Agenda item

To update Committee on the activities undertaken to communicate with our tenants. The Charter for Social Housing Residents was published by the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government on 17 November 2020. We welcomed the paper and its focus on resident voice and influence, placing a greater emphasis on enhancing two-way communication with our tenants, to achieve greater accountability to residents.

The Cabinet Member of Housing and Property introduced the report that outlined communication with tenants across the Council.

It was confirmed that ‘The Big Listen Survey’ had taken place, where a good response rate was received from 1723 tenants and the overall satisfaction was 72%. The feedback from the survey was under review and issues raised were being addressed. 

The transactional satisfaction system, ‘Rant and Rave’ was also in operation. The current performance satisfaction was 4.5 out of 5, from 547 completed surveys.

Further events and engagement were to be arranged. The Housing Working Group were hoping to incorporate tenant’s liaison to strengthen communication between tenants and landlord.

Skyline is an effective publication for updating all tenants and providing satisfaction including compliance updates and landlord performance. It was suggested that the ‘Entitled To’ website be included in the next publication to benefit housing tenants to access and utilise.

The Housing Management System was due to go live in April 2023. The system would be more transparent and easier to manage. It was noted that another system for corporate assets would be explored to work in conjunction with the new Housing Management System in the future.

Members congratulated the team for their engagement with tenants.

It was queried as to why an engagement session at Greyfriars, Grantham had not taken place.

The Assistant Director of Housing confirmed that the session was due to be scheduled.

Concern was raised regarding repairs of external doors at Manners Street, Grantham. It was further confirmed that this issue would be addressed urgently.

It was queried as to why the Skyline reports for summer 2022 were not available on the Council’s website.

One Member suggested that the resident satisfaction survey be repeated. It was noted that 1/3 of tenants who had received repair or maintenance works from the Council were unsatisfied with the service, therefore, the satisfaction targets were requested.

The Assistant Director for Housing highlighted that the Skyline reports were requested at the time of publication to be uploaded to the website, however, would be investigated.

It was confirmed that satisfaction surveys were scheduled to be repeated once every two years to monitor progress and to measure improvements.

The Regulator for Social Housing had relaunched their 12 satisfaction measures (standard questions) which were included in a survey, which are to be completed every year.

It was noted that the Skyline report results did not match the ‘Rant and Rave’ feedback from completed repairs. The Council had undertaken works with unsatisfied tenants, it was highlighted that the dissatisfaction had been around waiting times for repairs. It was confirmed that the goal for total customer satisfaction would be 75%-80%.

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Property thanked colleagues in the Repairs and Improvements Team.

It was suggested that time measures for repairs be put into place to distinguish timeframes for competition of kitchens bathrooms or building works. The Housing Management System would provide this feature.

Clarification was sought on the dissatisfaction figures.

Hard copies of the Skyline reports were available at the meeting.

That the Committee:

1. Notes the contents of this report and the progress made by the Housing and Property directorate to improve and embed the importance of communication to our tenants in line with the Social Housing White Paper.