This week is National Social Housing Safety & Compliance Week, a campaign that recognises the importance of safety and compliance in the housing sector.
This year’s campaign is #TogetherforSafety which recognises that delivering safe homes is the result of a combination of hard work from our colleagues, suppliers, contractors, partners, and many more people and organisations who help us in creating great homes together.
The focus of the campaign is on four key strands and we’re working hard in each area to ensure that safety is a priority across the organisation.
Together with Customers
In partnership with Harmony, we’re fitting around 1,000 new fire doors this year. Harmony have been attending local coffee mornings, with some of our colleagues, to speak to our customers and answer any questions they might have to put them at ease with getting their new doors installed. Involving our customers and ensuring they know what’s going on is really important to us. We’ve received some great feedback from customers too - take a look at some of the testimonials here.
Together as a Sector
Stephanie Lloyd-Foxe, Head of Building Safety & Compliance at Magna, is passionate about all things fire safety. She and her team have been championing a fire-safe approach to the work that we do, and they’ve been active in attending various events and conferences across the sector this year to talk about the work we’re doing and why safety is so important.
Stephanie said: “It’s really important as a sector that we share knowledge and best practice. We have attended several events this year to highlight the work we have been doing at Magna to ensure the safety of our customers. I spoke last week at the Westminster Insights Conference about the importance of internal and external competence which contributes to a safety culture.”
Earlier in the year Chris Gribben, Electrical Services Manager at Magna, spoke at a South West HAMMAR event on the changes to the electrical regulations and how to ensure compliance and customer safety.
Our building safety and compliance team have been working harder than ever this year to make sure we conform to stringent new regulatory requirements around building safety in the sector. This has included changes to smoke alarm installations, safety information we provide to customers in blocks of flats, changes to electrical regulations, carrying out radon level monitoring and more.
There’s lots of other work that we continue to carry out to make sure our customers are safe such as electrical and gas checks and maintenance, managing and removing asbestos, maintaining lifts and more.
Together with Colleagues
We invest heavily in making sure that our colleagues have the right tools and skills to do their job to their best of their ability. Our building safety and compliance team is made up of subject matter experts who work with other teams across the organisation to inform safe and compliant work. We also offer extensive training and career development to keep our team up to date with the latest safety legislation.
Stephanie continued: “To ensure that all of our colleagues are aware of the role that they can play in keeping customers safe, we deliver training both internally and externally by way of accredited courses, CPD events and tool box talks. Ensuring customers are safe is everyone’s responsibility so it’s important that all our colleagues know what to look for and how to resolve any issues they might see.”
Together with the Authorities
Our building safety team have been working closely with Dorset and Wiltshire Fire Rescue Service.
They’ve attended a training day with the fire service where they learned about fire dynamics, techniques for tackling fires and fire prevention, as well as the practical use of fire extinguishers.
Having the opportunity for our colleagues to work so closely with the fire service is a privilege and has enabled them to get a first-hand look at how fire can quickly spread and arm themselves with a greater knowledge that can be used to educate and inform our customers.
Our colleagues have worked incredibly hard this past year to ensure our customers’ homes are safe and compliant. We’re proud to have such a passionate team who are dedicated to their goal of keeping our customers safe.
