During 2022-2023, 2570 individual residents provided feedback or worked with us to improve services.
The activities included surveys, focus groups, formal meetings, local drop-ins and talking to us on their doorsteps. Here are just some examples of what’s been achieved by us working together.
Local activities
We held 11 neighbourhood events in various parts of London, Brighton and Gosport. Outstanding issues including communal repairs were resolved. We also collected feedback that told us that residents wanted:
- our staff to have more local knowledge, responsibility, and accountability,
- us to visit neighbourhoods more regularly,
- issues to be resolved more quickly and efficiently,
- more communication about local issues and services,
- to be treated with respect, empathy, and for staff to be well trained.
Residents have since been involved in a steering group to help us to test a new local service based on this feedback.
Twenty-eight residents took part in 8 steering group meetings and two training sessions to influence a regeneration project in Brookhill in Greenwich, London. Outcomes included estate and building design and attendance at council planning sessions.
Service improvements
Twenty residents have worked with us on a project to develop a new repairs service in London – Property Maintenance London (PML). They created a customer induction video welcoming new staff and sharing their priorities for the new service. They also made suggestions for how we could improve call handling and scheduling.
Twenty-two residents joined regular meetings to talk through different aspects of our Sustainability Strategy, helping to influence our approach to:
- Green spaces and rewilding
- Communication and information about sustainability
- Alternative energy sources
Fourteen residents have taken part in choosing seven new contracts and services – also called procurement. These residents volunteered huge amounts of time and energy attending training and scoring the tenders.
We also used customer feedback from our 2021 conference to create customer-led service improvement plans, which have all now been delivered.
Resident boards and committees
Customer Voice now has 13 members who live in different kinds of properties across London, Brighton and Hove, Peterborough, and Kent. This is the largest and most diverse membership Customer Voice has had. They’ve been working with senior staff and the board to review and influence new and changing services, and checking our performance.
Our Home Owners’ Panel has provided valuable feedback and ideas for improvement about our home ownership services.
Training and support
We’ve provided training and support to make sure residents could be properly involved. This has included:
- Support and induction sessions for residents new to involvement
- 16 internal training sessions
- 14 external training sessions delivered by TPAS and HQN
- 2 housing conferences
- 1 external webinar delivered by the Resident Inspection team, in partnership with HQN
- Providing 15 residents with IT equipment
- 11 TRAs and community groups received grants and funding.
To help as many residents as possible from different backgrounds and circumstances take part we’ve done the following:
- Continued to use virtual meetings to help residents who are unable to travel or who have commitments at home,
- Introduced ‘hybrid’ meetings, which are both online and in-person,
- Varied meeting and activity times, this included 91 evening meetings and two Saturday events,
- Carried out local drop-in sessions and door knocking, sometimes targeted at vulnerable residents, so we take the opportunities directly to residents’ homes.