Agenda item

The Director of Housing and Projects presented the report which updated the Committee on the results from the annual Tenant Satisfaction Measures Survey.  The survey was a mandatory requirement placed on Social Landlords by the Regulator of Social Housing to comply with Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard of the Social Housing Regulation Act 2022.  The results of the survey were submitted to the Regulator who published an annual report which analysed the results for social landlords with 1,000 or more homes.  

The survey allowed tenants to scrutinise the Council’s performance, provided information on where services could be improved and provided information to the Regulator regarding how far the Council was meeting the outcomes of the consumer standards.

The survey had been undertaken by Acuity on behalf of the Council and contained 12 mandatory questions which ensured that the Regulator had consistent data from all landlords to enable benchmarking to be undertaken.

The online survey commenced on 28 October 2024 for two weeks and the telephone survey commenced on 11 November 2024 for three weeks.   The results of the survey were outlined at Table 1 at paragraph 2.25 of the report and were compared with the previous year 2024/25.  549 complete responses had been received which was comparable with the previous year.  

There had been a 7% increase in the proportion of respondents who reported that they were satisfied that their landlord makes a positive contribution to their neighbourhood and an 8% increase that they were satisfied with their landlords’ approach to handling anti-social behaviour. It was confirmed that a lot of work had been carried out by Tenancy Services in respect of anti-social behaviour.  There had also been a 14% increase in the proportion of respondents who reported that they were satisfied with their landlords’ approach to complaints handling.   It was stated that a lot of work had been carried out in respect of complaint handling with significant improvements being made.  The Committee were referred to Table 2 of the report and the recommendations and actions highlighted in respect of:

·       Review how complaints are dealt with

·       Property Maintenance

·       Customer Service and Communication

It was confirmed that a Tenant Engagement and Improvement Plan would be coming to a future meeting of the Committee.  Appendix A to the report detailed the results of the survey and these had been uploaded to the website.

Members discussed the responses to the survey and it was noted the responses appeared worse then they were due to the number of responses received, those who had issues were more likely to complete the survey.

A question was asked about the sample taken and it was stated that the sample was representative of the tenants on the data base.

The Cabinet Member for Housing referred to the dedicated housing team that was currently in place and the work undertaken.  She reiterated that complaints should be made through the correct process but for Members to contact her if there were any issues with a complaint to see if it could be addressed before the Ombudsman was involved as an official complaint took up a considerable amount of officer time and both herself, the Director of Housing and Projects and the Head of Service (Housing) were available to contact if there were issues with a complaint.   

A question was asked if there was an incentive to fill in the survey to which it was replied that there were vouchers for various amounts, £250, £100 and £25, winners were randomly picked by computer.

Members noted the report.