Empowering residents through community involvement with ForHousing

Back in April 2023, we launched our Charter, using Together with Tenants as a guide, to build a closer relationship with our residents.

Our goal was to improve communication, be transparent, and make services work better based on what matters most to our residents. The Charter was another way of making us accountable to tenants and showed ForHousing’s commitment to listening and using feedback to make real changes across our services.

What did we do?

We started with a six-month period of talking to residents to hear their thoughts and concerns. We then formed a working group of residents, who helped draft the first version of the Charter, providing further feedback and changes to ensure it truly reflected what tenants had said.

Both the first and final drafts were shared with our Customer Committee and with their feedback, and further work from the tenant working group, we developed a framework that combined Tenant Satisfaction Measures with other analytics.

Residents were clear - they wanted to know about more than just the numbers – they wanted to hear the stories behind the stats. So, we added case studies and examples to highlight the real-life impact of the changes being made.

The Charter acts as the golden thread for our involvement framework. We report progress to our Customer Committee every quarter and share updates on our website and in our tenant newsletter.

What was the impact?

Our first-year evaluation of the Charter showed that we’ve made great progress, with some key highlights including:

• Communication and visibility: We launched our new Customer Connect Hub, improving our service by adding more advisors and reducing call wait times to 30 seconds by March 2024. Acting on feedback from our Community Voice groups and other residents, we re-opened reception services in Eccles and Stockbridge Village and held focus groups to gather ideas for better communication. We also reintroduced a quarterly tenant newsletter. All of this has resulted in 76.4% of tenants feeling satisfied that we keep them informed about things that matter to them (passing our target of 75%).
• Influence and accountability: Our Customer Committee plays an active role in scrutinising services with a tenant-based complaints and feedback panel that ensures we stay accountable. We’ve completed the first year of our updated approach to Scrutiny, where the Scrutiny Panel works closely with the Customer Committee and other tenant groups to review services and drive improvements. Our new RAISE IT tool makes it easy for tenants to report issues, ensuring their concerns are heard. We’ve also created a ‘You said, we listened’ area on our website to keep tenants updated on service improvements and invested £450,000 to improve our complaints service.
• Environment and neighbourhood: We tackled waste management with monthly neighbourhood inspections, looked at better ways to keep communities clean through better partnerships with local authorities and contractors, and supported local groups by investing £93,396 to support 146 projects.
• Repairs and asset management: We've improved our damp and mould repair services and are on track to meet our targets by year-end, with inspections completed within ten days and repairs finished within 40 days. We made it easier for tenants to stay informed about repairs, with clearer timelines and updates, through our new Repairs and Maintenance Excellence Tenant Group.
• Safety: We strengthened our approach to handling anti-social behaviour by investing in additional training for staff in managing conflict, we carry out weekly and monthly checks in our high-rise properties, and we introduced a safe homes portal so tenants can easily check safety information about their homes.

What’s next?

Building on the success of the first year, we’ll keep working alongside tenants to further refine the Charter and address any new issues as they come up.

Next year, working with our scrutiny partners, we’re focusing on areas like gas services and neighbourhood management, recruiting more Customer Committee members, and proactively engaging with a more diverse range of tenants to make sure that all voices are heard.

What have we learnt?

By involving tenants at every stage, we’ve built a framework together that not only improves services and standards but also creates a sense of shared responsibility and community.

We wanted the Charter to be embedded in our services, as part of our everyday work and not seen as just an extra task. We want tenant voices to remain central to all decision-making, so we can keep making progress.

Embracing the Together with Tenants Charter has laid the groundwork for even deeper tenant involvement. As we move forward, we’ll keep working to strengthen the relationship between ForHousing and our tenants, making sure that their voices stay at the heart of everything we do.