We have been listening to feedback from our customers (whether through surveys, direct feedback or through one of our tenant involvement options) and we are pleased to tell you about some changes we have made as a result.
Moore Park Lighting Installation
Approval was granted for solar lighting to be installed in Moore Park following concerns raised by residents about safety at night. We consulted with individuals and at least 50% of residents were in favour of the installation of lighting and a Community and Environmental grant application was put forward to the grant panel members for consideration. The panel were in favour of this project due to the safety implications for our tenants and the lighting was installed middle of January 2024. This lighting will make a difference to the residents within the area, and help promote safety within the neighbourhood they live in.
You would like us to provide a gardening/tree service for tenants?
Unfortunately, we do not have the finances to provide a free service. However, when we next procure our grounds maintenance service we will look to include a Social Value element (wider benefits) within the tender specification asking if the companies tendering could provide this service and how much they would charge tenants for this service.
Wildlife gardens start off well and then decline and start to get over grown and look untidy.
In developing wildlife gardens in the future on land owned by us, we will put in place an arrangement for some maintenance to take place, or hand management over to the Resident Association.
You don’t understand the term Local Offer.
We are required by the Housing Regulator to produce annual “Local Offers” but we are now calling these “Our Service Commitments to You”. You will find out more about these on pages 8-16.
Sussex Home Move Website
Housing Applications would benefit from better/more information on the Sussex Home Move website when searching for a property. We took on board the comments made, listened and have explored options available at this stage. While we do not have the resources for redesigning the floor plans on older properties in a format appropriate for advertising, we will be providing pictures and plans on our new builds. In addition to this, we are in the process of working on a Google maps function to place with the advert. Our long-term plan is to look at the entire empty property process and how this can work when advertising a property.
Recruitment of Housing Officer
Tenants were advising us that they are sometimes unable to get hold of a Housing Officer. We have recruited another Officer to help with workload and availability. Working alongside the Housing Officers, we have 3 Estate Wardens who work generically across the district.
Tenant Incentive Scheme
You said you would like an immediate email confirmation when you apply for the Transfer Incentive Scheme online. We asked our Digital Services Team to make this amendment, and it is now live.
Database Input
Following feedback, we have added a gender neutral Title to our housing database system so that those individuals who wish to be known as something other than the standard titles (Mr, Miss, Mrs etc) can now use Mx followed by their first name and last name. We want to be seen as giving individuals the opportunity to be known by what they wish to be known as, rather than what our computer system dictates.
Communication
A tenant reported that they were unhappy with the way an Officer in Housing had spoken to them. We do need to have difficult conversations with customers from time to time and we are arranging training for Officers so they are more able to manage these conversations in a supportive way.
Termination of a Lease
A relative complained about delays when terminating a lease. While this can be a lengthy process, we have looked at how we can speed up the process, what information we provide and training for staff covering colleagues who are absent.
Housing Officers
You wanted to be able to see your at a time which suits you. So we have created an online booking system which allows you to access the housing officers diary and book a Teams meeting with them.
Reintroducing void surveyor follow up visit
You stated on the New Tenant Survey that it would have been helpful to be shown how to use the heating system and how electric water systems work. We used to offer a visit from a 6-week follow up visit by the void officer after a new tenant has moved in to check everything was okay. There was limited take up on this offer not long after we started it and it had to be stopped while we were short staffed. As a result of several comments from the New Tenant Survey, and with the start of a new void surveyor, we will reintroduce our follow up visit with this purpose in mind.
Block Champions monitoring the communal cleaning.
Our Block Champions – made up of tenants – inspect the standards of cleaning following a clean in the communal areas of a building. From completed inspection forms, we have reviewed any negative responses and as a result have retrained and/or monitored the cleaners and have also changed our cleaning chemicals.
Estate Walkabouts
Tenants and leaseholders who have attended an estate walkabout to raise concerns in the communal areas has resulted in issues being put right. This includes: removal of an abandoned skip full of rubbish; repair of path curbing; overgrown bushes and grass trimmed back; the removal of mould from external walls caused by a building project; repairing of fencing; removal of rotten fencing; fly tipping removed; clearance of an alleyway; and clearance of branches cut down and left on communal grass.
Also see our learning from our formal complaints and link to: Housing Complaints
What is a scrutiny project?
A scrutiny project is a formal process where a committee or group examines, questions, and evaluates the actions, decisions, or policies within an organisation. At Wealden district council this means choosing and looking at a service area or policies in more depth, in order to evaluate the performance and make recommendations for service improvement.
The scrutiny projects that we run are predominantly tenant led by volunteers who are tenants within Wealden, alongside the heads of the particular service being scrutinised, and is facilitated by the tenant involvement team.
By running a different scrutiny project each year, it helps us to empower our tenants to be involved in decision making processes and also ensures accountability from the Council to make the necessary changes where needed.
Scrutiny 2024/25
For 2024 Wealden residents decided they would like to scrutinise Antisocial behaviour, specifically looking at:
- what the expectations are for our response times at key stages of an ASB complaint
- the Initial contact; contact with the other party/parties; follow up; length of time to close a case
- what is expected of the council, what is expected of residents and how this is communicated.
Previous scrutiny sessions have been held in person; however, we trialed an online session for this project to try to encourage broader participation from our tenants. To ensure that it was truly tenant led, we consulted with our Complaints Panel who selected 3 top topics to review for scrutiny, based on our performance satisfaction statistics and the Tenant Satisfaction Measure results. We then put the three top topics out to the whole tenant and leaseholder community to choose from with the way in which the landlords handle Anti-Social Behaviour came out as the favourite topic.
This was followed up with 2 further surveys. Results from the surveys showed strong themes around communication and expectations with ASB cases. From these themes we set and offered 2 focused questions to choose from to scrutinise. Both questions went out to tenants and leaseholders, who selected the final scrutiny question focusing on response times and communication expectations.
We then asked tenants and leaseholders who would like to be involved in the scrutiny session itself. 30 tenants were interested in taking part, with 12 tenants randomly selected to ensure a diverse representation; 4 attended on the day alongside 4 council officers.
The session lasted 1.5 hours and included a review of the ASB guide, letters, and general discussion.
In conclusion it was decided that the ASB guide overall was clear and helpful, especially the diagrams, however there were inconsistencies noted in response times for priority 2 cases (3 vs 5 days) which needed clarification, and the joint visit paragraph needed to be made clearer.
The group suggested extending the monitoring time before ASB cases are to be closed, information on what happens if a tenant is experiencing ASB from a private tenant or homeowner, ASB letters to be reviewed for wording and titled differently, further reporting on ASB made available to tenants with more information on open/closed cases, and a review of the ASB role after a two year period.
We are pleased to report that the recommendations have now been put in place as follows:
- The contact the perpetrator (joint visit) part of the stage 1 diagram has been changed to ‘attempt to make contact with the perpetrator dependant on the situation’
- Monitoring after a case has been closed has been added to include a follow up of the case after it has been closed for 20 days
- A paragraph has been added to the policy and procedure explaining how we can assist a tenant or leaseholder when they are experiencing Anti-social behaviour from a private tenant or homeowner
- The ASB letters have been reviewed and are now worded differently
- Further reporting will be made on our ASB cases twice yearly in our Spring and Autumn Threshold publication
- A new scheme has been introduced called ‘the good neighbour agreement’ alongside ‘good neighbour cards’ which we hope will help empower residents to amicably come to a solution together
- A review of the ASB officer role will be made towards the end of the 2-year contract.
Moving into a Wealden Property – November 2022
We held a focus group with several tenants who had moved into a Wealden property over the past 12 months. Wealden is currently looking at its entire current empty homes process with a view to making improvements to the service – for both the customer and the Council.
This part of the empty homes process – before and when a tenant moves into a Wealden property, was discussed during the focus group. We asked the group about their experiences with the housing register, how they felt the sign-up process went, bidding for properties and the stage of moving into a Wealden home. The group provided us with a wealth of insight and first-hand experiences, information that will be used for the empty homes review.
Customer Service Applicants from the Housing Register January 2023
A focus group meeting was held for those who have applied for housing with Wealden. The group were very interactive and provided useful information, based on their own experiences of customer service.
They gave an insight into whether they felt they had received a good service by the Council in the past.
One of the main factors which will be investigated further was about giving customers reasons why we have reached the decision we have, to allow customers to understand why we may have said no to a particular request, for example. Communication is key, and moving forward as a Department, we will look at how we can improve this further.
We are looking to hold another focus group for our Tenants and Leaseholders middle of March 2023.
Customer Service for Tenants and Leaseholders March 2023
We looked at the Customer Service standards which are already in place at Wealden DC, to see whether Tenants and Leaseholders felt there was more we could do to enhance the customer experience. Discussions with this group were insightful and the group was very interactive, sharing their own experiences with others. More can be done in terms of communicating to our customers – whether this is internally or externally.
Following both customer service focus groups, we will explore how we can take forward some of the issues highlighted to ensure we can deliver the 5 star customer service which the council seeks to achieve.
The panel have looked at our Complaints Handling Code, which the Housing Ombudsman Service requires all social housing landlords to self-assess against. We discussed the areas of the assessment where we currently do and don’t comply and our intentions to meet these standards. An overview of complaints received between 2021-2022 were provided along with the outcome of the complaints giving details of any learning outcomes.
The performance and satisfaction reports were also discussed with the panel. Throughout the meeting participants had the opportunity to ask questions and come up with ideas and suggestions for the council to examine.
July 2022 – We gave an introduction to the Housing Ombudsmen and social housing regulator – who they are and what they do. We also introduced the Tenant Satisfaction Measures that the social housing regulator wanted to bring in that all social housing landlords will need to report on and results published. This will be happening in the second half of this year. We ran through an overview of all formal complaints (2021/22) raised and handled, and also ran through our quarterly Performance and Satisfaction report and highlighted where we are doing well and not so well. The meeting gave the group an opportunity to ask questions on each topic – many questions were asked – and to offer suggestions for improvements. One suggestion made on our satisfaction surveys, concerned ‘survey fatigue’ and to prevent this by adding information on the survey about the number of questions that will be asked and how long this will take to complete. The majority of surveys created since this meeting now include this information.
October 2022 – the meeting was attended by a senior member of our Information Governance department, who gave an update with key changes on our complaints policy and procedure. The panel conveyed their feedback and opinions on our formal complaint response letters (for Stage 1 and Stage 2 of a complaint). They asserted that the tone and language used in letters needed to change as they read too formal and neither user or customer friendly. As a result, Information Governance will be changing the tone where appropriate and are also looking at the wording on a case-by-case basis so that the letters are considered accessible. It is important to add that our own statutory obligations, the housing ombudsmen, and the local government ombudsmen expect us to cover certain points in our letters. The issue of our complaint’s letters being signed off by ‘Information Governance’ and not by an individual was also raised. Formal complaint letters are a formal response from the Council and not an individual, we are looking to make changes going forward.
January 2023 – We discussed our current housing feedback option for customers which is vastly underused and asked the panel their thoughts on this. We also discussed our average response rates for surveys and asked the panel for ideas on how to make asking for feedback more appealing. The panel came up with several points and ideas which we will be looking to work on and explore further with. The panel were updated with our quarterly overview of formal complaints, outcomes and also any learning outcomes. 
May 2023 – we discussed annual performance data with the group, annual customer feedback data and quarter 4 complaints data. The group were given the opportunity to ask questions on all data presented.
November 2023 – we discussed the quarter 1 formal complaint statistics. During a discussion on one of the complaints, the group made suggestions on tackling loneliness and in particular within our own neighbourhoods. As a result, information was added to our December newsletter on volunteering with the east Sussex good neighbourhood schemes – that includes practical support such as supporting people in your local area who need a helping hand.
A couple of the members of the panel raised a concern around understanding why multi-visits, sometimes involving different contractors might be needed to resolve a repair and the impact this would have on cost. As a result, we are looking at how we can improve communications with tenants and contractors when this is necessary and more generally a newsletter article to raise general awareness of why this might be necessary. However, we can assure tenants that multiple visits has no impact on the costs as our pricing mechanism is based on a yearly price per property cost, not on individual jobs.
April 2024 – we discussed quarter 3 formal complaint statistics. Out of this came a discussion on how the Council communicates with vulnerable tenants and that all staff have completed ‘trauma informed’ training. Subsequently staff are more equipped with an understanding of how trauma influences and shapes the lives of those it touches. We were asked by the group how the impact of this training can be measured. Widespread training takes time to filter down as part of this is about cultural change. We will also be carrying out refresher training so that this practice becomes ingrained in our everyday communication.
Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey
We discussed the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) 2023 survey and the current response rate at the time (final data was due June 2024). It was noted that there had been a better response rate by post over online. Hardcopy surveys were sent in the post to anyone we have on record without an email address. The group asked whether there was an option to have either paper or online. Subsequently, for our TSM 2024 survey email reminders to tenants, we have offered the option of a survey to be sent out by post as per request. As a result, we have had a number of requests for hardcopies that have since been sent in the post.
We also discussed the question within the survey on satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour. Corporate are moving towards a different recruitment process in recruiting the right people who are in line with WDC values.
September 2024 – During this meeting we discussed the Housing Regulation Update and the new powers that were implemented from the 1st April 2024, that includes the introduction of four revised consumer standards and more proactive regulation. Within the four revised standards that relates directly to tenant involvement are the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standards. These will ensure that tenants have greater influence in how services are developed and delivered.
As a result of these changes, we discussed the future of the group and moving forward. We are proposing that the group become the Consumer Standards panel with the role as a sounding board on ideas and plans. They will be involved in the development of new policies, projects or procedures.
We will also be creating a Housing Board that will be made up of 2 recruited tenant representatives and 2 recruited independent board members. They will have the opportunity to influence strategic housing decisions prior to onward approval at Cabinet. The Consumer Standards panel will give updates to the Housing Board. Subject to cabinet approval on 9th October we will be recruiting to the tenant and independent board member posts. In addition, subject to approval the current Complaints Group will become the Consumer Standards Panel.