Get involved

In order to get their hands on decent homes funding, arm’s-length management organisations have had to focus on improving their service standards — including increasing tenant participation.

Now that the decent homes programme is nearing its end, with the official deadline for works the end of this year, 2010 could be crunch time for England’s 69 ALMOs and their tenants.

With the future of government funding hazy, they will need to hammer out a purpose to justify their existence.

One thing is clear: their efforts to empower tenants are a string to their bow, especially in light of the Tenant Services Authority’s new regulatory framework for England, which came into force in April, and insists that tenant scrutiny is an integral part of the running of any housing provider.

ALMOs, whose parent councils are now overseen by the TSA, have the opportunity to showcase the innovative ways in which they’ve managed to increase tenant participation.

Take Wolverhampton Homes. The two star set up a review panel to increase tenant scrutiny and launched informal get-togethers to attract a fresher churn of tenants.

The problem

Wolverhampton Homes used to run three local area forums, which were ‘very formal, committee-type meetings,’ says Margaret Wright, director of performance and customer services.

The meetings mainly comprised members of tenants’ and residents’ associations and the level of required commitment could be off-putting to new members. Leaseholders tended to dominate, as did older people, and there were few tenants from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

‘Quite a lot of people had quite strong personalities and the people who were shyer couldn’t get involved,’ says a spokesperson.

‘The change for us has been moving away from formal structures that attracted really committed people,’ says Ms Wright, ‘but we couldn’t get enough of a wide range of tenants because they didn’t see it as being that relevant to them.’

The solution

As a result of its 2008 tenant participation review, Wolverhampton Homes decided to run quarterly local get-togethers across four geographical areas.

The gatherings were intended to be informal and low commitment. About 200 people attend each event, which are often themed — the last one served Asian and Caribbean food, for example.

The first part of the two-hour get-togethers includes children’s activities, refreshments and the chance to chat to staff about concerns. The second part aims ‘to find out what’s most important locally’, says Ms Wright.

Last December, Wolverhampton Homes also set up a residents’ review panel with 12 seats, which scrutinises the organisation’s decisions. The panel, members of which are selected by an independent external consultant, meets monthly.

It will work with Wolverhampton Homes’s newly launched special interest groups, in which groups of residents also meet monthly, to focus on particular service areas such as under-occupation and anti-social behaviour. The review panel can task a SIG to report on an area and then make recommendations that they feed back to the board.

Wolverhampton Homes has not abandoned its original tenants’ and residents’ groups, which each have at least 30 active members, says Ms Wright. ‘They can be very active in the community,’ she adds.

‘Tenants’ groups are very important because they’re the people that know what’s going on locally. So our housing management staff will be in close touch and we will use them for consultation on local issues.’

The results

As a result of residents’ views from the get-togethers, Wolverhampton Homes decided to allocate repair appointments within two-hour windows for convenience to tenants.

Although it is early days, the ALMO believes it is receiving input from a more varied and diverse range of tenants. It has gone from having an over-representation of older people in tenants’ and residents’ meetings, to needing to attract more over-60s. All 12 review panel members are under 60 years of age and there are three BME members.

The tenant

Rachael Evans, a review panel tenant member, says being a social worker prompted her interest in tenants’ and residents’ services. She also wanted the opportunity to scrutinise work.

Issues of concern, she says, include making sure that decent homes work is of a high quality and that voids and under-occupied properties are managed well.

‘As a panel, we have a say as to what we want to focus on first,’ she says. ‘We would go to the board and say this area needs service improvements.’

The panel members have access to statistics and research to back up their own findings and can request information. Looking ahead, Ms Evans, 35, says she now wants to improve consultation for younger tenants.

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