Tenant Engagement Strategy 2022-2027 (HTML version)
Contents
1. Joint Foreword
2. Introduction
3. What is Tenant Engagement
4. Dover District Council’s Corporate Objectives
5. Regulatory Considerations
6. Our Current Structure
7. How Did We Consult Tenants in the Formulation of This Strategy?
8. Barriers to Involvement
9. Digital Inclusion and Hybrid Delivery
10. Our Key Objectives
11. Resources to Support Tenant Engagement
12. Tenant Involvement Framework
13. How Do We Use Customer Feedback
14. Monitoring
15. Equalities
16. Menu of Opportunities
17. Action Plan
1. Joint Foreword
The way in which social housing landlords engage with their tenants and leaseholders is changing and there is a powerful push at national and local level to make sure that tenants have a real say in how their homes and services are managed. At Dover we want tenants and leaseholders to be at the heart of the housing service, and we recognise that we can only understand whether we are delivering the right services to the right standard if we have inclusive, representative, and active tenant engagement to support us.
This strategy has been developed against a backdrop of change for social housing landlords. In the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire and the publication of the Government’s Social Housing White Paper, ‘The Charter for Social Housing Residents’, more robust regulation of social housing landlords is planned, and now more than ever social housing landlords must ensure that their tenants have an effective voice.
Rapid changes in technology and our use of them during the Covid pandemic mean that tenants and leaseholders can be involved, using their phones, in person or on screen. We want to harness this change and ensure a range of opportunities exist for all service users who want to be involved. Tenants have been involved in formulating this strategy from the start and we are grateful to the Dover District Tenants’ Group (DDTG) and dedicated Focus Group who have given up their time to help develop this document.
We all have a part to play in building successful engagement opportunities and we are committed as Members, Tenants and Officers to working together to improve services.
2. Introduction
Dover District Council (DDC) owns and manages 4341 affordable rented properties, 95 interim accommodation, 428 leasehold properties and 32 shared ownership properties.
On 1 October 2020, DDC brought its housing management service in house for the first time in 9.5 years. In that time, the way tenants want to engage with their landlord has changed. With more online opportunities and increasingly mixed tenure estates, the involvement service must evolve to ensure we are listening and acting upon what we are told.
Tenant engagement takes many forms, but its core objective is to listen to residents and proactively use their feedback to influence, shape and improve services. As a landlord, the Council will strive to provide a varied and broad list of engagement activities and tools to ensure there is an opportunity to be involved for those who want it. This strategy sets out how we will work in partnership with our tenants and leaseholders to shape and deliver a high-quality housing service in the Dover District. It will build upon the good initiatives already in place but recognises that there are still improvements that can be made so that tenants remain involved and are consulted and included at whatever level they choose to be.
To formulate this strategy, we worked closely with a focus group of tenants, the Dover District Tenants’ Group and members of our ‘Keep Me Posted’ group. We want to acknowledge and thank them all for their time and support for this.
3. What is Tenant Engagement?
Tenant Engagement (also known as Tenant Involvement) is a commitment from us, the landlord, to listen to, and act upon the views and recommendations of tenants and leaseholders who are directly impacted by the services we deliver.
We want tenants and leaseholders to tell us what they think of the services we offer, for example repairs and housing management. We want them to help us improve how we communicate with them, eg through our website, by phone or letter, and we want to understand from customers what effect our decisions and choices have on them and how we can make improvements, from decisions about the type of playground equipment or front door colours we choose right through to bigger decisions about how the service works.
Resident and community engagement is vital and the Government’s Charter for Social Residents and the Regulator for Social Housing’s regulatory framework both underpin and reinforce the importance of landlords having consistent, continuous and meaningful engagement with their tenants.
4. Dover District Council’s Corporate Objectives
Dover District Council wants to be a district of ambition, inspiration and good living and has bold and ambitious plans for a sustainable future for residents living in the district. The Council’s Corporate Plan is designed to encourage, facilitate and deliver a stronger local economy, with opportunities for everyone to reach their ambitions. Some of the objectives associated with Housing and the Community are:
5. Regulatory Considerations
5.1 Regulator for Social Housing
The Regulator of Social Housing is the body that oversees standards in the social housing sector. It has a regulatory framework setting clear standards for landlords to meet. There are currently four consumer regulatory standards with which Local Authority housing providers must comply and the Regulator is currently consulting with landlords regarding a fifth consumer standard based upon tenant satisfaction that it intends introducing in the winter of 2022. For the purposes of tenant engagement, the council must follow the requirements of the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard which has the following three sections:
The Regulator of Social Housing has made it very clear that it expects social landlords to adopt its principles of co-regulation. Co-regulation is intended to bring elected members, tenants and officers together to scrutinise collectively their landlord services and make sure that these are delivered effectively and comply with all regulatory requirements.
Social Housing Landlords, including the Council are encouraged to support and provide tenants with opportunities to fully engage with the co regulatory approach and to be able to hold their landlord to account if standards are not met.
5.2 The Social Housing White Paper
The Social Housing White Paper sets out the Government’s vision for improved social housing management and is informed by national consultation with tenants, landlords and other stakeholders. The Charter for Social Housing Residents sets out how registered housing providers must deliver this vision. The Charter contains 7 expectations:
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To be safe in your home. We will work with industry and landlords to ensure every home is safe and secure.
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To know how your landlord is performing, including on repairs, complaints and safety, and how it spends its money, so you can hold it to account.
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To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly, with access to a strong ombudsman who will give you swift and fair redress when needed
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To be treated with respect, backed by a strong consumer regulator and improved consumer standards for tenants.
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To have your voice heard by your landlord, for example through regular meetings, scrutiny panels or being on its Board. The government will provide help, if you want it, to give you the tools to ensure your landlord listens.
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To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in, with your landlord keeping your home in good repair.
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To be supported to take your first step to ownership, so it is a ladder to other opportunities, should your circumstances allow.
“Engagement can take many forms, but the crucial factor is that it is tailored appropriately. There will be tenants who want to proactively engage with the policies of their landlord, and others who simply want to know that their landlord is thinking of them in the way it implements change and is keeping them informed. We expect all landlords to tailor their engagement in the future.”
- From the charter for social housing residents: social housing white paper
6. Our Current Structure
Since the Housing service was bought back in house to DDC, officers have continued to work with existing groups and engage in a range of activities to increase the opportunities for tenants and leaseholders to share their views with us.
We have worked closely with Dover District Tenants’ Group, which has been established for many years. This independent group works closely with the Council to share views and make recommendations for improvements in service delivery. Throughout the pandemic the group met with officers online and easily adapted to this way of working.
While the existing engagement structure works well, there is more that can be done to involve residents in different ways and overcome barriers. This is how we currently engage with our tenants and leaseholders.
DDC’s Housing Services:
7. How Did We Consult Tenants in the Formulation of This Strategy?
To help us identify ways of encouraging more tenants to become involved we worked closely with a dedicated focus group. This group was made of tenants from across the district who came forward when we advertised for group members to help develop the strategy at the ‘ideas’ stage. We have used the insight provided by this group of enthusiastic tenants to help DDC build a menu of opportunities through which to engage with tenants.
To ensure that as wide a variety of customer voices as possible be used to influence this strategy, we also used data and feedback from our whole district tenant satisfaction survey completed in summer 2021, the views of members of the Dover District Tenant Group, the outcome of semi structured question and answer sessions with our sheltered housing residents, and the 437 members who have proactively signed up to our housing Keep Me Posted service.
Tenant Satisfaction Survey
In 2021, Dover District Council conducted a tenant satisfaction survey, sent to all tenants and available online to complete. We asked tenants what their preferred method of involvement is, these are the results:
These results indicate that tenants are more interested in receiving information and participating from home or their local area than attending formal meetings.
When questioned about their satisfaction with the way in which the Council involves tenants and listens and acts upon their views, the results show that although many tenants felt satisfied with how the Council involves and informs them, there were also higher levels of indifference compared to other questions asked, which may suggest one of two things:
a. that tenants may be content with the way they are being included and informed by the Council; or
b. the high indifference could be attributed to low interest in involvement.
It is clear however that more can be done to encourage tenants to be actively involved at some level and to understand the benefits that this can bring.
Tenant involvement, views and Council action
The council involves tenants:
The council listens to the view of tenants and acts on them:
Information taken from the from the DDC Tenant Satisfaction Survey summer 2021
8. Barriers to Involvement
Although there are clear benefits to tenant involvement, not just to the service but to those involved, we understand that not all tenants want to join in. For some this is because they choose not to but for others there are barriers that make involvement more difficult. As a social housing provider we need to be aware of these barriers and seek to overcome them.
To help us understand what potential barriers there might be we asked our tenant focus group. They came up with the following and some suggested solutions.
Barrier identified:
Work and family constraints such as busy lifestyle, work commitments and school runs
Solutions identified:
Barrier identified:
Difficulty getting about due to physical or mental illness
Solutions identified:
Barrier identified:
The cost of getting to meetings
Solutions identified:
Barrier identified:
Lack of skills
Solutions identified:
Barrier identified:
English not first language
Solutions identified:
Barrier identified:
Disinterest in the landlord service and apathy for getting involved
Solutions identied:
Through the priorities and actions in our Tenant Engagement Strategy, we hope to be able to proactively engage with tenants who may ordinarily struggle to be involved in their housing service. We will create an equalities group, who can delve deeper and establish a range of inclusive involvement opportunities and challenge the service.
9. Digital Inclusion and Hybrid Delivery
Digital by default is a government initiative, launched in 2010, to make public services easy to access online. This shift is across all public services and included the first online only census held in 2021. The Covid pandemic has also seen more households than ever before communicating with each other through online digital platforms. For many this has been something they have been able to move to quite easily and enjoy. We want to harness this willingness to use digital platforms and will offer a raft of engagement activities that can be done online.
Benefits of online services to many of our tenants include:
The balance of those online is much higher than those not and Office of National Statistics (ONS) data suggest that the number of those not online is decreasing every year.
Whilst the availability of digital services is enjoyed by many, there is a section of people who either choose to not be online or are not online for other reasons. This could be financial or skills based. We also recognise that the rural nature of some parts of Dover District can pose connectivity challenges for some of our residents and exclude them from effective engagement online. It is important for the tenant involvement service to engage across all groups of tenants and leaseholders and therefore our strategy and engagement opportunities offer ways to engage to suit those online as well as those that prefer more traditional methods. Examples of these include:
“In January to February 2020, 96% of households in Great Britain had internet access, up from 93% in 2019 and 57% in 2006 when comparable records began.”
Source: ONS Internet access - Great Britain: 2020
10. Our Plans for the Future and Key Priorities
Through our work with tenants and leaseholders we have identified 4 key priorities. Each action point on the action plan will relate to one or more of these priorities:
1. Breaking down the barriers to being involved by:
2. Rebuilding the trust that tenants have in Dover District Council by:
3. Increased offering and a larger variety of opportunities to encourage more people to be involved in ways that suit them by:
4. Supporting tenants to be involved through training, guidance and support.
How will we achieve these?
Priority One – Breaking down the barriers
We want all of our customers to have the opportunity to be involved if they want it in ways that are convenient for them. To do this we will:
Priority Two - Rebuilding the trust
We want our tenants and leaseholders to have trust in us that we will provide the best services we can with the resources we have and listen and act upon their concerns. To do this we will :
Priority Three - Increased offering and a larger variety of opportunities
We recognise that not all tenants want to be involved in the same way and want to make sure that we offer a variety of opportunities calling for varying degrees of commitment to suit more people. We will achieve this priority by:
Priority Four - Supporting tenants to be involved
We also recognise that we will need to offer training, learning and support to all involved tenants to develop their skills and confidence to be effective in their involvement. We will do this by:
11. Resources to Support Tenant Engagement
DDC has a dedicated resource to support tenant engagement in the shape of our Tenant Involvement and Continuous Improvement Officer (TEO). The TEO is largely responsible for the successful implementation of this strategy and action plan and for the ongoing support of groups, meetings and managing resources.
In addition to the TEO, it is important for a culture of tenant engagement to be embedded throughout the Housing and Asset teams, and to ensure tenants are involved with staff at different levels in activities such as procurement, improvement works at a local level or with Housing Officers on walkabouts or community events.
Financial support
We acknowledge that supporting tenant engagement does incur associated costs, many of these costs such as printing, staffing costs and consumables are absorbed by the housing management budget as a whole, but there are more specific costs such as:
These costs will need to be attributed to a Tenant Involvement budget and DDC is committed to annual meetings with finance staff to set a budget for the forthcoming year.
Working with others
We understand that we can’t do this all on our own, we will ensure we will join other teams and agencies to work together in partnership on projects and events. In addition to the engagement opportunities that the housing service offer, our team members help support resident associations and community groups worked with by our colleagues in the Community Development team. We endeavour to work collaboratively with other Dover District Council teams including Waste Services, our contractors, local Councillors, community groups and other stakeholders.
12. Tenant Involvement Framework
Formal Involvement
Informal Involvement
Consultation and Communication
Our revised tenant engagement framework includes a menu of opportunities for tenants and leaseholders to be involved. We recognise that not everyone wants to be or can be involved in the same way and the menu reflects this. The menu offers opportunities to be involved simply by reading our newsletter right through to being elected chairperson of one of our formal groups. Each of the ways that tenants and leaseholders engage with us will take up varying amounts of their time and we have tried to identify this in the menu which is shown in full at the end of this strategy.
12.1 Formal involvement
The Tenant Involvement framework includes opportunities to be more ‘formally’ involved with the housing service. This might be through membership of the Dover District Tenants’ Group and/or our focus groups and tenant panels.
Dover District Tenants’ Group (DDTG)
The Dover District Tenants’ Group (DDTG) has been in existence for many years. It is an independent group with 12 membership places and tenants and leaseholders from across the district can apply to join.
The aim of the DDTG is to work with DDC, tenants and leaseholders to resolve local community issues, to support local community projects and to oversee estate improvements. The work that the group undertakes is valuable to meet the regulator for social housing’s specific expectation to enable tenants to scrutinise services.
The Dover District Tenants’ Group supports the following functions:
Focus groups/tenant panels
There will be times where more in depth and outcome driven involvement will be required. This might be to help write and implement a strategy, make changes to processes, or speak to a particular group of residents.
Focus groups and tenant panels allow tenants and DDC to join forces and disband once the project has been completed. This is a ‘Task and Finish’ style of tenant engagement.
Special interest groups
One of our key priorities is to break down barriers, one of the ways we can do this is to speak to tenants who perhaps have a different perspective that we want to hear from. This could be from under-represented groups or collections of tenants with protected characteristics that may find it harder to engage traditionally.
These groups are interchangeable based on the needs at the time. For example, we may have a project or desire to speak to tenants who are below a certain age or young parents, we would then set up a method of engagement based on the preferred method of that group.
Similar to focus groups, these groups can be a ‘task and finish’ style of involvement, focusing on one topic or they could be longer running, looking at a wider variety of topics and areas.
12.3 Informal engagement
In addition to the large-scale Tenant Satisfaction Survey, sent to all residents, it is an important goal for us to implement more surveys to ascertain tenants’ thoughts by targeting tenants at the end of a service received. An example of this is the anti-social behaviour (ASB) satisfaction surveys to collect data on how positive or negative the tenants’ experience was with the housing team.
Feedback forms are available to complete 24/7 on DDC’s website. Printed feedback forms are also available at community events.
We will continue to gather tenants’ opinions via a variety of methods.
A new involvement opportunity for tenants to be added to a ‘Keep Me Posted’ mailing list to receive regular surveys and opportunity to provide service feedback
Points of view members
Distribution list of residents to hear about services and opportunities to respond
We are aware that many of our tenants are on social media. Other providers have created groups and pages to directly communicate with tenants, provide information and gain responses and feedback. We will look into this as a potential new resource.
Previously known as Estate Inspections these offer an opportunity to be involved in person and join us once a year for a community event. DDC staff conduct inspections alongside stakeholders including contractors, councillors, tenants and leaseholders.
We have altered the name of these on the recommendation of members of our focus group who felt that the formality of the title inspection might put residents off and suggest that we were expecting them to act on anything they found. They felt that the term ‘Estate Walkabout’ more accurately described what was going on.
12.4 Engagement through communications
53% of tenants told us that their preferred method of involvement is to receive information and updates of the service.
This correlates with our involved residents who say that communication is key and they enjoy receiving new information via Keep Me Posted email updates and biannual newsletters.
We aim to provide a range of ways in which we will communicate with our residents.
“Communication is key” - Neil Drakley, Tenant Focus Group
Communication
We will create a consultation framework to identify which projects would benefit from resident consultation and how that will be undertaken to provide fair opportunities to be involved in changes made to residents’ own environments, blocks and estates.
Publishing Tools
We use a variety of methods to publish information to tenants, both to their door (newsletters), to their inbox (Keep Me posted) or information they wish to seek on the website or in the Annual Report to tenants.
Information about our performance
It is vital that to effectively scrutinise services, our tenants and leaseholders must have access to timely and accurate performance data. We will not only provide annual report data but will publish our performance and service standards on our website.
13. How We Will Use Customer Feedback
We will make sure that we use the feedback we receive from a variety of sources to improve our service delivery arrangements and deliver improvements that make our estates healthy, safe and attractive places to live.
We will develop a consultation framework that we adopt whenever we do local estate based consultation exercises and the outcome of these interactive surveys will be to better understand what our residents are telling us about our plans for their area. This type of consultation feeds into our investment plans and asset management strategies.
14. Monitoring
The tenant involvement and empowerment standard’s specific expectation states that providers must consult tenants at least once every three years on the best way of involving tenants in the governance and scrutiny of the organisation’s housing management service.
The strategy and action plan outcomes will be reviewed annually and we will use the following performance indicators and reporting tools to help us measure our success:
15. Equalities
Different groups are protected in law (the Equality Act 2010) and DDC is committed to ensuring barriers to involvement are considered and minimised wherever possible.
An equalities impact assessment has been conducted to ensure fairness, access and inclusion of tenants in the influence of housing landlord services.
16. Menu of Involvement
Our menu of involvement includes a wide variety of ways residents can be involved with the landlord service; they include:
Formal Meetings (largest time commitment)
Informal Engagement Activities (moderate time commitment)
Online Involvement (smallest time commitment)
Publications and one way communication
Activity Toolbox
Methods and tools at the disposal of residents to aid effective engagement in service delivery.
17. Tenant Engagement Strategy Action plan
Key objectives are set out in the section 10 in the Tenant Engagement Strategy and each action point complies with one or more key objectives. Actions are divided into groups of the following subjects:
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Action
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Complies with Key Objectives:
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Year 1
By April 2023
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Year 2
By April 2024
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Year 3
By April 2025
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Year 4
By April 2026
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Year 5
By April 2027
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Responsible Officer
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Creation of supporting documents
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Write and agree Terms of References for Groups
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3
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x
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TEO
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Write and agree Tenant Expenses Policy
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1, 4
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x
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TEO
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Create a consultation framework and toolkit to ensure consultations are carried out at local level for appropriate projects such as bin storage relocations, parking alterations, new signage, windows and doors, etc.
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2, 3
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x
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TEO
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Use information collected from our profiling exercise to inform the development of a vulnerable tenant policy
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1, 3
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x
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HoH
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Launching new and additional projects and groups and activities
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Identify younger tenants living in our stock and try to engage them through information activities
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1, 3
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x
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TEO
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Conduct customer journey mapping exercises as a tool to identify where improvements can be made to services.
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3
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x
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TEO
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Launch an Equalities Group to investigate and ascertain how we can ensure we are engaging with tenants with protected characteristics moving forward.
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1, 3
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x
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TEO
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Work with Tenants to review Tenant Engagement Strategy, targets and monitor progress.
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2
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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TEO
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Working with Asset team to ensure that tenants are involved in planned work when they are directly affected by the work proposed.
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2, 3
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x
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x
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x
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x
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AM
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Develop a new customer satisfaction survey for a variety of areas, such as ASB, complaints and asset maintenance and use feedback from this to monitor our services.
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3
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x
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HM
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Reintroduce the Estate Improvement Programme, using resident involvement to directly improve estates.
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3
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x
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TEO & AM
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Rename Estate Inspections to Estate Walkabouts to encourage a more approachable community activity.
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3
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x
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TEO
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Explore creation of Special Interest Groups and identify underrepresented areas.
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1, 3
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x
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TEO
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Publishing tasks
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Encourage new tenants to sign up to keep me posted at first contact with their housing officer.
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1, 3
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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HM
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Publish Annual Reports and work with tenants to agree what our local offers look like each year
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2
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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HoH
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Increase promotion of successful projects and ‘you said we did’ to increase trust in services
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2
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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TEO
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Digital and Technical
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Roll out hybrid meeting options for open meetings held in person at Dover District Council.
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1, 3
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x
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TEO
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Investigate the use of social media as a multimedia forum to enhance our engagement opportunities.
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1, 3
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x
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TEO
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Understanding our Residents
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Increase understanding of our tenants by completing tenant profiling exercise, made easier by census data becoming available in 2022.
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1
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x
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TEO
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Develop and carry out a ‘lifestyle’ questionnaire to gain greater understanding of our tenants and what their needs and aspirations are.
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1, 2
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x
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TEO
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Supporting our Residents
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Agree annual Tenant Engagement budget with DDC Finance
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1, 4
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x
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x
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x
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x
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x
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HoH
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Establish a Programme of skills training for our engaged tenants working with partners to identify opportunities for training to be supported by them. Review every 2 years.
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4
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x
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x
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x
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TEO
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Abbreviations:
HoH: Head of Housing
HM: Housing Manager
TEO: Tenant Engagement and Continuous Improvement Officer
AM: Asset Manager