How will the national resident panel impact tenant satisfaction?
How will social landlords approach new tenant satisfaction measures announced in the Social Housing Regulation Bill? A survey by Inside Housing, in association with digital services business Capita, finds out
In association with:
Tenant engagement has always been a sector talking point. But in the past few years, the issue has risen up the agenda. The chief reason has been the terrible events at Grenfell Tower in June 2017, when 72 people lost their lives. It subsequently emerged that tenants had warned their tenant management organisation that the building was a tragedy waiting to happen. It led the government to vow that “never again would the voices of residents go unheard”. The intervening years have also seen a series of high-profile exposés of tenants living with disrepair despite many attempts to get their landlord to fix their homes.
This has culminated in the government this month publishing its long-awaited Social Housing Regulation Bill. It means underperforming landlords are set to face Ofsted-style inspections and unlimited fines. Tenants will also get more of a voice when the proposals become law. This will include a new 250-person residents’ panel that will meet every four months to share its experiences with government ministers. Housing association tenants will also be able to request information from their landlord, similar to how the Freedom of Information Act works for public bodies.
Tenants will also be able to rate their landlord under new measures. As part of this, the Regulator of Social Housing launched a 12-week consultation last December. Social landlords are expected to start collecting data from April 2023, with the regulator due to publish the first set of data in autumn 2024.
But how are housing associations preparing for these new measures? A new survey by Inside Housing, in partnership with Capita, reveals that many have already been ramping up their efforts on tenant engagement. However, some have concerns over whether they have the resource to handle more data, whether they have the appropriate data capture systems and if tenants are prepared to engage with more surveys.
READ MORE
The survey, answered by 142 respondents, found that 77% of social landlords have taken steps in the past 12 months to improve tenant engagement levels. Among these include recruiting new staff, including a dedicated person for the job of tenant engagement, setting up a new customer offer panel and monthly e-newsletters.
At Hertfordshire-based housing association Settle, a ‘Settle Voice’ group has now grown to around 250 residents advising on a range of topics according to their interest and time available.
It also has a ‘Voice of the Customer’ panel – a team of residents whose role it is to champion the voice of all Settle customers with its board, including a focus on learning from complaints. “Our regeneration schemes are also underpinned by active resident steering groups and we have also set up a new board committee with a remit which includes engagement,” says Joe Williams, director of housing at Settle.
Glenn Allan, head of product – housing at Capita, says: “It is encouraging to see more than three-quarters of those surveyed have started out on this journey, but clearly more work needs to be done around tenant engagement, ensuring that this is sufficiently inclusive.”
Landlords appear fairly engaged already with the regulator’s tenant satisfaction measures, with 77% saying they had made submissions to the regulator’s consultation on the measures.
The majority of providers are taking steps internally to prepare for the measures. Of those responding, 45% said they were “well prepared and look forward to embracing them”, while 43% said they were “aware of them and making initial preparations”. A small minority (7%) said they were aware of them but had not made any preparations to date.
Some reservations
While the sector gears up for a new era, there are some reservations. Nearly a third said they are not confident the tenant satisfaction measures will have the desired impact. “We’re worried that there are too many questions and residents will experience survey fatigue,” said one survey respondent. Another said the questions are “too wide” and “can be misunderstood”. Meanwhile, another commented: “I’m not sure all of the proposed measures are really measuring the right thing.”
Allister Young, chief executive of Cornwall-based Coastline Housing, says: “The tenant satisfaction measures themselves won’t have the desired effect. But, in general, I think they will improve focus on customer service, particularly if combined with a change in regulatory approach.”
The survey also revealed concerns that social landlords have about a lack of engagement from tenants over the new satisfaction measures. More than half (51%) said they were worried about this. Again, “survey fatigue” from tenants was cited as a potential problem. Interestingly too, 79% of survey respondents ticked that phone was still their tenants’ preferred method of contact, followed by email (49%) and in person (35%).
In numbers
250
Number of people on a new residents’ panel that will meet with government
250
People on a residents’ group at Settle
77%
Respondents who have taken steps to improve tenant engagement levels
79%
Respondents who said phone was still tenants’ preferred method of contact
Another question revealed that the majority (53%) found that less than half of residents responded to their last survey on tenant satisfaction. However, many landlords just carry out polls among a sample of residents. For example, one association said of the 6,000 homes it has, only 1,400 tenants are surveyed.
A third of housing associations said they were concerned they lacked the necessary amount of internal resources to handle the data, while nearly a fifth (18%) agreed that collecting the new data in an understandable format could be a problem.
A similar proportion cited the “inability to collect data effectively” as a potential problem. One respondent said: “There may be challenges in all areas to overcome.”
The issue of data capture appears to be a recurring theme for landlords. When asked if there was anything within their organisation that causes an issue with tackling tenant engagement, 31% said their data capture systems were not sufficient. A quarter said they were only “moderately satisfied” with how their organisation uses data and analytics to assess the experience of tenants, while 17% said they were unsatisfied. One respondent said they were investing in new software to improve the situation.
Capita’s Mr Allan adds: “Internal resource to handle the data is a long-standing issue for organisations, and I have experienced this myself – to get true value from the data, an organisation must be prepared to commit time and effort to analyse the data in order to gain the benefits further down the line.”
So while the sector, on the whole, appears ready to embrace the new landscape on tenant engagement, there are concerns over how the system will bed in. Along with other competing priorities – such as building safety and decarbonisation – social landlords will have to navigate investing time, money and resource on the issue. They will also have to work out the best way to interpret the data and apply the learnings in an efficient manner. But as has been shown, listening to tenants’ concerns should never be underestimated.
