Item 11 - Appendix 2
West Dunbartonshire Council · 13 May 2026
Back to Housing & Communities Committee — 13 May 2026 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Annual Tenant Participation Performance Report 2025/26 Introduction This report is to outline progress made in the last year and to highlight the input tenants have had in decision-making and to service improvements. We are keen to encourage more tenants to join any of the groups already established, create new ones and encourage individual tenants to get involved in a way that suits them. Our Tenant Participation Strategy 2025-28 was called Involving You to Improve Housing Services and that’s exactly what we want to do. One of the best ways to encourage participation is to show what can be achieved and for people to see that they can make a difference. This report hopefully helps evidence that. 1 Jane Mack and Jennifer McKechnie ITEM 12 - APPENDIX 2
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2 Key highlights 1.National recognition for the WDTRO ! A winning year for the West Dunbartonshire Tenants & Residents Organisation (WDTRO) who won 2 TPAS awards - Tenant Group of the Year and also Outstanding Achievement Award. The Tenant Group of the Year Award recognised their work to ensure tenants’ voices are heard when shaping housing services and the improvements they have helped develop through the WDC/WDTRO Liaison meetings. Their Outstanding Achievement Award was for their work to get the budgeted surplus generated by Building Services retained within the HRA and had lobbied Councillors to support this position. In March 2025, the Council agreed that a surplus of £594,631 for 2024/25 should remain within the HRA, a decision that benefited every council tenant. The awards dinner was hosted by comedian Fred MacAulay and four members of the WDTRO; Billy Neeson, Harry McCormack, Elaine Neeson and June Todd attended and are pictured below receiving their award.
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3 2. New tenant groups formed. Parkhall TRA was set up in May 2025, initially organizing monthly litter picks, clearing paths and planting bulbs. They also successfully applied for 2 raised beds and gardening equipment from the Tenant Priority Budget and set up a community garden on a former garage site on Glenhead Road. They have plans too for a pétanque court and a sensory garden. They have also created their own newsletter to help promote their group locally. Dumbarton West is also close to formally having a Tenant & Resident Association and have been meeting to create a committee and agree a constitution. They have great plans for Castlehill and Westcliff and have made contact with the WDTRO too. Existing TRAs continue to thrive – most are looking for new members but you don’t need a lot of people to make an impact. Jennifer continues to support groups particularly with advertising and has created some great adverts and posters for groups. The Housing News is also used to promote group activities and the WDTRO have a regular column in it to promote their work and encourage more involvement. We featured Will East from Westbridgend TRA in the Housing News summer 2025 edition and Aileen Pollock from Parkhall TRA in the spring 2026 edition for the On the Spot feature and that too is a good way to promote a TRA and show the human side of participation. Willox Park Tenants’ Association have agreed to disband following their move into the newly built sheltered block which replaces their original bungalows. This was not a negative end for the group but a recognition that they had achieved what they set out to do. A big thank you goes to all on the Willox Park committee and particularly to Ruth Dickinson, Mary Paton and Ann McDonald for all their work since the group was set up in 2020. Getting more people involved is one of our key aims and Jennifer has helped 2 new groups get started .
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4 3.Increased response rates in consultations Texting and emailing tenants directly about consultations has helped increase the number of tenants having their say in consultations. Allocation policy - 1060 responses Decant process - 84 responses Pet policy - 805 responses Rent setting consultation – 1246 responses 4.Tenant involvement in shaping and improving Housing Services Our Joint Rent Group (JRG) includes tenant volunteers, housing and finance staff, as well as the Housing Convener and meets every 2 months. The tenant volunteers also meet in between to discuss the information provided. The group works to improve transparency around HRA budget setting, ensure value for money and explore how tenants can get more involved in these key decisions about budgets. The JRG is also specifically monitoring the void budget and the Capital Programme which are both large spending areas. The Pre-HACC Forum is another opportunity that tenants have to influence decisions made by the Housing and Community Committee. The Forum takes place two days before the Housing and Communities Committee meets and tenants can meet the Housing Convener and staff who have written the papers that are going to committee. The Housing Convener then feeds tenants’ views into the committee discussions. Tullichewan TRA continue to run a successful Arts and Craft group and have held a number of specific fund raising events too.
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Holding the Council as a landlord to account is an important function of tenant participation and it ensures that we can improve services for all tenants. Through the WDC/WDTRO Liaison meetings, the WDTRO have raised issues in the last year which have resulted in improvements that all tenants can benefit from, these included; new process developed that sends an automatic text or email to a tenant warning that a repair will be cancelled and giving opportunity to reschedule repair lift protocol reviewed and communication improved particularly when a lift is off out of normal working hours or for prolonged periods. Rechargeable repairs processes tightened up so invoices are issued promptly and with clear description of the repair work done Tenant Priority Budget proposals now monitored at Liaison meetings to get them completed as quickly as possible so tenants can get the maximum benefit. Improving transparency around what housing pays for grass cutting Transparency around caretaking and levels of cleanliness increased – lift cleanliness will be prioritized and a service standard created as well as improved information on reporting issues. Walkabout process reviewed and improved and will continue to be monitored until all done consistently well. 5
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6 3. Scrutiny Panel The Scrutiny Panel have been monitoring the implementation of the 12 recommendations they made to improve the repair reporting process. 5 have now been completed and the remaining 7 are in progress. They have also been focusing on recruitment when 2 of their original members retired from the Panel after working on it for 10 years. They made use of the Housing News, Clydesider and Dumbarton & Vale Advertiser and have 3 new members as a result. They are beginning their next scrutiny exercise and will be looking at the medical application process. 4. Tenant Priority Budget This is an annual budget of £200,000 for tenant priorities. There are set criteria on how this Budget can be used and it is for improvements that aren’t included in any Capital programme or repair work but would benefit tenants. 2 particularly long-standing proposals have finally started following delays with surveys, design changes and Building Warrants. Drying facilities are being created in Park Court and will then be done at Kilbowie Court. Tenants there have been very patient and hopefully these new facilities will be well used and worth the wait. Community gardens being created at Inler View, Parkhall and at Littleholm
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We are entering year 2 of our TP Strategy ‘ Involving You to Improve Housing services’ and have a range of actions to focus on. We will continue to give regular updates at the WDC/WDTRO Liaison meetings and provide an annual update to the Housing & Communities Committee so that we are accountable. The key emphasis is on how tenant participation can help improve housing services. Recruiting new members for groups will continue and we will support TRAs to be as active as possible in their local areas. Local walkabouts are a good way to get new people involved and get improvements done in local areas so we will continue to support tenants taking part. The walkabout process will also be monitored at future Liaison meetings to help ensure they are as effective as possible. At the moment Facebook is our only available social media option but we are looking to use a digital platform called Mightynetworks to create another digital option to participate through. 7 Other Tenant Priority proposals completed have included 2 raised beds at Glenhead Road, accessible greenhouse and raised beds at Manse Gardens sheltered housing, white lines and dropped kerb at Mill Road sheltered housing, communal garden and shed at Inler View, raised bed at Dunswin Court, football pitch at Dennystoun Forge returfed and seating area at Westbridgend created. The year ahead
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8 Thank you to all our tenant volunteers and to housing staff who help make tenant participation work. Please give us your feedback - we want to continue to improve so please let us know if you have any comments on this report or on tenant participation in general. Thank you. https://www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/housing/council- housing/tenant-participation jane.mack@west-dunbarton.gov.uk or jennifer.mckechnie@west-dunbarton.gov.uk 07983 542993 (Jane) or 07823 664247 (Jennifer)