Communicating and engaging with our tenants

What we promised in 2002:

• Give tenants a real say in how decisions are made about their homes and communities
• Give tenants a real choice in the management and maintenance of their homes

What we did

We offer our tenants a number of ways to have their say via surveys, focus groups, listening days and Tenant and Resident groups.

Every few years we conduct a satisfaction survey of our tenants to find out how they rate our service and where they think improvements could be made. In our last survey in 2007, 85% of tenants surveyed were satisfied with our service compared with 74% in 2004. We will shortly be conducting our 2009 survey and hope that we can record an even higher rate of satisfaction from our tenants.

Each year we invite our tenants to our annual listening days to talk to us about our services and how they can be improved. What our tenants tell us is fed back to our board, so that the views of our tenants can be included when we develop our plans and priorities for the coming year.

We have four tenant members representing the voice of our tenants on our board of management. They work alongside our independent and council representatives to ensure that Helena Partnerships is managed and run fairly, efficiently and effectively.

We consult with tenants on our estates and through our recognised Tenants and Residents groups on matters which have a direct impact on them, such as estate-based environmental schemes and large scale improvement programmes. We have also consulted with tenants when tendering for new contractors to carry out improvements to our homes.

Communities Together is our umbrella group of tenants and residents groups who meet regularly to help us develop our future plans for the company, and share their experiences working on their own estates. We have forums for people with a disability and those from a minority background, to make sure that we take account of the needs of these groups.

Earlier this year we set up a range of new opportunities for tenants to tell us how well we are performing:

• We invited tenants to become involved in our Customer Excellence Panel. This is a group of 9 tenants who meet each month to discuss one of our services and see where improvements can be made. The Chair and Vice Chair of the panel attend board meetings to report the findings of the group.
• We also have a group of 11 trained Customer Inspectors who have volunteered to carry out inspections and mystery shopping exercises to feedback on the quality of our services, properties and neighbourhoods.
• Our One Voice panel consists of 500 tenants from various backgrounds who participate in regular surveys. The responses from the panel are fed into the Customer Excellence Panel who review the information and raise any issues surrounding any of our services.

Click here to access our 2010 Promises document (PDF format)>>
Click here to see the Promises movies>>