Engagement panel – update from the 11 January 2023 meeting

Our next meeting is Thursday 9 February.  We welcome observers so please join us.

Damp and mould strategy

Richard James, asset director, updated the panel on how Brighter Places is tackling damp and mould.

Richard highlighted how the housing ombudsman recognised challenges for landlords such as overcrowding, poverty, age of properties and design of homes. The culture needs to shift. Property owners must stop blaming the resident and their lifestyle. We need a combined approach. The ombudsman’s report provides a number of recommendations (26) for landlords to implement.

Richard also gave the example of the death of Awaab Ishak, who died in 2020 after prolonged exposure to mould. The housing association had focused on the disrepair claim – the legal side of things – instead of resolving the problem. The tragedy had wide media coverage, including the involvement of Michael Gove and the Regulator of Social Housing.

The stock condition survey conducted during the summer, which recorded moderate risk items, slight risk items and disrepair cases linked to damp and mould, was shared. Brighter Places wants to address damp and mould issues via our repairs and complaints process, with the wellbeing of residents the priority.

Brighter Places is reviewing policy and procedures in collaboration with Alliance Homes/HRS [the repairs contractor] and has developed a policy and process map, including 17 principles. It will be reviewed by the executive team and finalised in January.

BP will be training frontline colleagues and also wants to provide more guidance to residents through comms on our website and handouts by frontline colleagues.

Complaints feedback form

Next we heard from Claude Lajous, the customer engagement administrator, who shared the complaints feedback form with the panel, which following the Bridge meeting in September has been updated. Brighter Places’ aim is to increase the number of feedback responses and capture qualitative information about our residents’ experiences in order to improve services.

Resident engagement officer Danielle Jones asked for the panel to input on BP external facing policies implementation plan. Over the past 6 months, the governance and risk management team has carried out a full review of all policies and procedures. They’ve identified all internal and external facing policies and have asked the engagement panel to feed back on which policies they determine as key policies to be external facing and on the website for residents to access.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)

Finally we heard from Scott Jacobs-Lange, Community and Resident Engagement Manage, who shared more information about the Social Housing White Paper, representing residents at national level. It lists the key issues residents are facing and how these could be addressed. It includes the introduction of a suite of Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). This will gives residents access to a clear set of comparable measures to understand how BP is performing.

There are 22 TSMs:

12 will be collected from Tenant Perception Surveys

10 will be based on Brighter Places data – the key performance indicators or KPIs. Data will be gathered from April 2023 to March 2024. The results will be published in September 2024.

Our next meeting is on 9 February 2023. We welcome observers.

Engagement team, on behalf of co-chairs and panel