of delivering Settle’s new plan to 2030.

Our 2030 plan outlines clear priorities and commitments shaped by what we know is important to residents. Central to this is Settle’s commitment to be relentlessly resident focused. This has been a guiding thread across all of Settle’s work this year, as we continue to balance the priorities of being a great landlord, providing good quality homes and playing our part in meeting housing need.

Throughout the year that we are reporting on, between April 2024 and March 2025, we have continued to see ongoing political, economic, and regulatory changes. We welcome the overarching aims of the changes designed to improve the quality and supply of social housing.

The priority for the Board and I during the past year has continued to focus on working with the Executive Team and colleagues to ensure the organisation understands the requirements, potential impact and has appropriate responses in place to deliver the best possible outcomes for residents, communities and the partners we work with.

We started the year with the introduction of a new proactive consumer regulation regime introduced by our Regulator and a new statutory Complaint Handling Code introduced by the Housing Ombudsman. Colleagues across Settle had been preparing for these changes for some time and met all of the requirements on us last year, as part of this publishing updates against the Tenant Satisfaction Measures and the new Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report as required at the end of June.

It is important that across the housing sector, these requirements drive an ongoing culture of continuous improvement, underpinned by hearing and responding to the voice of residents. This remains at the heart of our work at Settle. We had started early surveys against the Tenant Satisfaction Measures in August 2022, our Voice of the Resident Panel is now a well-established part of our governance structure and our Big Door Knock, now in its seventh year, continues to see colleagues across the organisation including members of the Board and Executive Team regularly get out into our neighbourhoods to hear directly from Settle residents.

We have also introduced new ways of hearing from residents during the past year to further strengthen our approach in this area. A real highlight for me has been welcoming two residents, Alex and Christopher, as Independent Members of the Operations Committee of our Board, fulfilling one of the commitments in our 2030 plan. Alex and Christopher were appointed following an extensive recruitment exercise open to all residents. They bring fantastic insight and experience to these roles and I am really looking forward to seeing their expertise help shape our work for all residents.

The feedback we receive from residents consistently highlights the importance of investing in the quality of existing homes and this remains a priority for the Board and I.

I am pleased to confirm that we spent £39.5m on this, continuing our higher levels of expenditure on repairs, maintenance and investment in homes supported by an active programme of stock condition surveys underpinning our knowledge of properties and the future investment needed.

We continue our focus on ensuring all homes reach EPC C by 2030. We completed the second year of works funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and are delighted to finish the year having been offered a grant of over £10m through the Warmer Homes Wave 3 funding.

The Board have made a longstanding, firm commitment that no Settle resident should live with ongoing damp or mould in their home. Colleagues working to resolve cases of damp and mould in properties continued to make significant progress during the year. We estimate that over 20% of Settle homes have already had works completed to rectify damp and mould in their properties. We welcomed the announcement from the Government in February on plans for the implementation of Awaab’s Law and the Board will continue to ensure the systems and processes are in place to meet all requirements.

We remain committed to increasing the supply of affordable homes in the areas in which we work. During the past year we delivered 242 new homes. All of the homes were for affordable rent, social rent or shared ownership. We spent over £43m on these new homes and continue to maintain a strong development pipeline, currently at 857 homes. Developments completed last year included new homes in Central Bedfordshire, at Gravenhurst and Houghton Regis, in Cheshunt through our partnership with Chalkdene Developments, and in North Hertfordshire including in the village of Ickleford on the outskirts of Hitchin.

Regeneration remains an important part of our commitment to invest in new and existing homes. I am pleased to see the progress that has been made in Hitchin and Letchworth Garden City, working directly and through strong partnerships with local stakeholders.

Our work on the regeneration of John Barker Place in Hitchin has been a personal highlight for me. One of the earliest visits I made as Chair at Settle was to the first phase building whilst this was still under construction. I was delighted to see at that early stage the work involving local school children and members of the community in shaping the development. The success of regeneration schemes like this relies on longterm commitment and ensuring residents are involved at every stage. It has been great to see such positive feedback from partners and residents following completion of the second phase this year, and to close out this reporting period having secured planning permission for the third phase of this development.

Our ability to invest in new and existing homes requires financial strength underpinned by certainty of income. This is shown during 2024/25 with a financial surplus of £13.4m and an operating margin of 30.1%

We are completing these financial statements shortly after announcements made by the government as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review. We welcome the additional support for social housing, including details of the 10-year rent settlement and additional grant funding. These are vital to our work, enabling us to plan with more certainty and ensure we are in a better position to deliver on our priorities.