Achieving excellence through meaningful tenant involvement

Liz Haworth – Director of Neighbourhoods

Sandra Binns – Chair of CEP

Jenny Williams – CEP member

Nichola Bremner – Young Inspector

7th June 2011

TSA - Meaningful engagement

“We expect providers to engage meaningfully with tenants and offer them opportunities to agree how service delivery against the TSA standards can be tailored to reflect local priorities.” - TSA

Co-regulation

Source: Housemark

Helena Partnerships

• Stock transfer association – 2002

• St Helens, Merseyside

• Manage approx. 13000 homes

• 674 staff including 268 trades people in our Propertycare division.

Developing the Helena Homes brandDeveloping the Helena Homes brand

Understanding what drives satisfaction

• Consultation with tenants, residents and stakeholders:– Face to face interviews– Telephone survey with 400 tenants– Focus groups and questionnaires– Tenant Panel (One Voice) survey– Mystery shops and customer inspections– Series of service specific listening days

What drives satisfaction?What drives satisfaction?

• Quality of home• Responsive repairs service• Face to face contact with our people• Customer contact eg telephone, email, SMS• Dealing with ASB• Taking tenants’ views into account• Keeping tenants informed• Value for money

What drives dissatisfaction?What drives dissatisfaction?• Young people• Car parking• Litter and rubbish• Drug misuse• Noise• Rowdy behaviour• Pets

A

A

a

Hi (60)

Med (42.5)

Lo (25)

Hi (50)Low (25) Med (37.5)

Importance (impact of issue on overall

satisfaction with each aspect of service)

Per

form

ance

Lower Leverage Issues (Re-deploy) Key Strengths (maintain)

Low Priority Issues (Monitor) Critical Improvement Issues (Improve)

Key Driver Analysis

A Enquiry handling

B Property in general

C Home improvement work

D Repairs and maintenance

E Rent handling

F Helena making neighbourhood better

and safer

G Helena handling neighbour nuisance

and ASB

H Helena’s role in involving and engaging the community

I Ensuring customers adhere to tenancy

rules

J Process for letting and exchanging

homes

K Process for handling complaints

L General communications

KEY:

CE A

B

D

GI

K

L F

H

J (2ndary improvement)

Adjusted R-squared (fit of the model) is 52% i.e. good fit

Our target

To increase the percentage of very satisfied

tenants by 25% by 2012.

Corporate Target

• Target achieved 2 years early!

4

3

2

6

6

5

12

5

5

40

49

39

37

37

49

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

2004

2007

2009

% Very dissatisfied % Fairly dissatisfied % Neither

% Fairly satisfied % Very satisfied

Target

Trend

% satisfied with overall services provided

Aims of engagement• Ensure that we:

– Understand and deliver ‘what matters most’– service standards meet individual needs– are accountable to customers– Learn from and listen to customers – TSA standards came later – but our approach

fits in well!

Opportunities for Involvement

Mechanisms

Diversity•BME•GLBT•Young People•Older People•Disability

Key milestones

• Understanding who our customers are• Understand what’s working and what’s

not?• How can we go the extra mile - what is

excellence?• Do service standards meet expectations?• How can we better involve customers?• How can we be more accountable,• And ensure regular feedback to tenants?

Embedding Challenge

• Tenant Scrutiny • Mystery Shoppers• One Voice tenant

panel • Young Inspectors • RIMG

Customer Scrutiny Role

The Customer Excellence Panel

(CEP)

About CEP

• Provides an enhanced scrutiny role.

• Helps ensure high quality services.

• Added a new dimension to Helena’s decision-making process.

• Maximum of 16 places– Tenants only

What CEP isn’t

• A consultation group

• ‘Rubber stamp’ of policy and procedural changes– CEP review wider feedback gathered and

ensure that Helena is acting on the views of our customers

Establishing CEP

Interviews for CEP members

Welcome meeting and independent training programme

Appointment of Vice Chair

Links with One Voice, Mystery Shoppers and Board formalised

External Consultants appointed – Independent recruitment

Chair of Panel appointed by Board (18month placement)

All tenants invited to attend ‘Taster Day’.

1

7

6

5

4

3

2

Dec 2008

June 2009

External consultant role

• Benefits:– Critical friend– Open and transparent – Independent recruitment process– Training not biased in Helena’s favour – Learn from best practice

Recruitment

• Every tenant invited to attend ‘taster day’

• Menu of scrutiny opportunities

• Interview process• Bespoke training tailored

to our needs

Links to Board

• Chair and Vice Chair attend Board to provide quarterly updates on:– Basket of Performance

Indicators– Outcomes of service

reviews

Approach to CEP reviews

• What matters most to tenants?

• Do our service standards reflect this?

• How are we performing? (including cost and value for money)

• Are we monitoring the right things?

• What improvements do tenants want?

CEP Service Reviews• Scrutinise performance & feedback• Agree Customer Excellence KPIs• Review service standards• Recommend improvement & identify actions • Consider value for money and are we

delivering excellent services to tenants and residents?

Links – Customer Inspectors

• Review timetable complements CEP review schedule

• CEP may request further inspections

• Inspectors invited to present findings to CEP.

• Inspectors will receive CEP reports outlining outcomes

Links – Young Inspectors

• Mystery shop our services

• Ensure meet the needs of young people

• Training to develop skills and capacity build

• Improve CV and provide experience transferable into employment

Links – One Voice

• Quarterly surveys to feed into reviews

• CEP can ask additional questions in One Voice surveys as part of review process.

• One Voice will be kept informed of progress via Chorus newsletter

Resident Involvement Monitoring Group (RIMG)

• Umbrella group of residents

• Reviews impact of resident involvement

• Rates all activities in regards to impact and value for money

• Ensures that Helena is listening

• Holds Helena to account

Link – Complaints appeals panel

• Stage 3 – complaints appeal

• Tenant representatives

• In line with proposed introduction of ‘democratic filter’

Outcomes

TSA Co Regulation

Champions

CEP Outcomes

• Identified £80k efficiency savings• Introduced new service standards• Extended repairs appointments• Improved communication –ASB• Changed complaints process• Reviewed empty property standards

• Basket of Customer Excellence KPIs • Customer Charter - Service standards that

reflect what matters most to tenants. • Customer orientated improvement plans.• Effective monitoring mechanisms established • Improved services that provide value for

money. • Culture of Customer Excellence embedded

throughout Helena.

CEP Outcomes

CEP Outcomes • Can evidence clearly how

customer views have influenced service delivery

• KPI framework has been revised ensuring cost, time and quality indicators incorporated for all service areas.

• Satisfaction is improving • CSE Award

Top tips

• Be creative when recruiting

• Don’t underestimate your tenants

• Build relations between all groups involved in scrutiny activities.

Next steps

• Peer Reviews – are you interested? • Launch our new website• Accredited scrutiny training

Find out more at….

www.excellenceathelena.co.uk

Email: scrutiny@helenapartnerships.co.uk

Available from 10th June 2011

Any questions?