Welcome to the Autumn edition of our ezine with news and updates from Cottsway’s Communities Team. The weather has changed and the nights are drawing in, but on the bright side it’s nearly the shortest day!
Scam awareness Back in September, over 20 Cottsway staff attended a workshop held by Friends Against Scams. We’re all aware of the risk of scams, whether we’re online or not, but this session was a real eye-opener with lots of hints and tips on what to look out for and how to avoid being scammed. Visit their website for lots of useful information and advice. Carterton Area Engagement Plan 2023-25 Thanks to the 50+ Cottsway customers who live in the OX18 post code area for responding to our local area survey earlier this year. We’ve collated the results and have used them to write a new Engagement Plan for the Carterton area. Supporting local schools Every year we grant fund the Children's Safety Education Foundation so they can provide schools within our catchment area with much needed resources to support extra-curricular learning.
With support from our partners Travis Perkins Managed Services, we’re really pleased to be supporting two primary schools and one secondary school this year: - Our Lady of Lourdes, Witney and St Mary’s Primary School, Chipping Norton: will receive resources for their year 6 pupils who will soon be starting at secondary school. They will benefit from the ‘Respect’ programme which helps young people to engage with issues around drug and alcohol abuse, gun and knife crime, gang culture, peer pressure and more.
- The Henry Box School, Witney: will receive learning materials to support 300 pupils aged 11-16 to learn about financial literacy with the ‘Money Wise’ programme, a topic not covered in the National Curriculum.
Consultation on the new consumer standards Thanks to everyone who responded to our recent consultation on the Regulator for Social Housing’s (RSH) proposed new service standards for social landlords. It wasn’t the most exciting of topics, but we were really pleased to receive some well thought through responses.
We added these to the responses we received from our staff and Board members when feeding back to the RSH. Overall, stakeholders agreed that the proposed standards are a move in the right direction and will lead to tenants of social housing living in “safe, quality homes, having choice and protection and being able to hold landlords to account.”
The RSH is now considering the results of their nationwide consultation and is expected to replace the existing standards in April 2024. How are we performing? Our latest quarterly customer survey took place in August. Independent market research agency, Acuity contacted a random selection of 250 customers to get their views on a range of services using questions published by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). These are known as Tenant Satisfaction Measures and this time next year the RSH will publish the 2023/24 results for all social housing landlords on their website so you will be able to see how well we are performing compared to others. In the meantime, you can read our latest results online: Oxford Christmas Day Lunch If you live in Oxfordshire, The Oxford Christmas Lunch is offering a free 3-course meal cooked with food that would otherwise have gone to waste from 12.30 - 4pm on Christmas Day. The event takes place at The Kings Centre, Osney OX2 0ES and transport can be provided. To book a place and transport, or to volunteer, contact Sara: Food bank referrals
Since our last ezine in early September we have made almost 60 referrals to local food banks. If you need a referral, please contact us and we will do our best to help. Help Oxfordshire stand out from the crowd Oxfordshire County Council are conducting a survey to find out what Oxfordshire is like as a place to live, work, visit and do business – they also want your ideas about what opportunities there may be for Oxfordshire in the next 10 years. To take part and have your say, see: Cottsway Community Fund Since April, we have gifted ten community projects and two customers grants totalling over £20,000 from our Community Fund. To find out more about who has been grant aided, and how you can apply for funding, see: And finally, a few quick links if you’re interested... | 
