What is the Housing, Anti-social Behaviour and Enforcement Team?

We believe that residents are entitled to live in well-managed homes where they feel good about themselves and their communities.  We are committed to taking clear steps to deal effectively with anti-social behaviour, nuisance and harassment so that residents can live in a comfortable and safe environment.

Our dedicated Housing, Anti-social Behaviour and Enforcement Team (HASBET) aims to tackle and reduce anti-social behaviour by supporting victims and taking action against those who cause problems for their neighbours.

Click here to find out more about anti-social behaviour and HASBET

What can I expect from the service?

• When you contact the Housing, Anti-social Behaviour and Enforcement Team to report anti-social behaviour, we start an investigation within a set time (see ‘Response times’ below). We have a service standard for achieving these response times.
• After we have investigated your complaint, we will:
  - tell you about any action we have taken to deal with the problem; or
  - tell you why we are not able to take action.
• If we need you to fill in diary sheets to record incidents, we will explain how you must do this. At first we will ask you to keep the diary sheets for no more than five working days. After this time we will review them with you. If they are useful, we may ask you to continue.
• We will not reveal your identity unless you agree that we can.
• We will contact you regularly to keep you up to date with the steps we are taking to deal with your complaint. We will do this by letter, e-mail or phone, or by visiting you. We will agree with you how regular the contact will be.
• We will write to you and tell you the name of the housing enforcement officer who will deal with your case.
• We will take the lead, and work with other agencies, to deal with problems. Examples of other agencies are the Social Services, public health, street wardens and the police.
• We will tell you what support we and other agencies can give you. Examples of other agencies are Victim Support and mediation.
• We understand that you may not feel able to give evidence in court. If this happens, we will try to use the evidence that other people, such as housing officers and street wardens, have gathered. We will discuss what this means with you.
• If you are willing to be a witness and give evidence at court, we will give you support before, during and after any legal proceedings.
• We will ask you to fill in a satisfaction feedback form after your complaint has been investigated. This will help us to continue to improve and develop our procedures.

Response times

We put all incidents of anti-social behaviour reported to us in categories according to their seriousness, and investigate the most serious as a priority. If an incident is made up of several different types of anti-social behaviour, our staff will treat the most serious part of the complaint first.

Category 1– response the next working day
This is for the most serious types of anti-social behaviour.

• Verbal abuse, harassment, intimidation, threatening behaviour
• Hate-related incidents (based on a person’s sex, race, sexuality, disability, religion or age)
• Drugs, substance misuse, drug dealing
• Domestic violence, abuse
• Other physical violence
• Abuse and threats to staff

Category 2 – response within three working days

• Noise
• Vandalism and damage to property
• Alcohol-related incidents
• Prostitution, sexual acts, kerb-crawling
• Other criminal behaviour

Category 3 – response within five working days

• Pets and animal nuisance
• Nuisance from vehicles
• Litter, rubbish, fly-tipping
• Garden nuisance
• Misuse of shared areas and public space, loitering

Our service standards

• We will always send you details of our Victim Support Officer. We aim to do this within five working days for 99% of our customers.
• We will contact you within the following times to offer a face-to-face interview, or an interview by phone or by e-mail if you would prefer. The timescales are based on how serious the anti-social behaviour is.
  • The next working day if the anti-social behaviour is very serious.
  • Within three working days if the anti-social behaviour is serious but does not need an immediate response.
  • Within five working days for less serious types of anti-social behaviour.
• We will always contact the person you say has carried out the anti-social behaviour. We aim to do this within five working days of the timescales above for 97% of our customers. We will only do this with your permission. In certain circumstances, it may not be appropriate to contact them and we will explain the reasons for this to you.
• We will always send you a customer satisfaction form. We aim to do this within five working days of closing a complaint for 99% of our customers.

Click here to download a full copy of the Housing Anti-social Behaviour and Enforcement Team Service Standards

Local offers

Local offers are commitments that have been designed by tenants to improve housing services.  We talked to lots of tenants to find out what is most important to them to help us improve. Two of our local offers for 2012-2013 will be delivered by HASBET:

• Click here to see the local offers for 2012/13 >>