Happy New Year to all our readers! We hope you enjoyed a wonderful festive period.
As 2024 came to a close, the Salford Community Voice group held its final meeting of the year.
I’m pleased to share the latest update, covering the key discussions from our most recent meeting.
Our group is made up of myself and other involved tenants from the Salford area. We work closely with ForHousing to address issues impacting our neighbourhood and signpost challenges with partners when it’s needed.
We understand that tenants, like me and you, want to have our voices heard and be able to influence what happens in our homes and communities.
Please read on for the latest news from the December Community Voice update.
Janette Ball, Chair of Community Voice
The Community Voice meetings give us a platform for us to raise any concerns or issues with ForHousing so we all feel safe in our homes and proud of our neighbourhoods.
The ForHousing team takes our feedback and works with us, the council, and other partners to make impactful changes and improvements to our neighbourhood.
Overall satisfaction with the upkeep of communal areas has gone down recently, and ForHousing is working on ways to improve it. We talked about ForHousing’s GIFT initiative potentially helping to address the tidiness issues.
ForHousing is committed to improving services for tenants by continuously listening to our feedback and learning from our experiences.
The first meeting of the Repairs Service Excellence Group took place in October, where involved tenants shared their views on the repairs service with ForHousing’s Repairs and Maintenance and Gas Compliance Teams.
They’ve even met with ForHousing’s Executive Director of Customer Experience: Repairs & Maintenance, Jamie McDonald.
During his first 100 days in the role, Jamie has carried out a review of the service to see what needs to change.
ForHousing has explained that it is changing how they measure performance. Instead of focusing on things like the number of repair jobs done each day, they’ll now focus on how happy we are with the repairs service.
You may already know that Liberty, the property services business, was acquired by Wates from ForHousing.
As part of the transfer a new service improvement plan is underway, which will look at how they can deliver the best possible service going forward.
We expect it will take some time for long-term improvements to repairs, but some positive changes have already been taking place, including a steering group which has been set up with tenants as members.
ForHousing shared an update on its Performance Team, who have been busy working on changing the way performance is reported in the Community Voice packs.
New satisfaction measures have been introduced, which will be used to make practical decisions to improve services.
ForHousing reminded us how important phone surveys are for gathering tenants’ opinions, so it’s great to see that there has been an increase in the number of survey responses.
The more data ForHousing gets through these surveys, the more they understand our thoughts, concerns and experiences. Every response helps shape and improve the services we get.
Through ForHousing’s Scrutiny process, tenants have the opportunity to have our voices heard, challenge the way ForHousing works and make impactful changes to services.
Joining our Scrutiny process means you can be the voice of your community. You can get involved by becoming a Scrutiny Partner or by joining a Core Group (which allows you to take part in exercises to look into specific service areas).
Scrutiny exercises are a great way to make recommendations to ForHousing, and can happen following a report from the Community Voice group, a series of complaints about an issue, or by a ForHousing team member raising a problem.
So far, ForHousing has completed a Scrutiny Noise Nuisance report and we are waiting to complete the same exercise for gas and repair, pest control, and damp and mould.
If you don’t have time for that, you can still have your say by completing surveys or joining focus groups.
If you’d like to get involved in being the voice of your community, you can find out more here.
ForHousing gave us an update on the Employment Support Team, which became a permanent addition in 2024. They provide 1:1 tailored support to people living in ForHousing homes from ages 16 onwards.
This service is tenant-led, so tenants have the opportunity to see officers as often and for as long as they want to.
The team will work alongside tenants seeking job opportunities, and they will stay in touch for a minimum of three months after someone gets a job – just to check they are settling in. They can even help tenants apply for funding from organisations that offer training.
In the last 18 months, the team has supported over 400 tenants, helping them increase their combined salaries by nearly £2 million.
We’re happy to share that many of the winners at ForHousing’s Be Proud Awards came from our very own neighbourhood!
Congratulations to the volunteers at Community Little Hulton, Matthew Heywood, Ian Carberry, Francesca Ganz, and Joe Hunt for their hard work and dedication in supporting our community.
There are still some funding pots available to support local projects in the community.
ForHousing’s Community Fund continues to support local groups to deliver activities in our neighbourhood.
ForHousing told us it has spent almost £30,000 supporting community projects through the fund so far. Visits will soon be taking place so they can see how the money is being spent and the impact on our community.
There is still around £35,000 left in the budget and anyone running a community initiative can submit a grant application here.
The Local Improvement Fund is used to support small improvements within ForHousing communities, with up to £3,000 available per project. So far, £6,000 has been used with another £3,000 available.
More applications are currently being considered, so if you have an idea or suggestion about things that could be improved in your area, you can find an application form here.
ForHousing have launched a tenant recruitment campaign to boost membership of involved groups.
This will include the relaunch of ‘tenant inspectors’ and the ‘mystery shoppers’ group which will be now known as Tenant Reviewers.
If you are interested in representing your local community and working with ForHousing to make improvements, please get in touch here.
ForHousing wants to understand what matters most to us and we really appreciate more tenants giving their time and input to groups like these.
We’ll continue to share future updates with you. Do spread the word about the tenant newsletter with your family and friends, this is published every three months, and you will be able to view the latest version here.
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27/01/2025