Merry Christmas from Sarah Jones

In her 2022 Christmas message Anchor's Chief Executive, Sarah Jones takes the opportunity to highlight some of our achievements and say thank you to colleagues, residents, relatives and the whole Anchor family for their continued hard work through what has been another challenging year

Hello everyone.

Well it's my ninth Christmas here at Anchor which I can't believe although I know I've got a long way to catch up with a lot of you out there.

But of course it's my first as Chief Executive.

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to say an enormous thank you to all of the residents, colleagues and partners that have worked tirelessly throughout the year to help make Anchor a place where people love to live and work.

It's been another tough 12 months hasn't it.

With the ongoing demands of coronavirus being joined by cost of living challenges just as we thought the coronavirus was receding but we've continued to focus on efficiency in Anchor because we're a not for profit organisation so being as efficient as we can be that means we can offer the best value for money for residents reinvest back into our existing services, develop new services and of course ensure Anchor is a great place to work with all opportunities for colleagues that we can afford.

We're also supporting residents directly through these challenging times and it's actually the 10th anniversary this year of our wonderful BeWise service which provides information to residents on claiming benefits that they're entitled to and on getting the best energy deals and in the last financial year alone that left residents around £4.4 million pounds better off than they would have otherwise have been so that team plays a hugely important role for us and we know that their services will be valued more than ever in the coming year.

Of course it's really important for us to invest in our colleagues as well and I'm really pleased that our commitment to supporting colleagues made us the first Care and Housing provider to be accredited by the Living Wage Foundation which was a very very proud moment for us and of course we help colleagues in many other ways as well and you can find all of those details on about wellbeing and other support on our Anchor beingwell.co.uk website.

So I'm really proud that despite all the challenges that we face this year we've seen some real successes in the business so we've maintained the highest possible ratings from the regulator of social housing as a G1 and V1.

We've maintained our A+ stable credit rating from Standard and Pause.

We're growing by developing new housing and of course buying new care homes.

Most recently the 11 Halcyon care homes so a very big welcome again to all of the colleagues from those homes and that makes us now the fourth largest care provider in the country.

We've also worked very hard to make all of our locations a great place to live with a variety of ways supporting residents well-being and of course we don't achieve this on our own as all of us but alongside that we owe thanks to our residents council, the scrutiny panel, many other residents for giving time and commitment to make sure that residents voices constantly inform everything that we do for Anchor and how we do it and of course the many partners and local authorities that we work with as well.

I've spent lot of the last six months visiting Anchor locations across the country.

I'm going to squeeze in as many as I can across the Christmas period as well and it's always an interesting, enlightening, and often joyful experience to do that and it's always an honor to spend time with residents and colleagues on those visits.

And what strikes me whenever I go on a visit is that shared commitment to do the right thing for our residents which underpins everything we do.

So a particular thank you to all of the colleagues who work tirelessly to provide a safe, welcoming and enrichment home for our residents to live in.

I'm sure that 2023 will bring lots more opportunities to celebrate and champion our residents and our colleagues and bring our services to more people.

So I wish you all a very very happy festive period over 2022 and all the very best for the New Year.