Better Social Housing review

1

Every housing association, and the sector as a whole, should refocus on their core purpose and deliver against it.

· Westward is proactive at broadcasting its core values to colleagues within the organisation and to its customers. 

·    The organisation sets KPIs that are appropriate in helping us to meet our core purpose. 

·  Generally, Westward continues to perform positively against it’s KPI targets and these are monitored closely by the leadership team, Executive Team and Board on a quarterly basis.

·   Westward is collecting data from the TSM questions and will be submitting our first year's results to the regulator by the end of June 2024. 

·     The leadership team will continue to monitor performance against these KPI’s and be flexible enough to make changes to the services that are being provided should performance stop being as positive.

·     The Customer Insight & Engagement manager will monitor the feedback provided through the TSM questions and integrate this into the relevant service areas.

Leadership Team & Customer Insight & Engagement Manager

2

Housing associations should work together to conduct and publish a thorough audit of all social housing in England.

· Westward is aware of its responsibilities around data and has worked proactively in recent years to improve the data that we have available regarding our stock.

·     It is not yet known how the wider sector will come together to collate the data that is held by each individual housing association, however Westward will be responsive to any partnership working that is required in order to produce this audit.

·   The Better Social Housing review makes a specific recommendation that there is a sector wide adoption of the HACT data standards. The Assistant Director of Transformation has previously contemplated using the HACT standard but it was deemed as incompatible with the current layout of the data we hold.

·     Westward is accredited for its data management through the Data Maturity Assessment standard.

·     Westward has completed a piece of work called Customer Segmentation which has provided an overview of our customers and their needs from us. 

·   The newly recruited stock condition surveyors have helped to improve the knowledge of our own stock to assist with the data required within any future audit.

·     ET are requested to approve that this recommendation remains Amber as it is not our intention to adopt the HACT data standard.

Customer Insight & Engagement Manager Assistant Director Transformation

3

Housing associations should partner with tenants, contractors and frontline staff to develop and apply new standards defining what an outstanding maintenance and repairs process looks like.

·     Westward works closely with it’s engaged customers to understand the needs of our customers better and to seek improvements to our service that matter to them.

·     In the 2022/23 financial year, Westward’s scrutiny group undertook a review of our communication regarding our repairs service and it is understood by the organisation that the repairs service is an important service for our customers.

·     In 2023/24 the Scrutiny Group also completed a review of our approach to managing Damp & Mould within our homes.

·     Westward customers and staff are involved in the procurement process for new contractors including within the question design element and this will continue to be an expectation of the procurement process.

·     The Tenant Satisfaction Measures have given important feedback on how our repairs service is performing and we will use this information, alongside feedback from our scrutiny group, our voice and complaints to continue to improve the services we provide.

·     The upcoming repairs extension in 2024 will include feedback from customers and we have begun considering when and how this will take place. 

Customer Insight & Engagement Manager

4

The Chartered Institute of Housing should promote the traditional housing officer role as a supported and valued employment opportunity with a Chartered Institute of Housing recognised programme of training

and continuing development.

·    Westward understands the importance of ensuring that as an organisation we are available for our customers and have a presence in their community via Housing Officers and other front facing colleagues

·    Westward continues to use a ‘scheme management’ system which assists Housing Officers in planning their estates that require visits. The scheme manager helps Housing Officers to understand where they have concerns in communities and ensures that they are engaging with customers.

·    We have also launched a project seeking to improve our use of customer sentiment which will allow us to use feedback data to better target the areas within our stock that need a more targeted resourcing. 

·      The aim of these improvements is to ensure that all external customer facing colleagues have the resource available to undertake the ‘traditional’ sections of their role.

·      Westward also acknowledges the reports recommendation for formal training to be held and will await the CIH’s specification of what this should entail.

·       The recently recruited Customer Liaison Coordinators have assisted with traditional housing officer functions.

·        The Assistant Director for People & Safety is continuing to role out training to appropriate colleagues to ensure Westward meets the requirements of professionalisation in the sector. A budget has been created for 2024/25 to ensure these requirements are met.

·        The organisation will continue to monitor patch sizes to ensure that customer facing staff have the required resources available to meet the needs of customers.

Associate Executive Director of Housing

Assistant Director People and Safety

5

Housing associations should work with all tenants to ensure that they have a voice and influence at every level of decision making across the organisation,

through both voluntary and paid roles.

·   Westward has embraced the recommendations of the recent Social Housing white paper and works closely with customers through a range of areas to ensure that their voices are heard. This is through activities in our Scrutiny Group, Our Voice and through increased engagement work across the organisation.

·       Dedicated website page for customers to understand how to become engaged and what opportunities there are to influence decision making.

·       Westward has a customer engagement strategy that is in delivery.

·       Customer Engagement updates are reported to ET 6 monthly and Board annually. 

·       Westward has produced a gap analysis and action plan to ensure it meets the recently introduce consumer standards.

·       We have also recruited three Customer Liaison Coordinator role to ensure that we are providing the widest range of options for our customers to engage with us.

Customer Insight & Engagement Manager

6

Housing associations should develop a proactive local community presence through community hubs which foster greater multi-agency working

·     Westward Housing is a member of Placeshapers which is complimented in the report as helping to make communities thrive.

·     One of the organisation’s objectives is to establish places where people want to live and we are committed to not just building good quality homes but also developing the communities where these homes are situated.

·     Westward’s stock is very dispersed, and this does make creating local community hubs challenging. Where we have more densely situated stock, we work closely with other organisations to improve our reach to customers.

·     The organisation acknowledges the need to continually improve the methods it uses to engage with our communities and will continue to deliver the Customer Engagement Strategy.

·     We have introduced three new Customer Liaison Coordinators and this has helped improve our approach to improving communities and working with other agencies to tackle concerns.

·     The Customer Engagement Strategy is due for review in 2024 and this will take into account the renewed Consumer Regulation.

Customer Insight & Engagement Manager, Housing Services Manager (Tenancy)

7

Housing associations should support tenants and frontline staff to undertake an annual review of the progress each organisation is making in implementing

this review’s recommendations.

·     Westward shares requirements on the organisation with it’s Scrutiny group to provide transparency and understanding.

·     This updated assurance table will be published on our website and shared with our Scrutiny Group.

Customer Insight & Engagement Manager