Tenant Engagement Strategy 2025 - 2029 (draft)
This strategy is all about how we listen to council tenants and leaseholders.
We are consulting on this strategy
Visit this page again soon to download the outcome to this public feedback.
Contents
- Aims
- What's in it for you to engage with us
- How will we measure resident engagement to ensure it makes a difference
- Our plan for the first year of this strategy
We want to hear your feedback, complaints and suggestions, and then implement them where they improve how we do things. We call this tenant engagement and it's important to us because you live in your council home and neighbourhood and are more knowledgeable about what that feels like.
Uttlesford District Council is proud of the services we provide to you, but we are not complacent, it is by talking and listening to you that we will be able to improve in a way that is tenant led.
We have talked to over 60 tenants who helped design this strategy.
1. Aims
In this strategy we aim to:
- Support you to carry out meaningful scrutiny of our services to help bring about positive change in how these are delivered in the future.
- Offer different opportunities for everybody to engage with us. (see sections 2 and 3)
- Be open with you on how we are performing.
- Provide a complaints service which is easy to access, fair and helps us improve by learning from complaints.
- Design tenant engagement and our services around tenants' needs and preferences making them easy to access.
- Meet the standards of the Housing Ombudsman Service and the Regulator-of-social-housing who set us standards to ensure you have a say and receive excellent services.
These all link to the council's Corporate Plan, specifically 'building strong communities' and 'putting residents first' and to the objectives of the Housing, Environment and Communities Directorate.
2. Opportunities to have a say
♦ TOTALLY SIMPLE - read our letters, emails Housing News or website, visit our office or ask for a home visit, telephone, write or email us.
♦ VERY EASY - join the UTTLESFORD 300 - put your name down to answer occasional texts, surveys or questionnaires or make a formal complaint. Become an ARMCHAIR READER-check our policies and communications before they are published to make sure they are tenant friendly!
♦ EASY - attend occasional service focus groups (in person or online), quarterly sheltered scheme meetings, meet the contractor events or visit one of our Roadshow events (free bag full of information for everyone).
♦ A LITTLE EFFORT - join our Tenant and Leaseholder Panel who meet bi-monthly (in person or online) and influence councillor decisions on the Housing Board.
♦ A LITTLE BIT MORE EFFORT - Join a scrutiny project team who investigate a Council service twice a year. This will involve 4-6 meetings over a 3-month spell and some document reading.
If this interests you - drop us an email on tenants@uttlesford.gov.uk, Visit our tenant and leaseholder engagement page, complete an online enquiry form or telephone 01799 510571
3. What's in it for you to engage with us
You can:
- make the housing service better often from the comfort of your own home
- give something back to your community.
- learn new skills and find out how things work.
- meet new people (in some of the options)
- develop as a leader and get a reference for a job or a career in housing.
- get access to membership of Tpas
- get occasional freebies such as a goody bag, entered into the Uttlesford 300 prize draw, an occasional thank you event or a shopping voucher.
- get your travel, meals and care expenses met.
- get free training in developing your skills, IT and housing.
- access help for Tenant and Leaseholder Panel members with a laptop loan
4. How will we measure resident engagement to ensure it makes a difference
The Tenant and Leaseholder Panel will monitor this strategy, performance and action plan below on a six-monthly basis. We will track engagement outcomes and produce an annual impact assessment.
In addition, we will measure performance and report the following to our tenants and leaseholders in the annual report, housing board members and Cabinet.
They will monitor:
- percentage of complaints responded to/resolved within UDC policy/ complaints handling code timescales
- provision of information for UDC response to complaints - to meet required timescales
- percentage of tenants satisfied with the way their complaint was handled (transactional)
- percentage of complaints passed to housing ombudsman service
- percentage of complaints passed to ombudsman with finding of maladministration.
- number of tenant engagement activities conducted each year.
- percentage of tenants participating in engagement activities.
- percentage of service improvements made as a result of tenant feedback within agreed timeframe
- tenant Satisfaction Measures (annual survey)
- TP06: Satisfaction that the landlord listens to tenant views and acts upon them (60% in 2024/5)
- TP07: Satisfaction that the landlord keeps tenants informed about things that matter to them. (74% in 2024/5)
- TP08: Agreement that the landlord treats tenants fairly and with respect. (85% in 2024/25)
5. Our plan for the first year of this strategy
The plan has been agreed with the Tenant and Leaseholder Panel.
a. Support you to carry out meaningful scrutiny of our services to help bring about positive change in how these are provided in the future
What do we need to do | How we will do it | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Support residents to scrutinise/investigate housing services | Launch a scrutiny project which is tenant led lasting 3 months which will report with recommendations | ||||||||||||||||
b. Offer different opportunities for everybody to engage with us
| |||||||||||||||||
c. Be open with you on how we are performing
| What we need to do | How we will do it |
|---|---|
Share results from surveys | Every year we will share the results from the Tenant Satisfaction Measures. We will carry out a variety of surveys to find out your views on different areas, to ensure we are meeting your needs e.g. downsizing survey |
Performance data | We will encourage our Tenant and Leaseholder Panel to scrutinise our performance and feedback with their findings |
Annual Report | Each year we will produce an Annual Report sharing all our key data and information |
d. Provide a complaints service which is easy to access, fair and helps us improve by learning from complaints
| What we need to do | How we will do it |
|---|---|
Encourage complaints and use them as a learning mechanism | Devise a campaign to promote complaints and brief staff/operatives to promote complaints. Report learning from complaints to the Tenant and Leaseholder Panel. |
Involve tenants in the Complaints Policy and take on board their feedback within the Housing Ombudsman Code | Through the Tenant and Leaseholder Panel |
When you complain to us | We respond within time scales and answer all your questions honestly and openly and admit when we have made a mistake |
Provide a consistent service | Ensure all staff are trained in both the Complaints and Compensation policies and procedures |
e. Design tenant engagement and our services around tenants' needs and preferences making them easy to access
Establish tenants' needs and preferences and demographics.
| Employ a research company to telephone all of our tenants Update records and target communications and services around them |
Ensure residents of all demographics and needs can have a say | Ensure translation, help and IT training is available |
Reach out to underrepresented tenants such as:
| Target communications and design engagement opportunities around each group of people |
f. Meet the standards of the Housing Ombudsman Service and the Regulator of social housing who set us standards to ensure you have a say and receive excellent services
Self-assessing against the RSH consumer standards: · Transparency, Influence and accountability standard (includes complaints and tenant engagement)
| Tenant and Leaseholder Panel to go through self-assessments and propose measures and meet with RSH during inspections Meet with RSH during inspections | ?? |
What we need to do | How we will do it |
|
Involve tenants in policies and communications | Through the Tenant and Leaseholder Panel and the ARMCHAIR READERS
| Ongoing |
Involve tenants in fire safety and communication | Use a range of communication methods with engagement activities to increase awareness of roles rights and responsibilities for safety. Employ specialist officers to make sure our buildings meet safety regulations. We will talk to you to ensure that you understand your responsibilities for keeping your home and communal areas safe. We will put in measures to mitigate potential fire risks. We will work with residents to identify the ways in which they would like to receive clear, concise information relating to the safety of their home. Information will be made available such as fire risk assessments and maintenance schedules. We will involve the Tenant and Leaseholder Panel in decision making related to the safety of their homes. We encourage tenants to report any safety concerns. We will make referrals and support tenants to get home fire safety visits from Essex Fire and Rescue Service We will enable tenants to request additional information, such as fire risk assessments and maintenance schedules. We will have simple and easy mechanisms to report any safety concerns. |
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