In April 2023, we launched our new Resident Engagement Strategy. Now, over one year since it was launched, we wanted to look again and update everyone on how we have been making sure our strategy comes to life off the pages, making a real difference for residents.
Home to Landlord
We wanted the strategy to have a ‘Home to Landlord’ approach, giving residents more opportunity to get involved in a way that suits them, including:
- on a ‘personal’ level, regarding their home
- on a ‘neighbourhood’ level, relating to their local area or community, or
- on a ‘landlord’ level, where their involvement is around the improvement of the overall resident experience.
Something for everyone
Since the launch, we’ve used recommendations from the social housing white paper to make more opportunities for residents to get involved and tell us what they think and need, including:
- increasing the number of resident events we host, including ‘meet and greet’ and summer fundays, which have been really popular
- developing our digital offering to include online forms for Estate Representatives to promptly share actions needed
- a new website co-created and tested with residents
- feedback meetings to explain particular topics in more detail where needed
- Consulting with residents on planned maintenance/cyclic works and holding residents’ meetings to allow them to choose materials and colours for their homes.
Resident roles
As you’ll know, we refreshed the Neighbourhood Rep’s role (formerly Estate Representatives) following resident feedback, with the role now reflecting its purpose more clearly.
Thanks to a recruitment drive, we have over 20 engaged residents giving feedback on neighbourhood issues or improvements needed.
We’ve also expanded resident groups, with two new Resident Associations being set up, and importantly we now have a resident sitting on our Board.
The RCG has also grown, following a recruitment drive for new members, especially younger residents and those living in general needs who were missing from the group.
And in addition to all this, we set aside £20,000 which residents decided how to spend – including landscaping, new garden furniture and washing lines, and storage sheds for buggies and bikes.
Allowing residents to decide how this money is spent has been a really successful way of giving them power over their own homes and lives, and for this financial year, we’ve upped the budget to £50,000 to allow residents to have more of what they want.
Tenancy reviews
We also introduced our new tenancy review visit scheme, with our Neighbourhood Officers visiting different residents across their patches and arranging catch-ups. This has been great for making sure we meet with those who may have been residents for a long time, but who we don’t hear from often.
It’s also worked well for finding repairs that needed carrying out and making referrals for further support – but the best outcome was that residents were really touched to see our staff members taking the time to visit and check in on them. We’ll be continuing with this scheme on a rolling basis.
Looking ahead
So, there you have it – a little update on how we’ve been delivering our Resident Engagement Strategy. We’re incredibly proud of everyone who has contributed to this work, and to the happiness and satisfaction of residents.
Going forward, we’ll be doing more of the same.
We need to ensure we keep our Neighbourhood Reps engaged and feeling valued, and we’ll be exploring different communication approaches to ensure it works for them. We’ll continue to roll out our recruitment campaign to source additional Neighbourhood Reps for our schemes that would benefit from increased representation.
We’ll continue to include our complaints figures in our annual report (being compiled as we speak) and videos on our website, making feedback results more transparent.
And community events will also continue to be important as an opportunity to bring people together and allow residents who might not normally engage with us to share their thoughts and suggestions.