Resident involvement transformed Optivo for the better

I got involved just over 10 years ago when AmicusHorizon (which later became Optivo) was coming out of regulatory supervision.

At the time, residents weren’t being listened to and it was so frustrating. We weren’t taken seriously and it felt like there was a ‘them and us’ culture.

So how did things improve? I believe residents were instrumental in turning things around.

I became part of a new team of involved residents. We sat down with the new leadership of the association and worked together to agree how services could be improved.

“It worries me that some landlords still haven’t started the journey we began all those years ago”

We all pulled together as a single team and set up resident panels covering issues including complaints, procurement, repairs, local services and even the design of our homes. That meant that for the first time, we also became involved in making decisions and local residents could hold staff accountable.

We also set up an overarching resident group to look at strategic issues. That group is still going strong 10 years later.

These changes didn’t happen overnight and we’ve worked hard with staff over a long period of time. You have to keep up that hard work. When the merger happened in 2017 to create Optivo, we were all determined our approach to resident involvement would continue. There’s been a strong commitment from the board and staff to keep residents at the heart of decision-making. For me, this has been a real sign of how much things have changed and how important resident involvement is to Optivo.

You build up trust when you involve residents and they start to see the improvements. We’ve seen complaints go down and satisfaction scores go up. Services are so much better than they were before resident involvement was introduced and things are also much more open. We’ve got three resident board members as well as two resident observers. I think it’s good for the board to have residents at the table. We bring more diverse views and a sense of what residents really care about, which to my mind makes for better decisions.

“We worked in a team with board members and senior staff and heard from people across Britain and even the Netherlands about how they’ve used co-creation”

It worries me that some landlords still haven’t started the journey we began all those years ago. With the white paper, there’s now something in black and white for those landlords – I hope more will now take resident involvement seriously, as I’ve seen first-hand the big difference it makes.

I’m still passionate about being involved and really enjoy my role. We’re always looking for new ways to get residents involved, so over the summer I was part of our co-creation working group. We worked in a team with board members and senior staff and heard from people across Britain and even the Netherlands on how they’ve used co-creation. I’m now really excited about getting stuck into some of the new co-creation projects that are coming through – I think they’ll be a great new way for residents to make services better still.

I’ve always felt there’s no point sitting on the side lines and complaining. If you want to make a change you’ve got to get involved.

Monica Barnes, chair, resident strategy group, Optivo