CPD module: how landlords should deal with TSMs, one year on

In April 2024, social landlords had to collate their first tenant satisfaction measures (TSMs) dataset. TSMs are a standard set of management and tenant perception data, designed to give a sense of how happy residents are with their landlords. They were introduced by the Regulator of Social Housing as part of its updated approach to regulation. All landlords now have to collect and publish TSM data each year.

This CPD article considers what has been learned to date about how best to collect, report and analyse this data – most notably, the portion of it which is collected via surveys of tenant satisfaction. It also details ways the information can be used by landlords and tenants, and draws on the experience of staff at Riverside, which manages 75,000 homes across England and Scotland.

Some landlords have been collecting the data required for TSMs for several years. At Riverside, much of the management information already existed within the business. Tenant perception data had also been regularly collected for several years. With that said, sometimes the regulator requires a slightly different way of reporting the data for the purposes of TSMs.
For instance, Riverside’s means of recording the number of assets differs from the TSM method.

With the tenant perception survey, meanwhile, questions must sometimes be worded differently from the way in which they had previously been asked.

Not all of a landlord’s tenants will be covered by the TSMs. Riverside, for instance, has some property in Scotland, where TSMs do not apply. Ensuring the group’s data owners and stewards are clear on the TSM requirements has therefore been crucial to support their understanding of the required data collection and reporting. This allows for a robust review and sign-off process before data is submitted to the regulator.

Riverside’s head of information governance has led on developing this understanding, focusing on defining what is required from data owners and stewards in the organisation. Historically, if a data challenge existed, the business intelligence team would be the starting point in addressing it. Since the roll-out of a data governance framework, there is more clarity on where responsibility should lie. The assurance process for the TSM data involved the business intelligence team working with all data owners to ensure they had what they needed for validation. There were then four further review meetings, led by the information governance team.

The TSM reporting happened just after reporting for the Statistical Data Return, also required by the regulator – where landlords report on their stock – and many of the same people were involved, so there was consideration of how to avoid overwhelming data owners with information to sign off. This is likely to be reviewed next year.

Some landlords have been collecting the data required for TSMs for several years. At Riverside, much of the management information already existed within the business. Tenant perception data had also been regularly collected for several years. With that said, sometimes the regulator requires a slightly different way of reporting the data for the purposes of TSMs.
For instance, Riverside’s means of recording the number of assets differs from the TSM method.

With the tenant perception survey, meanwhile, questions must sometimes be worded differently from the way in which they had previously been asked.

Not all of a landlord’s tenants will be covered by the TSMs. Riverside, for instance, has some property in Scotland, where TSMs do not apply. Ensuring the group’s data owners and stewards are clear on the TSM requirements has therefore been crucial to support their understanding of the required data collection and reporting. This allows for a robust review and sign-off process before data is submitted to the regulator.

Riverside’s head of information governance has led on developing this understanding, focusing on defining what is required from data owners and stewards in the organisation. Historically, if a data challenge existed, the business intelligence team would be the starting point in addressing it. Since the roll-out of a data governance framework, there is more clarity on where responsibility should lie. The assurance process for the TSM data involved the business intelligence team working with all data owners to ensure they had what they needed for validation. There were then four further review meetings, led by the information governance team.

The TSM reporting happened just after reporting for the Statistical Data Return, also required by the regulator – where landlords report on their stock – and many of the same people were involved, so there was consideration of how to avoid overwhelming data owners with information to sign off. This is likely to be reviewed next year.

Management information, directly reported by landlords

• Complaints relative to the size of landlord 
• Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales 
• Anti-social behaviour (ASB) cases relative to the size of the landlord 
• Homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard 
• Repairs completed within target timescale 
  
• Gas safety check 
• Fire safety checks 
• Asbestos safety checks 
• Water safety checks 
• Lift safety checks

Information gathered via tenant perception survey

• Overall satisfaction 
• Satisfaction with repairs
• Satisfaction with time taken to complete most recent repair 
• Satisfaction that the home is well maintained 
  
• Satisfaction that the home is safe 
• Satisfaction that the landlord listens to tenant views and acts upon them 
  
• Satisfaction that the landlord keeps tenants informed about things that matter to them
• Agreement that the landlord treats tenants fairly and with respect 
  
• Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling complaints
• Satisfaction that the landlord keeps communal areas clean and well maintained 
  
• Satisfaction that the landlord makes a positive contribution to neighbourhoods 
• Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling ASB

TSMs can be helpful in guiding internal conversations on performance. At Riverside, a data visualisation tool already had dashboards for safety compliance and for customer satisfaction. Using these dashboards, all TSM data is presented in a visual and easy-to-understand way within the organisation. An executive director sponsors each of the dashboards and figures are regularly updated and made available. There was a conscious decision not to reduce internal reporting on satisfaction to just the TSMs – the view was that, by taking care of all customers, performance on TSMs would take care of itself.

Overall customer satisfaction is reported monthly (and differs from the TSM figure given not all of Riverside’s customers are included in the TSMs). Each quarter there is a deep dive into performance on this measure. This involves talking through the data with executive directors and senior leadership teams.

While regular internal reporting of the indicators that contribute to TSMs is found to be helpful, more important still is key driver analysis. This involves looking at which metrics are having the biggest impact on overall satisfaction, allowing time, effort and money to be focused on those areas which will make the biggest difference. Customer experience improvement plans have now been adopted across the whole organisation, underpinned by this data and analysis.

One of the aims of TSMs is to support benchmarking. The idea is that if every social landlord is publishing performance against the same measures, it will make it possible to identify organisations that are doing particularly well or badly on a specific indicator.

This should be helpful not only for leaders within social landlords, but for tenants. On the face of it, the regulator’s publication of data from landlords holding 1,000-plus homes should make comparisons fairly straightforward. However, there is a potential challenge: namely, that different organisations are using different methods to collect tenant satisfaction survey data.

Initial guidance from the regulator, published in April 2023, says that organisations should use an “appropriate” survey collection method or methods, “considering factors such as likely response rate, cost, addressing barriers to participation, tenant profile and the representativeness of responses”. It specifies that if all relevant requirements are met, “providers can use any standard collection method including face-to-face, telephone, postal, or email/online delivery, and may use more than one collection method”.

The experience at Riverside, however, is that up to 20-point differences in scores can emerge from different collection methods. Customers are more likely to respond positively to face-to-face interviews with a member of staff from the landlord than an online survey administered by a third party. Updated guidance from the regulator requires landlords to break down overall satisfaction data “by each collection method used”.

At Riverside, the target is for 70% of tenant satisfaction data to be collected via phone and 30% online. In both instances, collection is via an independent, external organisation. Informal review of TSM data by Riverside leaders has suggested that most large housing associations are using similar approaches.

Riverside has found it helpful to see where it is performing more strongly, areas where improvement is needed, and areas where performance is about the same as other larger associations. That said, there remains an awareness that data collection methods need to be reviewed carefully before drawing conclusions.

• How has your own organisation approached the introduction of TSMs? What challenges have emerged in the first year? How might these be addressed in year two?
• What factors will you consider in comparing your organisation’s TSM performance against other landlords?
• What one point in this piece do you want to share with colleagues who may not have read it? How will you share it?

Landlords have now collected a year of TSM data, so lessons have been learned about the opportunities and challenges of the new set-up. In many organisations, the data required is not new.

However, the specific information may be different to what was previously collected. This, coupled with the new degree of scrutiny over the information, necessitates support for those charged with managing and verifying data.

Benchmarking performance across landlords is a central benefit of TSMs. For this to be as powerful as possible, tenants and landlords need to understand that data collection methods could impact results.

Next, answer the questions below. Get all the questions correct and you will receive a certificate confirming your award of 30 CPD minutes within 10 working days via email. Get any questions wrong and you can retake the test by refreshing your web browser.

• Inside Housing (2023), CPD webinar on demand: how to collect, report and act on tenant satisfaction measures
  
• Regulator of Social Housing (2024), Reshaping consumer regulation: Our new approach
• Regulator of Social Housing (2024), ​Transparency, Influence and Accountability (including Tenant Satisfaction Measures)
• Inside Housing (2023), Landlords must provide breakdown of survey methods for satisfied tenants in TSM returns, RSH says
• Regulator of Social Housing (2023), Tenant Satisfaction Measures: Tenant survey requirements
  

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