Issue - meetings

Members considered the report and were advised that for a housing provider to be compliant with regulations set by the Regulator for Social Housing, they must develop a clear resident engagement strategy. The government’s Housing white paper also addressed the issue of engaging residents by introducing a measure on respectful and meaningful resident engagement, in the suite of performance indicators being developed by the regulator.

Cabinet considered it important to embed a culture of listening to and working with tenants to improve services, and tackle the stigma that some residents experienced. The tenant and leaseholder services had kick-started this with the development of this strategy. This Strategy set its own aspiration which was ‘Bringing voices together - collaboration of residents and officers.’

Cabinet was aware that involving residents would help provide the service that residents needed which in turn would increase residents’ satisfaction and help foster a culture of transparency and respect between the Council and residents. The strategy was co-developed with a residents’ focus group. Cabinet had also listened to the wider residents' contributions that took part in two public consultations last year and reflected on existing and future requirements for landlords.

From this there were 5 objectives that were developed for the tenant and leaseholder services to achieve and these were as follows:

1. To ensure residents influence services;
2. To develop a resident involvement structure that enables residents to influence and scrutinise services;
3. To ensure our services benefit from residents' involvement and residents feel valued;
4. To benefit from a broader range of experiences and ideas;
5. To support residents to get involved

Councillor Whitehead spoke under Council Procedure 20.1.

Councillor Jill Bayford proposed, Councillor Bob Bayford seconded and Cabinet approved the adoption of the new Resident Involvement Strategy.

Sally O’Sullivan, Tenant & Leaseholder Services Manager introduced the report and made the following comments:

• The strategy had been developed to set out the council aspirations and the performance indicators were currently being developed by the regulator;
• The aim was to achieve residents’ satisfaction and the strategy was co-developed with the residents group;
• There were five objectives that the service would be working towards and these were set out in the strategy document attached as Annex 1 to the Panel report.

Members asked questions and made comments as follows:

·  Will the residents training be conducted in house in person or will it be via a virtual arrangement?

• How was the council going to monitor involvement in order to ensure that access was given to a wider cross section of residents?
• How will the council identify appropriate representation?
• Was there an ongoing plan to involve councillors in any particular issues?

Sally O’Sullivan, Bob Porter, Director of Housing & Planning and Councillor Jill Bayford responded to Member questions as follows:

• The regarding training for residents would depend on the type of training that was being offered to residents. Previous trainings have been delivered in-house in person by council officers;
• Third party trainings were also available and were normally provided online;
• With regards to involvement of a wider cross section of residents, officers were currently working on a wider piece of work to collect data and understand better the cross section of the residents;
• The council would then broaden the way for tenants’ involvement. This might be having people in a particular area championing certain issues;
• Councillor involvement: When conducting neighbourhood inspections officers would usually invite Members;
• When conducting the refurbishment of the Tower Blocks, councillors would be welcome to get involved;
• Tenants were kept informed through the regular tenants’ newsletter.

Members noted the report.