Scotland Housing Awards winner 2023
Housing organisation of the year
Link Group is a group of social enterprise companies serving more than 15,000 customers – they are one of the largest social landlords in Scotland. They work to provide affordable housing, regeneration, advice, property management, financial inclusion and employability services for their tenants.
2022-2023 marked the 60th anniversary of Link working in communities across Scotland. Link was established by people who made it their mission to provide high quality accommodation and services to tenants and to address poverty and inequality.
What were you trying to achieve?
Simply providing housing is not enough to enable many people to sustain their tenancies and live well in their communities. In 2022/23, we launched Link’s first ‘Communities Strategy’ which was endorsed by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing, and Local Government, who commented:
“Housing Associations have a valuable role in supporting all people in their communities to live well locally. By placing the needs of their communities at the heart of everything they do I welcome this strategy and its ambition for all Link’s communities.”
What did you do?
We continue to broaden our portfolio of homes -in the year we completed the development of 1,040 new properties of which 974 were for social rent. This in turn has made us the largest developing housing association in the UK in the year. Separately we invested heavily in Edinburgh in support of the City of Edinburgh Council’s private sector leasing scheme, where we buy and renovate homes for letting under the Council’s homelessness duties – we now have more than 200 properties providing this critical service.
We believe it is important to hold ourselves to external scrutiny and we were the first registered social landlord (RSL) in Scotland to obtain the ‘Sustainable Housing Label’ certification from Ritterwald, a pan-European specialist housing consultancy. In March 2023, we received our third annual review and were delighted to be re-accredited and to achieve ‘Frontrunner’ status in the environment and social categories, and ‘Ambassador’ status for governance.
Link plays a lead role in helping to design the future of the sector. Our group CEO sits on the Scottish government ‘Task and Finish Group’ which led the sector response to ‘The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022’ and is also on the Scottish government’s task force on ‘Green Heat Finance’ as well as the committee looking into technical changes for Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing 2020 (EESSH2).
These groups help to shape how the sector responds to critical pressure points in the future including how homes across Scotland are de-carbonised. In addition, Link works closely with HACT to develop the Social Value reporting structures for the sector which will begin to clearly articulate the impact housing associations have daily in communities across the UK.
We recognise an understanding of the impacts of trauma on people and communities is essential in meeting our ambition to respond to customer needs and better support sustainable communities.
Trauma training not only helps improve our customer experience by equipping staff with the knowledge and skills to best respond to trauma, but it also helps to create a trauma-informed culture across the group which promotes staff wellbeing, improves our services, and ultimately supports wider recovery for staff and communities alike. In 2022/23, we commenced training for all our frontline teams (housing colleagues / repairs and maintenance tradesmen / gas and electrical servicing operatives) in trauma informed practice. This innovative approach to professional development is at the heart of our approach to investment in our people across Link.
Our Training and Employability Academy is run by the Link Group’s health and wellbeing charity, LinkLiving. Our Academy has been assessed as "High Confidence" by the Scottish Qualifications Authority for the last three years. This is the highest level of assessment and only 17 per cent of centres have achieved this, demonstrating that LinkLiving provide trauma informed learning opportunities designed to meet the needs of all our workforce.
What were the outcomes?
Link have supported tenants through the cost-of-living crisis and have worked in partnership with a number of agencies to help tenants.
- 420 staff trained through LinkLiving’s Skills Academy ensuring all Link’s frontline housing, property services and support staff are trauma informed.
- Our LinkGiving Trust distributed over £107,000 of crisis funding to 900 household assisting those most in need of help.
- Link have heavily invested in our tenancy support teams and coordinated the distribution of £120,000 to help with heating bills with £100 payments distributed to 1,200 tenants.
- The monetary gain for Link tenants in 2022/23 totals £1,77m, which is money that would not have otherwise be gained without the involvement of Link Advice Services staff.
- Link are very proud of our tenancy sustainment rate of 97.64 per cent in 2023, which clearly demonstrates our commitment to supporting tenants to continue to live in their homes.
- Link secured £275k from the Scottish Government Fuel Insecurity fund in October 2022. Staff worked tirelessly to distribute this fund to tenants. The money went towards educational literature, fuel costs and debt, winter warmer/energy efficient goods.
- Link are proud to mark Link’s 60th anniversary as the largest supplier of new build social rented homes in the UK.
