Anti-social behaviour workshop
Anti-social behaviour (ASB) is a serious issue for our tenants and the communities they live in. ASB includes any behaviour which causes, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to neighbours. It covers everything from issues caused by pets to serious violence.
At our Community Conversation events, we often get feedback from tenants about the timescale for resolving an ASB problem in their neighbourhood.
A complex issue
To explain our ASB process, we invited a group of tenants to take part in a special workshop in December. It was hosted by Stephen Codling and Bethany Newton (Manager and Team Leader respectively for our Norwich South local delivery team). The guest speaker was Ian Rattenbury from Birketts solicitors, who specialises in property litigation and represents Broadland in court when we start eviction proceedings for ASB.
Ian outlined the complex issues around bringing a case of ASB to court. Tenants’ evidence is vital to support the case. Keeping log sheets and photos can be a critical element to gaining a possession order and evicting someone who has been causing ASB.
Asking tenants, how can we improve?
At the workshop tenants got a detailed overview of court proceedings, and why some cases take 12-18 months to get to trial. In the interactive session, tenants were asked how our ASB service needed to improve and what they would like to see happen if they were a victim.
Stephen said:
“We appreciate the tenants’ feedback at the workshop, which will shape our policy and procedure. Some tenants even agreed to come back and help us ensure we get it right!"
Our ASB leaflet will be updated when our review is complete.
Putting the tenant’s perspective
In December one of our tenants, James Temple, was invited to the Placeshapers conference to present a tenant’s view on the new Social Housing White Paper. 'The Charter for Social Housing Residents’ sets out what tenants should expect from their housing provider (see box).
James wrote an article about the charter for our tenants’ magazine, Door to Door. He raised some important points, such as the need for housing associations to engage more younger tenants, to ensure a representative voice. He also talked passionately about the need for approaches that reduce the stigma around social housing. Read James’ article here Door to Door.
The Charter for Social Housing Residents
- To be safe in your home. We will work with industry and landlords to ensure every home is safe and secure.
- To know how your landlord is performing, including on repairs, complaints and safety, and how it spends its money, so you can hold it to account.
- To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly, with access to a strong ombudsman who will give you swift and fair redress when needed.
- To be treated with respect, backed by a strong consumer regulator and improved consumer standards for tenants.
- To have your voice heard by your landlord, for example through regular meetings, scrutiny panels or being on its Board. The government will provide help, if you want it, to give you the tools to ensure your landlord listens.
- To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in, with your landlord keeping your home in good repair.
- To be supported to take your first step to ownership, so it is a ladder to other opportunities, should your circumstances allow.
Improving complaints handling
A new Complaint Handling Code - sets out good practice for how landlords should respond to complaints fairly and effectively.
Key areas of the code cover:
- universal definition of a complaint
- providing easy access to the complaints procedure and ensuring residents are aware of it, including their right to access the Housing Ombudsman Service
- the structure of the complaints procedure - only two stages necessary and clear timeframes set out for responses
- ensuring fairness in complaint handling with a resident-focused process
- taking action to put things right and appropriate remedies
- creating a positive complaint handling culture through continuous learning and improvement
- demonstrating learning in Annual Reports.
The Code is part of the Ombudsman’s new powers in the revised Housing Ombudsman Scheme. This requires landlords to produce self-assessments against the Code.
Stephani Davis, Head of Housing, presented an overview of the new Complaint Handing Code and how we are responding to our Tenant Action Group (TAG) panel meeting in November. “We have carried out a self-assessment and have some improvements to make to our complaints process. It is really important that we listen to tenants and keep improving.”
IAP promotion
Health Assured, the provider of our Individual Assistance Programme (IAP) for tenants, gave 2 presentations in February.
The presentations – one for frontline staff and one for tenants - promoted the benefits of this free package of confidential support and health and wellbeing resources, which is also available as a mobile phone app, download My Healthy Advantage App,
We are promoting the IAP on our social media platforms to raise awareness among tenants. The IAP offers the same support services as Broadland’s Employee Assistance Programme (EAP).
Together with tenants
In December a group of tenants and staff got together to review our progress on implementing the Together with tenants charter, as set out by the National Housing Federation.
As part of the review, we recently surveyed a number of tenants, including members of our digital panel, for their feedback on how we are performing in each of the 6 commitments.
The Together with tenants Panel reviewed the feedback from the survey, while also reviewing Broadland’s self-assessment against the Charter. The tenants agreed with the assessment, but also made some good suggestions to be added, especially around communication and voice and influence.
We are really pleased that tenants James, Jean, Lynnell, Andy, Helen and Moll have agreed to form a panel to help us deliver the next stage of Together with Tenants.
Read the results of the survey Together with tenants.
