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Tenant Voice - Spotlight Sessions

Our Spotlight sessions allow tenants to come along and shine a light on individual services. These interactive sessions provide tenants with an overview of how we deliver each service, along with performance information so they can hold us to account and allow them to give us their views on potential changes to the service.

Sessions so far have already made recommendations for service improvements, these include:

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Recommendation: when we post a card to a tenants whose garden is not well maintained, we should include information on how they can ask for help if they are struggling.

Action: we updated our cards to include a contact number for tenants who might need support.

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Recommendation: we need to raise tenants' awareness on how to report anti-social behaviour (ASB).

Action: we are carrying out days of action to help raise awareness of reporting processes. We also put more information on our website and created a 'Your Guide to ASB Reporting' that sets out clearly how tenants can report ASB.

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Recommendation: more information about local services would help new tenants settle into their homes and communities.

Action: we updated our handouts given to tenants at sign-up to include this information.

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Recommendation: share Health and Safety messages on the rent statements.

Action: we will use our rent statements to share any key Health and Safety messages as and when required.

So far, Spotlight Sessions have looked at the following areas:

Keeping you safe in your community

This session allowed tenants to gain an insight into the work we do to keep them safe in their communities. This included the processes we follow and how tenants can raise anti-social behaviour concerns with us. Our Tenancy Services Team shared their current priorities, including an overview of our safeguarding service and the partnership work we undertake to support tenants. Current performance information was shared, along with how we have worked with tenants to improve the service.

Tenants were able to take part in short consultation activities, giving us feedback on the cards we give out when we have a concern about the condition of a garden, or when someone is causing anti-social behaviour. The group also shared with us what a ‘good neighbour’ looks like to them and supported the proposal for us to bring in a good neighbour agreement. Updated letters which are sent by the team were also shared at the meeting - tenants were asked to review and give us feedback on them.

If you missed the session and would like to give us feedback on any of the items discussed, you can take part in our online survey here.

Keeping you safe in your home

This session provided tenants with key information on how we keep their homes safe and well maintained through our safety checks, including gas and electric along with our ongoing maintenance programme. Our Gas Manager shared how the team has worked to improve performance to achieve 100% of gas checks completed on time. We also raised awareness on how tenants can keep themselves safe in their homes.

Our Health and Safety Manager shared our approach to Health and Safety and gathered tenants' views to help shape our Health and Safety policy. Tenants also shared ideas on how we can improve the way we communicate key messages, including doorstep safety campaigns and adding information to rent statements.

We want to hear from more tenants around this important area, to give us your views click here to complete our short survey.

Clean and green communities

Our Greencare and Environmental Services Team shared with tenants how the team operate, including how they prioritise workload to ensure our communities are clean and green. Compliment and complaint information was shared with the group who were pleased to see so many tenants happy with the service received.

Tenants were able to ask their own questions, which included questions around trees and fly tipping, increasing tenants’ knowledge of what they can expect from the service. Tenants at the session were asked a serious of questions around the service and we are now asking more tenants to give us their views through this short survey here.

By working with tenants, we were able to establish priority areas and took on board feedback that each community has different needs, depending on the communal spaces there. For example, those with lots of green spaces chose grass cutting as their number one priority, whereas those that had more paved spaces prioritised litter picking and external maintenance. The group felt strongly about community development and were keen to see us work more closely with communities to improve their appearance. All these things will be considered through our Community Investment work going forward.

Allocations

This session guided tenants though our allocations process, sharing with them how we provide homes for those in need, along with updates on current wait times and changes to the Select Move policy which will affect the priority banding for those on the waiting list. When the new policy is implemented, 50% will be advertised to band A, 30% to band B and 20% to band C. This does not include the 25% we can allocate ourselves. Attendees had a good discussion around this subject and were able to ask any questions they had.

The team shared copies of the information we hand out at sign up and attendees were able to make suggestions for additional items to be shared to help new tenants settle into their homes and communities. Suggestions included sharing information on local transport and medical practices.

We'd love more views on our allocations process, which you can give us via this short survey here