Agenda item

To consider report CH/207 of the Head of Crawley Homes.

Commission Members considered report CH/207 and associated appendix of the Head of Crawley Homes. The Constitution states that the role and scope of the Commission is to monitor and review the internal and external delivery and performance of services. This includes ensuring that the Council services are achieving both customer satisfaction and value for money. It was important that the Commission scrutinise the Tenant Satisfaction Measures Report.

All registered housing providers are required to generate and report Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) as specified by the Regulator. Tenant Satisfaction Measures must be generated using data from a tenant perception survey with pre-set questions to enable comparison between landlords. Additional measures, drawn from management information, must also be provided and have been compiled for consideration at portfolio briefing separately.  Tenant Satisfaction Measures are reported to the Regulator as required as part of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. They provide a basis for comparison between providers.

Following the discussion with the Cabinet Member for Housing, Head of Crawley Homes and Crawley Homes Policy and Engagement Manager, the following points were expressed:

·         All registered housing providers were required to generate and report Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) as specified by the Regulator of Social Housing.  The questions were pre-set to enable comparisons between landlords, however additional measures, drawn from management information were also provided and compiled for consideration.

·         Recognition that the survey was conducted anonymously, however consent was requested to follow up on any detailed issues and those cases were being re-visited. There were some protective characteristics that can be drawn from the data, and it was acknowledged that satisfaction varied by age.

·         Contact preferences were asked in the survey, with most residents preferring to use the telephone and online reporting tending to be used for less complex enquiries. This may change as the planned customer portal was introduced.

·         It was acknowledged this was a perception survey and included responses based on expectations. A resident “doorstep” engagement event was subsequently carried out in one neighbourhood, which resulted in constructive responses, but had also established common themes, which included factors such as communal areas, ASB and fly tipping. 

·         Work was being undertaken with Neighbourhood Services and may involve different service level agreements for particular provisions.  Action plans had subsequently been implemented, for instance damp and mould task teams for winter, using different technologies (infrared heating). 

·         In terms of ASB, there was a balance between residents’ perception, expectation and achieving results, usually as a consequence of the amount of evidence obtained.  However it was noted that there was strong partnership working with the police and a flexible ASB team approach.  

·         Acknowledgement that the new restructure would assist in the prioritisation of repairs to take place within the service, along with post inspection and compliance, as it was important to undertake necessary maintenance to avoid properties falling into disrepair.  Stock condition surveys were underway with the aim to move from responsive repairs to planned maintenance which should result in efficiencies and service improvement.

·         Confirmation was provided in terms of benchmarking, Crawley Homes had reasonably good performance when compared with whole sector, strong performance against more suitable peers (Councils). There was potential to join “Housemark” (leading data and insight company for UK housing sector) in order to obtain further data.

·         It was noted that this was the first set of results to be produced and it would be beneficial to analyse sector wide.

With the agreement of the Chair, Councillor Burgess also spoke on the item and the Head of Crawley Homes responded that the Regulator of Social Housing would be publishing the results of all the inspections and ratings on the government website.

RESOLVED

That the Commission noted the report, with the views expressed being acknowledged and documented by the officers.