Agenda item

Report of the Director of Housing and Regeneration

7.1     The Committee received a report that detailed i) the performance and tenant satisfaction of registered providers (RP) and other social landlords who have housing stock in Westminster and ii) CityWest Homes Customer Satisfaction. 

7.2     Members were informed that RP landlords are independent of the City Council and are regulated by the Homes and Communities Agency.  Being independent, the City Council does not have direct control over RP’s but works in partnership with them to meet the needs of Westminster residents. 

7.3     The Committee had previously raised a concern that the CWH customer satisfaction surveys do not get responses from all of the target audience and may exclude the hard-to-reach and discontented. The paper provided further detail on the methodologies employed by CWH and commentary on the reliability of the results and their plans for supplementing the present approach.

7.4     The Committee discussed the issues of RP performance.  Members considered there to be a mismatch between the social landlord performance and tenant satisfaction data set out in the report and the volume of complaints councillors receive from RP residents about their housing provider.  A further comment raised was that the performance data did not seem to vary over time which seemed unlikely and further brought into question the accuracy of the data.

7.5     Officers considered that residents experiencing problems were more likely to get in touch with their local councillor which could potentially skewer members’ perception of satisfaction levels.  Officers stated that the Council would never truly have an accurate picture of RP resident satisfaction levels until there was a proper data set of information provided by RPs relating to their operations in the city.

7.6     Fergus Coleman, Head of Affordable and Private Sector Housing, commented in respect of RP’s that one of the biggest challenges was communicating with residents and understanding their needs.  Members commented that in some instances there was a lack of connection between provider call centres and the local housing stock.  Concerns were also raised about the refurbishment cycles of some RPs which were much longer than those of CityWest Homes.

7.7     Barbara Brownlee, Director of Housing and Regeneration, suggested that members forward copies of complaint letters to her so that she can take up  issues directly with the relevant RPs.  She commented that while the Council did not have direct control over RPs it had the ability to influence them. For example, they may wish to obtain approval to develop housing within the borough.  Proposals are included in the Housing Direction of Travel document regarding developing preferred partner lists where RPs with high tenant satisfaction levels would have opportunities to bid for development funding provided through the affordable housing fund.  She further commented that RPs care about their reputation and would be concerned about councillors perceiving them negatively as a consequence of receiving complaints from residents.

7.8     Officers were asked about the design of an annual questionnaire that could be sent out to all major RPs requesting information concerning their performance and tenant satisfaction data as it relates specifically to their operations in the city.  Officers advised that for consistency and benchmarking purposes

          the survey would use the standardised questions used in the Housemark questionnaire.

7.9     The second part of the report set out the different satisfaction levels between CityWest Homes lessees and tenants.  With regard to tenant satisfaction levels with repairs and maintenance, Andrea Luker, CityWest Homes, explained that the organisation undertook 30,000 repairs in the previous year.  In 90% of cases residents were satisfied with the work undertaken.  Despite dissatisfaction with repairs and maintenance running at only 10% this meant that there were 3000 occasions where residents were unhappy and it was these matters that councillors were likely receiving correspondence about.  CityWest Homes was working to understand what had gone wrong on these occasions and was putting in place measures to ensure that they did not re-occur.

7.10    RESOLVED:

1.     The Committee noted officers desire to be able to make comparisons between the performance and tenant satisfaction of all major RPs in the City.  It was further noted that while officers would like to produce an annual questionnaire that will be sent out to all our major RPs requesting standard information further discussions should take place to discuss the best mechanism to gather the necessary data.

2.     The Committee agreed that members of Westminster’s Housing Association Chief Executives Group should be asked to make a voluntary commitment to provide local Westminster performance and tenant satisfaction data available to the Council in future.

3.     The committee requested that officers utilise the range of levers at their disposal to encourage an improvement in RP performance in Westminster.  This could include developing preferred partner status lists to senior housing officers raising complaints and issues directly with relevant RPs.  The Committee could also consider holding an annual public question session with RPs to its Work Programme.

7.11     ACTION: Provide the Committee with an update on approaches being put in place to influence an improvement in RP performance in Westminster. (Barbara Brownlee, Director of Housing and Regeneration).