Housing service standards review
We carried out a review to realign our housing service standards to the proposed new regulatory consumer standards.
Our current standards
Our housing service standards are a series of commitments and service targets which set out what tenants, leaseholders or housing applicants can expect from the borough's Housing and Regeneration Department. We report on how we meet these standards in our Annual Report to Residents.
The standards are reviewed and agreed with residents to make sure they are meeting customer needs and are aligned with the national regulatory standards, which set out outcomes the Regulator of Social Housing expects social housing providers to achieve.
Proposed new standards
2021’s Social Housing White Paper sets out a charter for social housing residents under the following themes:
- To be safe in your home
- To know how your landlord is performing
- To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly
- To be treated with respect, backed by a strong consumer regulator for tenants
- To have your voice heard by your landlord
- To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in
- To be supported to take your first step to ownership
To achieve these aims, the most important step is to create a strong, proactive consumer regulatory regime, strengthening the formal standards against which we are regulated.
This will be embedded in law through the Social Housing Regulation Bill, currently progressing through Parliament. This will change the powers and the remit of the regulator, including setting new consumer standards and stronger enforcement and inspection powers.
The proposed new consumer standards are as follows:
- Quality - quality of the home, communal spaces and services to tenants
- Neighbourhood - landlords’ role, working with other agencies, to contribute to the wellbeing of neighbourhoods in which tenants live
- Transparency - landlords’ role in making information accessible to tenants including roles and responsibilities within landlords, so tenants know who is responsible for matters relating to consumer standards
- Engagement and accountability - engagement between landlords and tenants, including how complaints are handled. Landlords’ accountability to tenants and treating tenants with fairness and respect
- Tenancy - requirements on landlords in respect of tenancies, including allocations policies and opportunities for tenants to move
- Safety - landlords’ safety responsibilities including safety within the home and in communal areas
Resident working group
As part of our work to re-align our housing service standards to the proposed new regulatory consumer standards, we have organised a resident working group who will take part in workshops in February and March 2023. This is made up of residents who have previously expressed an interest in participating in resident focus groups and aims to have a representative split between tenants and leaseholders.
Following the introductory session, the workshops reviewed two themes from the proposed consumer standards in each session.
Read details of each workshop we held.
Safety and quality workshop
We held a session on 7 February covering safety responsibilities including safety within the home and in communal areas. We also looked at our commitments on the quality of the home, communal spaces and the quality and ease of access of services.
With fire safety being one of the most important issues currently, we asked residents how our service standards would help support them to feel safe in their home. The issues discussed were:
- All residents must be aware of what their fire safety responsibilities are and what to do in the event of a fire
- Residents would benefit from a choice of communication methods
- Some service standards related to safety state what we are already legally obligated to do and may benefit from adding detail
- That we must consider leaseholders and tenants as a whole when considering the fire safety of the whole block
- Where possible, consider where we may achieve value for money by considering extending their existing services, such as electrical and gas safety inspections and front door replacements to leaseholders
- Items left in communal areas must be dealt with quickly and repeat offenders identified
- Communication standards are important, for example, setting out how and when we will use notice boards and improved signage, such as no-smoking signs in communal areas and lifts
For quality of the home and services, residents should be satisfied with the repairs service and live in a decent, good quality home. Amongst the comments made by our working group were:
- Clarity of communication is one of the most important things required for a good repairs service. This meant letting residents know the timeline to resolve a repair and who in the organisation is responsible for what
- A streamlined repairs service means cutting down the number of visits required to resolve a repair
- Our standards relating to emergency call handling and response times.
- Treating all callers with respect and courtesy, not just tenants
- How we monitor and track the performance of our contractors
- How the organisation may save money on insurance claims from neighbours of tenants by resolving issues early or by extending access of their repairs service
Neighbourhood and tenancy workshop
Our session on 1 March covered the neighbourhood in which residents live and how the landlord can demonstrate that they work effectively with their partners to make a positive contribution to the safety and wellbeing of their neighbourhoods.
We also looked into allocations and tenancies, including opportunities for existing residents to move and making sure new tenants are provided with the information and help they may need to ensure a long term, successful tenancy.
View slides from the neighbourhood and tenancy workshop
Residents fed back on how they felt about their homes, especially antisocial behaviour on their estates and around their homes. The following issues were considered:
- Clarity on our commitments on what happens when antisocial behaviour is reported, e.g. how the organisation can be clearer on communicating the progress of a case and what action is being taken. This should balance resident expectations for cases to be resolved immediately with the need to thoroughly investigate and build legal cases
- A number of residents expressed concern about unauthorised access to communal areas and stairwells in blocks and to consider any potential ways in which the landlord can mitigate this, for example working closer with their homelessness section to address rough sleepers in stairwells
- Agreed on making improvements to the standards and commitments surrounding the Joint Control Centre (JCC), for example, being clear on the type of enquiries that they will respond to and what to do in an emergency
- Consider improving estate and block signage, with the overall aim of making all residents aware of their responsibilities in making neighbourhoods comfortable spaces to live, this includes warnings regarding littering or smoking in blocks and in dog fouling and behaviour in green spaces.
- Residents would benefit from information on the assistance available and how the landlord interacts with their local area Safer Neighbourhood Teams and how residents can report criminal activity
- Residents would like to see how we will work with our cleaning contractors and how we monitor that their work is being completed, for example, ensuring blocks and estates are graded through the HouseMark cleaning standard.
- The promotion of CCTV was mentioned as an effective preventative measure, including in blocks where there is unauthorised access. Wandsworth’s Anti-Social Behaviour policy puts an emphasis on officers to consider the full range of preventative and early intervention measures
On the subject of tenancies, the most important thing was that new incoming residents were fully supported and provided with the information required to ensure that they can continue in their homes with successfully and for the long term. Issues raised were:
- Ensuring that new residents are aware of their rights and responsibilities as set out in their tenancy agreement or lease. This may involve providing an accessible format if required or our housing staff highlighting the key rights and responsibilities at sign up
- Be clearer on our definitions of tenancy support, including highlighting the services provided by the in-house Tenancy Support team
- Residents noted that some properties remain empty for long periods between letting. Our service standard provides a realistic timescale of 25 days, which is an average of all properties
Transparency, engagement and accountability workshop
Our final working group session on 7 March covered our role in making information accessible including the roles and responsibilities of the landlord, how to achieve value for money and if we are making spending and charges clear.
We also looked at our resident engagement, including how complaints are handled, and accountability to residents and treating residents with fairness, respect and meeting their diverse needs.
In relation to transparency, we asked residents about the information they receive on how we are spending money and if they are provided with enough information to challenge us and scrutinise us effectively. From their experiences, they have told us:
- The process and information given where a resident is provided with estimated costs for major works and the final cost, have on occasion been different, and questioned if the contractor could be held account for such costs incurred due to potential negligence and/or delay
- It was important for there to be access to information so that residents understand the responsibilities and specifications that contractors are appointed to do
- The presentation of service charge statements may be improved by being clearer as to which charges should be attributed to the building and estate they live in and which charges are Borough-wide. However, the level of detail must be balanced with clarity. Itemisation may be made available on request, for example
- Communication remains an important issue, so that residents remain in the loop when a concern or enquiry is made
In relation to engagement and accountability, we discussed what works well and how resident engagement may look in the future, especially where the regulator has suggested that what has worked in the past may not be the right fit going forward. Residents told us:
- As well as publishing the residents' magazine Homelife as a source of important resident information, it may be useful to consider amending the service standard to ensure Homelife is promoted, and residents are encouraged to access this either via the internet or posted copy
- Residents have noted that when they provide feedback to services, they are sometimes unaware if their reports are acted on
- Opportunities to scrutinise contractor performance was again mentioned, this is closely linked with the standards in Transparency, where residents should be equipped with the information required to hold us to account
- Although resident associations remain a valuable resource in ensuring that voices are heard and that funding for improvements can be claimed, more could be done to encourage membership and participation
- Communication should be made according to resident preferences and the landlord should consider that not all residents would use the same communication methods