Welcome to my latest blog as Chair of Community Gateway’s Board.
Firstly, thank you to all the members who joined us at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Saturday 12th September and to those of you who voted in advance if you weren’t able to attend.
It was great to see so many of you taking the opportunity to speak to staff about the services CGA provides. I know you had plenty of questions, as did I and I hope you found the conversations useful and informative.
I would also like to thank you all for your continued support. All of the formal business at the AGM was approved, and I’m personally grateful to have been re-elected as a Board member for a further three-year term. Please be in no doubt that I will continue to hold the organisation to account and work hard on behalf of our tenants throughout my remaining time on the Board.
If you would like to find out more about the work we have been doing over the past year, I would encourage you to read the latest Annual Report and watch the update on the Community Empowerment Strategy.
You will recently have heard that CGA has been awarded a C1 grading for Consumer Standards by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). This sits alongside the G1 (Governance) and V1 (Viability) gradings awarded in July 2025. This means CGA now holds the highest possible regulatory gradings for governance, financial viability and consumer standards.
We are delighted to achieve a C1 grading from the regulator. It is independent recognition of the hard work and commitment shown across the organisation to provide safe, quality homes and services, strengthen outcomes and most importantly, ensure tenants remain at the heart of everything CGA does.
Those of you who attended the AGM will have heard me highlight a couple of opportunities for tenants to get involved and help shape and influence the homes and services CGA provide.
We are currently recruiting tenants to join our Homes and Services Committee. This Committee plays an important role in supporting the Board by overseeing the performance of key customer-facing services, including our repairs and maintenance service. Joining the Committee could also be a great opportunity for anyone who may aspire to become a Tenant Board Member in the future.
We are also looking for tenants to join the Tenant Voice Group, helping to make sure that tenants' views are listened to and acted upon. If you would like to find out more about either of these opportunities, please visit www.communitygateway.co.uk/homes-and-services-tenant-voice
Turning to our Board meeting on 17th September, we received our latest quarterly performance updates, which gives us a full picture of CGA’s operations, including financial management, risk and health and safety compliance.
Our Audit & Risk and Homes & Services Committees had recently reviewed and scrutinised their respective areas of responsibility and the Board was assured to see strong performance across the vast majority of our key performance indicators.
We also recognised that maintaining positive trends in performance is important. While overall performance remains strong, we are continuing to focus on a small number of areas where improvements are needed.
The Homes & Services Committee’s report also enabled the Board to approve the 2025/26 Complaints and Service Improvement Report which you can read here.
We received a further update on the delivery of our Treasury Strategy, including the progress made in securing a new financial borrowing facility, as reported in my last blog. This is an important part of ensuring CGA continues to manage its finances responsibly and has the financial capacity to deliver its priorities.
We also received updates on our Homes Development Programme and our People and Culture services. Following the approval of the Community Empowerment Strategy at the AGM, we were also given a further update on the community activities taken place over the last few months.
The meeting also welcomed Mick Higgins, Chair of our subsidiary, Preston Vocational Centre. The centre provides high-quality construction-based vocational training and pastoral support to young people and adults. Mick provided an update on the Centre’s recent activities and the Board also approved its business plan for 2026–2031.
At the time of writing, we are heading into what I hope will be a beautiful few weeks of autumn. It’s a great time of year to get out and enjoy some of those fabulous autumn colours.
I’ll be writing again with a pre-Christmas message, but in the meantime, I hope you all stay safe and well.