'Get involved' Kirklees Homes and Neighbourhoods Tenant voice strategy October 2024

Introduction

This strategy sets out Kirklees Council's continued commitment to engage with tenants, to involve you in the decisions which affect your homes, communities and to improve the delivery of housing services. The strategy explains how the council will involve tenants by providing a range of genuine and meaningful engagement opportunities that are accessible to all, making it easier for more people to 'get involved' and to influence how housing services are delivered.

We look forward to working with all tenants and encourage everyone to get involved.

Tenant voice at Homes and Neighbourhoods means

Listening to our tenants, offering choices for our diverse range of neighbourhoods and make it easy to give feedback and be involved in a way that meets their needs and on their own terms. We will improve online communications but recognise that it is not a one size fits all and that this is not the only way to engage with tenants.

Sharing information with smaller groups of tenants to help us interpret, analyse and develop responses including areas of dissatisfaction as well as involving those who have had recent experience of our services and are well placed feedback on their experiences.

Being honest from the start by setting out what we are hoping to achieve and give clear feedback on how we have acted upon what tenants tell us and what difference their contribution has made - 'you said we did'

Our ambitions: how we will capture the Tenant Voice

We will:

• Listen to your voice.
• Empower and enable more of you to get involved and have your say.
• Offer choice and give you the opportunity to engage and feedback in easy and innovative ways that meet your needs.
• Involve you in decisions that affect you.
• Show that your feedback has made a difference in how services are delivered and be open, honest and trusted.
• Publicise Service Standards, Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) and Compliance against the Consumer Standards so you know what services to expect and how the council are performing against these.
• Improve how the council communicates key policies and strategies e.g. repairs and investment.
• Collect, analyse and consider all feedback, including from complaints to identify areas to improve and deliver excellent services.
• Provide support from our Tenant Voice Team with the added expectation that all staff will ensure the tenant voice is captured as part of their day to day work.

How will we know our approach is working

We will report to the Homes and Neighbourhoods Improvement Board, Tenant Led Panel and more widely to tenants on how we are performing against this strategy to evidence:

• The increased numbers of tenants 'getting involved'
• The wider and improved range of options available for tenants to be able to engage.
• Through communications show how tenant feedback has helped shape service improvements and delivery using a 'you said, we did' approach.
• TRAs and Street Voices are more involved so that tenant's views locally are better captured which help shape decision making about how services are delivered e.g. feedback from estate inspections.

We will also report on the following measures that as a landlord we are required to collect, these are called the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM):

• The overall satisfaction with the services provided.
• Satisfaction that we listen to your views and act upon them.
• Satisfaction that you are kept informed about the things that matter to you.

We will also assess our performance against the Regulator for Social Housing Consumer Standards, including the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

Contact Homes and Neighbourhoods

If you would like to know more then please get in touch with us at:

• Office telephone: 01484 414886
• Email: HN.GetInvolved@kirklees.gov.uk