Listening and learning and acting upon your feedback is important to us. This year we continue to work with you to get you involved in a way that suits you.
Here we showcase the positive influence your involvement has had in positively impacting the lives of social housing tenants. From our Customer Committee that works alongside the ForHousing Board, to Scrutiny. We also have the Complaints and Feedback Panel, Repairs Service Excellence Group and reviewers from Community Voice – the majority of those involved are tenants.
Here’s what’s been done this year, by listening and learning from tenants just like you.
Our Customer Committee is made up of nine tenants and residents, they are part of our formal Governance Structures that are in place to who hold us to account and have oversight for how we work as an organisation and the decisions that are made. So far, they have been:
All of the above champion tenant opinions, feelings and the things that matter to you. To make sure you are listened to, and that your views are acted upon.
Members of the Customer Committee also have links to Community Voice, to make sure issues that arise in communities are reported back and addressed at senior board level and work with the Scrutiny Partners to make sure that the recommendations from their investigations are turned into action and completed.
The Community Voice is a group made up of tenants and members of the community. We have a group in Fitton Hill, Salford and Stockbridge Village. They hold us to account for how we deliver services in the local areas, giving us valuable feedback that we can use to listen and improve. Members also make important decisions about funding applications to our Community and Local Area Improvement Fund, where money is granted to local projects.
In the last year they have:
1
Discussed an ongoing problem with littering in the Peel Estate, one of the members had organised community litter picks and arranged for a new hub with litter picking equipment to be available in Little Hulton
2
Raised concerns about pest control and commissioned a Scrutiny exercise into the service to give tenants confidence that we are doing all they can to tackle the issue
3
Supported a review of the Local Area Improvement Fund to make sure that it’s as easy as possible for groups to apply
4
Reviewed the Community Group Grant, opening it out to more groups and making sure that our hardworking volunteers get the support they need
5
Stockbridge Village Community Voice raised concerns about the local shops and have championed us to install new CCTV. This will now be fitted in 2025. They also asked for us to contact all shop tenants to remind them to lock the gates and dispose of rubbish to support a cleaner and safer local area
6
Led an initiative to engage with local partners such as the Police, Council and MP to encourage them to take more action about community anti-social behaviour. This was successful and Community Voice got assurance that more resource will be placed towards tackling these issues in October/ November time, when these incidents traditionally peak.
7
Community Voice raising concerns about anti-social behaviour, we have invested in detached youth work for older young people, to support them to engage in positive activities such as sport
8
Played a really important role in identifying ‘grot spots’ in the local area and supporting us to report these issues, so we can clean them up and notify the local authority where needed
9
Fitton Hill has supported a consultation on the new play park at St Martin’s and will continue to work with the council on this brilliant project
10
Supported with creating a Young Person’s Task group in Stockbridge Village to help tackle anti-social behaviour
11
Raised issues with traffic due to a local development, and issues with footpaths, this has allowed us to escalate these within the local authority and support the community voice to find a resolution to these issues
Every quarter our Community Voice members meet to discuss topics affecting their area. To view the latest blog, click here.
Repairs Service Excellence Group
The Repairs Service Excellence Group launched in October 2024 and is made up of a number of tenants.
Tenants meet with us to share their views on the repairs services we deliver, and make recommendations to improve the way we do things. They also look at how we are performing, feedback about the service and complaints alongside ForHousing colleagues. This year they have requested to investigate the out of hours and gas repairs services.
Scrutiny
Scrutiny is a group made up of tenants. They review what we do and why we do it and make recommendations – influencing what happens to your home and community and putting you at the heart of our decision making.
This year, they have completed two scrutiny exercises and supported one internal audit: The ForHousing Strategy, Noise Nuisance and Neighbourhood Management.
Scrutiny made a total of 16 recommendations. From this the following positive changes have been made to services by listening, learning and acting upon your feedback. We will now:
- Share information on the website and in newsletters that shows what we do on neighbourhood inspections and walkabouts
- Continue our current process with hard floor coverings on a case by case basis for all homes
- Review and improve communications about how to be a good neighbour and minimise noise
- Make sure you are involved in the review of the anti-social behaviour policy
- Raise awareness of community projects
- Make performance information available to the Repairs and Maintenance Service Excellence Group
- Re-introduce Customer and Tenant Reviewers that visit empty homes to make sure they are ready for tenants to move in
To find out more about Scrutiny, click here.
We have three funding streams that sets money aside to support the community to make a difference to the area they live in. This includes:
- Community Group Grant that supports the running costs of constituted groups within the community
- Community Fund that offers financial support to local groups so they can keep delivering services and projects in their community
- Local Area Improvement Fund that is used to support small scale improvements to ForHousing communities.
This year, we have:
This past year, the Building Safety Forum has supported the development of the updated Tenant Engagement Strategy.
The team also have quarterly meetings with tenants across all the blocks where tenants tell us what’s important to them to support them to feel safe and keep them updated about any works that are taking place where they live.
To find out how you can get involved with our involvement groups, click here to find out more.
The involvement groups will continue to be really busy, and will be continuing to work alongside FH to make improvements, this year Scrutiny will be:
1
Finalising the recommendations that Scrutiny have made to improve the tenants repairs responsibility
2
Finalising the recommendations that Scrutiny have made for Pest Control
3
Undertaking a review of the customer experience of gas repairs and gas servicing
4
Exercise to check how the new repairs service, being delivered by Wates is being received by tenants
5
Revisit how we are delivering the aims of our ForHousing Strategy
6
The Complaints and Feedback panel will undertake our self-assessment as to whether we are compliant with the Housing Ombudsman Code of Practice and do a ‘deep dive’ to understand how we are learning from complaints and making changes
7
Repairs and Maintenance SEG will continue to hold us to account on the delivery of the service and work alongside scrutiny on the Gas exercise.
8
Formally relaunching the tenant and customer reviewers with some exciting new roles that allow tenants to get involved in a way that suits them
9
Forming relationships with and working alongside communities who we don’t normally hear from to agree a way to improve communication
