Agenda item

Asim Munir, Tenant Involvement Co-ordinated, co presented along with Sandra Tolley the Housing Operations Manager, the first scrutiny review undertaken by RotherFed, on behalf of the Council, to consider the engagement of young tenants in Rotherham Council housing.

It had been established that younger tenants, aged between 16 and 34, were on the whole more dissatisfied with their landlord’s services through the 2016 STAR survey of tenants and residents. 

The objectives of the Scrutiny Review were had been:-

To find out

-          Why younger tenants were not engaging with their landlord

-          How younger tenants would like to be engaged with Housing Services if at all

-          Why some younger tenants were dissatisfied with Housing Services

To suggest how to

-          Improve the engagement of younger tenants and their satisfaction with Housing Services

-          Shape the future tenant involvement offer for younger tenants

-          Potentially improve the STAR survey results for satisfaction of young tenants with their landlord

The Scrutiny Review Working Group had made ten recommendations:-

1.     provide support to RotherFed in the development of a forum for younger tenants;

2.     provide suitable training for all Council staff coming into contact with younger tenants particularly in the need to show mutual respect and empathy;

3.     develop a menu of involvement opportunities for younger tenants and share this with both Council staff and tenants;

4.     review all Council documents, in particular those produced by Housing Services, to make them easier to understand for younger tenants.  These should be tested out by young volunteers.

5.     Evaluate the new tenant workshops being introduced in April 2017 with younger tenants and make improvements as necessary to the format and content;

6.     Ensure that the tenancy support team approach is working well and increase awareness of this Service by making it clear what the benefits of the Service are to younger/new tenants;

7.     Make sure that all younger tenants know who their Housing Officer is and how to contact them by:

       (i)  including points of contact for relevant teams in the new tenant packs and explaining the services they provide

       (ii)  introducing a system of notifying tenants of any changes to their Neighbourhood Housing Officer ideally through the newsletter or mail system

8.     Consider the use of training sessions in schools to raise awareness of the implications of renting your own home including responsibilities and financial awareness;

9.     Develop the Home Matters newsletter to make it more ‘young person’ friendly by incorporating a young tenants section or similar;

10.   Review the social media used for engaging with tenants introducing ways of developing tenant consultations and keeping in touch with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter;

11.   Develop a ‘Tell Us Once’ service for new Council tenants whereby they only have to inform one agency of their move.  This information should then be shared with Council Tax, Benefits and Housing officers as appropriate;

12.   Explore enhancing links with Children’s Centres to monitor the number of Council tenants who are engaging with services and how they are signposted to services.

The report and its recommendations had been considered by the Housing and Neighbourhoods Senior Management Team who would work with RotherFed to continue working towards delivering against the Scrutiny Review recommendations.  An action plan would be developed to monitor progress against the recommendations.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the RotherFed Scrutiny Review be noted.

(2)  That an action plan be submitted in six months detailing progress against the recommendations.