Item 15 - WDC Tenant Participation Strategy 2025
West Dunbartonshire Council · 20 November 2024
Back to Housing & Communities Committee — 20 November 2024 and its agenda
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WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE COUNCIL Report by the Chief Officer, Housing and Employability Housing and Communities Committee: 20 November 2024 ___________________________________________________________________ Subject: “Involving You to Improve Housing Services,” West Dunbartonshire Council’s Tenant Participation Strategy 2025- 2028 1. Purpose 1.1 The purpose of this report is to highlight to the Housing and Communities Committee the Council’s statutory obligations in relation to tenant participation and to seek approval for our new Tenant Participation Strategy entitled Involving You to Improve Housing Services which will cover the period 2025-2028. 2. Recommendations 2.1 It is recommended that the Housing and Communities Committee: (i) note the progress and achievements made in relation to the implementation of the previous Tenant Participation Strategy 2021- 2024; and (ii) approve the draft West Dunbartonshire Tenant Participation Strategy 2025-2028 and associated action plan 3. Background 3.1 The Council has a statutory obligation under the Housing (Scotland) Acts 2001 and 2010, to produce and adequately resource a Tenant Participation Strategy. We also need to be able to evidence our commitment to involving tenants in shaping and improving housing services. 3.2 In addition to being a legislative requirement, involving tenants and other service users in decisions about their homes is now accepted as best practice for all social housing providers and key to improving housing services. The Tenant Participation Strategy supports the Council’s commitment to deliver positive outcomes for our tenants and wider communities. 3.3 Involving You to Improve Housing Services, West Dunbartonshire Council’s Tenant Participation Strategy 2025-2028 replaces our previous strategy covering the period 2021-2024 and builds on the many positive developments of previous strategies successfully implemented since 2001. 3.4 Annual progress reports have been provided to Committee, with progress also reported to the West Dunbartonshire Tenants and Residents Organisation (WDTRO – the umbrella organisation for tenant groups in WD) at bi-monthly Liaison meetings. An annual Tenant Participation ITEM 15
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Performance Report is also produced to publicly demonstrate the impact tenant participation can have. 3.5 Some of the key achievements and improvements in tenant participation delivered over the period of our previous strategies include: • Re-awarded a Gold Accreditation for Excellence in Tenant Participation by The Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) in 2023 (this is the highest accreditation level that can be achieved); • Communication is a key Social Housing Charter indicator for the Housing Regulator, and we have continued to use our quarterly newsletter, ‘Housing News’ as a vehicle for updating and involving our tenants. The WDTRO have a regular column in the newsletter, and it promotes local Tenant & Resident Association activities, consultations, housing developments and events. In line with the Charter, we also use it to share our performance information with tenants. • The Charter gives tenants the right and a range of measures to use, to hold their landlord to account. That is an important part of tenant participation, and it ensures that we can improve services for all tenants. Tenants were involved in the review and design of the Annual Tenant Report that we must produce on our performance against the Charter outcomes; • Bi-monthly WDC/WDTRO Liaison meetings allow Housing Services and the WDTRO to work in partnership and improve Housing Services. The WDTRO can raise concerns with Managers directly and has resulted in improvements that all tenants can benefit from; • Our active Scrutiny Panel play a key role in our performance monitoring framework. The Panel is made up of tenants and factored owners who independently scrutinise performance across the Housing Services and make recommendations on how they could be improved for tenants. The Panel are finalising their 8th scrutiny exercise and have been reviewing the repair journey tenants experience and how that can be improved; • Our Joint Rent Group (JRG) is made up of tenant volunteers, Housing and Finance staff as well as the Housing Convenor to jointly scrutinise the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and it now fully complies with the Scottish Government’s HRA Guidance. The group continues to meet regularly and have contributed significantly to improving transparency around how the Housing Revenue Account is spent; • The work of the JRG has also helped improve the transparency of our rent setting consultation and helped involve tenants earlier in the consultation discussions; • We have increased tenant involvement in rent setting. Tenant involvement has consistently grown over the years and promoting voting options has helped make tenants aware that they can influence the outcome of this vital decision. In the rent setting consultation for 24/25, 1724 tenants voted
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for their preferred option which equates to a healthy response rate of 17.3%; • Tenant Participation updates are distributed to Tenants and Residents Associations (TRAs), tenants on the Interested Tenants Register, Sheltered Housing Forum members, Scrutiny Panel members as well as housing staff and elected members to share information and raise awareness of tenant participation activities. 4. Main Issues 4.1 West Dunbartonshire Council can evidence a strong commitment to involving tenants in shaping and improving housing services. However, the Charter indicators that reflect tenant’s wider satisfaction with participation and communication have declined so it is essential to reverse that change and use effective tenant participation as a way of increasing tenant satisfaction. 4.2 Involving You to Improve Housing Services– West Dunbartonshire Council’s Tenant Participation Strategy 2025-2028 (attached as Appendix 1) sets out: • West Dunbartonshire Council’s approach to involving our tenants in the development of Housing Services; • The range of participation opportunities available to suit different circumstances and interests; • The benefits to tenants, Housing Services, and the wider community of effective participation; • The resources available and the support required for effective tenant participation; and • How the Strategy will be delivered, monitored, and reported. 4.3 The aims of the Strategy are to: 1. Improve the culture and practice of involving tenants across housing services; 2. Improve our feedback to tenants so that we can evidence where our tenants and other service users have influenced or shaped housing services; 3. Continue to promote and provide a wide range of options for tenants to get involved with us in a way that suits them; 4. Make sure that tenants are aware of the opportunities available to them to get involved; 5. Continue to encourage involvement of under- represented groups such as young people, homeless people, people with disabilities and minority ethnic groups; 6. Promote the difference tenants can make and the positive benefits of participation to them personally as well to their community;
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7. Continue to develop tenants’ involvement in monitoring and improving performance through our Scrutiny Panel as well as individual tenants holding us to account; 8. Ensure that the resources we put in place and practices we carry out are adequate to support and develop tenant involvement; and 9. Ensure that we communicate effectively with tenants and provide good quality, accessible information that tenants want. 4.4 The Strategy also addresses the Council’s tenant scrutiny requirements under the Scottish Social Housing Charter, monitored by the Scottish Housing Regulator. In terms of the Scottish Social Housing Charter a separate section outlining how we measure and report performance to tenants and how we use tenant scrutiny activities to inform service development and improve performance is included within the strategy document. 5. People Implications 5.1 There are no people implications from this report. There are two fully dedicated staff members funded from the Housing Revenue Account, focused on the development and delivery of tenant participation. In addition, supporting tenant participation is part of the remit of all officers across housing services. The Strategy will therefore be delivered by input from staff across all of Housing and Homelessness services. 6. Financial and Procurement implications 6.1 Actions required to take the Strategy forward in 2025/28 will be aligned to current budgetary provision. There is a specific tenant participation budget and for 2024/25 has been set at £102k which includes an additional budget specifically to develop digital engagement including through the tenant self- serve portal. 6.2 There are no procurement implications in respect of this report. 7. Risk Analysis 7.1 The Council has a statutory responsibility to develop, publish and implement a Tenant Participation Strategy. Our “Involving You to Improve Housing Services” Strategy reflects the priorities and aspirations of tenants and tenant representatives, therefore there is a risk that if its key aims are not be achieved, then this would produce an adverse reaction from tenants, tenant representatives and from the Scottish Housing Regulator. 7.2 Our Tenant Participation Strategy builds on the achievements made in developing good working relationships with tenants over the years, improving transparency and a joint working approach to involving tenants. The continued delivery of a new Tenant Participation Strategy is therefore essential in demonstrating the Council’s on-going commitment to continuous improvement across Housing Services and putting tenants at the centre of our activities. 8 Environmental Sustainability
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8.1 The delivery of our housing investment programme is within the approved More Homes zero carbon approach. Our current and future approach to strategic housing asset management will continue to prioritise a ‘zero carbon’ approach to decision making and deliverability and this will be done the aims of the Housing Asset Management Strategy and the Council’s Climate Change Strategy. 9. Equalities Impact Assessment 9.1 An Equality, Health and Human Rights Impact Assessment has been carried out on the draft TP Strategy and found no substantive negative impacts. A copy of the assessment is included in appendix 2. 10. Consultation 10.1 The development of the new strategy started with a critical review of what had been achieved from the previous strategy and what needed further development. TPAS reviewed our 2017-2020 TP Strategy as part of their accreditation process and highly commended the style and use of clear language in the Strategy so that has been continued in this Strategy. 10.2 Workshops were carried out with staff and tenants to review how tenant participation was currently working and what needed to change and be improved. 10.3 A public consultation was carried out with a survey to all tenants to gauge awareness of tenant participation, satisfaction with opportunities to get involved, what information tenants use and how they rate it, and awareness of consultations and feedback. 10.4 The consultation highlighted that better communication was a critical element needed to improve tenant participation and several actions are included to improve communication with tenants but also to improve internal communication to help housing staff be able to effectively deliver tenant participation in their daily work. 10.5 Improving the culture and practice of involving tenants across Housing Services also needs to continue to improve to build trust and consistency and ensure a positive experience for tenants. This is one of the key aims of the strategy and several actions are included to increase local engagement, walkabouts and promote the benefits of tenant participation to staff and to tenants. 10.6 The emphasis of tenant participation being about improving performance was also identified in the consultation as needing more promotion, so we have amended the name to ‘Involving You to Improve Housing Services ‘to help emphasise the purpose of the Strategy. 10.7 Actions are also included in the action plan to support existing tenants, tenants’ groups, develop more digital options and increase engagement with under-represented groups so that all tenants can have their say.
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10.8 A fuller breakdown of the consultation outcomes are included in strategy document attached as appendix 1. 11. Strategic Assessment 11.1 Having considered the Council's strategic priorities, this report contributes significantly to all strategic priorities. Peter Barry Chief Officer, Housing and Employability Date: 7 November 2024 Person/s to Contact: John Kerr – Housing Development and Homelessness Manager, Housing Development and Homelessness Team, Housing and Employability, telephone: 07793717981, email: john.kerr@west-dunbarton.gov.uk Stefan Kristmanns, Housing Development Co-ordinator, Housing Development and Homelessness Team, Housing and Employability, email: stefan.kristamanns@west-dunbarton.gov.uk Jane Mack, Senior Housing Development Officer, Housing Development and Homelessness Team, Housing and Employability, email: jane.mack@west- dunbarton.gov.uk Appendices: 1. Draft West Dunbartonshire Council Tenant Participation Strategy 2024-2028 2. Health and Inequalities Impact Assessment Wards Affected: All