Agenda item

Michelle Hoyles, Housing Strategy Manager:

a.    presented a report to Members on the performance of the Council’s landlord services against the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures (tenant perception) for Quarter 2 of 2024/25 and summarised the actions being taken by the Directorate of Housing and Investment to continue to improve tenant satisfaction

b.    confirmed that following consultation with Lincoln Tenant’s Panel it had no comments on the content of the report

c.     advised that the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) came into force in April 2023, TSM’s were an integral part of the regulator’s recently introduced Consumer Standards, most notably the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard

d.    highlighted the purpose of TSM’s to ensure openness and transparency among social housing providers; specifically, how they treated tenants with fairness and respect so that they could access services, raise complaints, influence decision making and hold their landlord to account

e.    added that landlords were also required to understand the diverse needs of their tenants; engage with them, take their views into account when making decisions; communicate with their tenants, provide information and encourage effective scrutiny

f.      explained that the TSM’s were in two parts:

7. referred to Appendix A of the report which gave a detailed analysis of the results of the tenant perception measures surveys completed during the second quarter of 2024/25

8. reported that the ten management information measures had been incorporated into the quarterly performance reporting process, and therefore would be presented to the Sub-Committee at its next meeting on 25 November 2024; an annual report on the Council’s overall TSM performance would be reported to the Sub-Committee during the first quarter of the next reporting year

9. highlighted that at the Sub-Committee meeting of 8 August 2024, committee members indicated their support for the following areas of focus for the current year, related to tenant satisfaction:

10. further outlined the background to the results of the tenant perception measures survey completed during the second quarter of 2024/25, covering the following areas:

11. invited members comments and review on the content and presentation of the report.

Members discussed the content of the report and key findings from the quarter 2 tenant perception survey in further detail.

The following questions and comments emerged:

Question: Could further clarification be given to the meaning of the TSM metric measure - ‘Safe Home’?

Response: The question asked of tenants was how satisfied they were that their home was safe.

Question: Was it possible to change the graph at paragraph 5.1 of the report into two parts and in a bar chart format. This would make it easier to view and understand improvements and decline in survey results.

Response: Yes. These adjustments would be actioned in future reports. A piece of work would also be ongoing over the next year to share information with tenants to keep them informed of the projects we were doing.

Comment: Our satisfaction measure in respect of ‘Listen and Act’ had declined which was disappointing. The tenants’ perception of how likely they would be to recommend City of Lincoln Council’s Housing Service to other people had also declined.

Response: This issue correlated to reduced performance in customer call waiting times, which impacted on tenant satisfaction within the tenant perception survey

Comment: The best way to be approachable was to be seen as a face in the community.

Response: Yes. Further exploration was required on processes for the way we worked as a Council collaboratively as a whole, also to take the pressure off Customer Services staff/Housing Officers in answering queries.

Comment: Whilst Lincoln Tenant Panel members were observing Customer Services in action, each call had taken 20 minutes to deal with. This was indeed a difficult issue to address. It was important to get the message across to residents how our system operated and that other officers apart from Housing staff could help in relevant service area.

Response: Officers were currently in the process of visiting all tenants asking if they wished to be included in greater resident involvement. Perhaps this could also be achieved via e mail and/or online surveys although there was no quick fix here. The new service areas/contact details covering Tenancy/Anti-Social Behaviour and Rents may help.

Comment: Education was needed on effective action in response to telephone calls received. A system to seek permission to hold contact details for tenants was being looked at to enable us to act on feedback submitted. Compared to other local authorities, our tenant perception figures were quite good.

Comment: Telephone calls about repairs should be directed to Hamilton House.

Response by Daren Turner, Director of Housing and Investment: Wherever the calls were received from would not change the issues. A data collection study was required on calls received/what type of call/how long the call lasted and how many calls related to housing issues. We needed to ask these questions to allow us to make changes to services based on fact. This level of scrutiny was required first to inform future provision.

Question: Could telephone callers choose from a list of options of where they needed to be transferred to?

Response: When the calls came through, they were queued and triaged. Giving too many contact connection options was difficult as there were so many services. However, this could be looked at. Officers gave an assurance that the areas of data searching work mentioned above were being investigated, however it took time engaging with the various services. It was important to include the nature of calls as some service areas such as Housing Solutions took more time to deal with than others.

Question: At busy times e.g. Council Tax Bills being despatched, did Customer Services hold the capacity to deal with additional pressure?

Response: Yes, holidays were restricted during busy periods and shifts reallocated accordingly.

RESOLVED that:

1.    The content of the report and the Tenant Satisfaction Measures data contained within be noted.

2.    Given the Quarter 2 survey findings highlighted in this report, the Housing Scrutiny Sub-Committee continued to support the priorities/focus listed in section 3.5. of the officer’s report, also detailed above.