Resident Involvement

Resident Involvement

Drive to improve resident involvement

Since early October 2011 we have been informally consulting residents on how we can improve the way we involve you in developing and improving our services. We are keen to build upon our current arrangements for resident involvement. In particular the council is keen to:

• Increase the number and diversity of residents involved;

• Widen the ways that residents can be involved;

• Ensure resident involvement delivers continuous improvement, value for money and services shaped by our residents;

• Ensure that residents have the information they need to monitor and make Housing Services accountable.

In order to boost resident involvement, leading expert Phil Morgan has carried out an independent review on how the Council currently engages with tenants and leaseholders . This has  involved a range of road shows with tenants, leaseholders, residents associations and other stakeholders. We listened carefully to what you had to say, which led to the development of a new Involvement Strategy and review of the Tenants Levy which we are now formally consulting every tenant and leaseholder about.

Involvement Strategy & Tenants Levy: Section 105 of Housing Act 1985

The Housing Act 1985 Section 105 expects all landlords to consult secure tenants about matters of housing management that are likely or substantially affect them.

We know that when we involve our residents and develop good working relationships with them, we make better progress and deliver better services. It is important to us that we improve ways for residents to feedback to us and develop new ways for residents to hold us to account for the service we provide.

We wrote to every resident on the 3rd January 2012 to consult with you on the following two key areas of resident involvement:

Resident Involvement and Tenants Levy Letter (opens as pdf)

Resident Involvement Strategy – Tenants and Leaseholders

We currently have hundreds of residents involved in various ways for example being part of Tenants and Resident Associations (TRAs) or attending Leaseholder Panels. They play an important role in working with officers and at their best have a strong leadership role in their communities. However we know over 1,000 residents who are not currently involved would like to be involved in some way. A survey of residents in 2010 showed up to 45% of residents wanted to be involved. We also want to make sure that involvement reflects the diversity of the resident population and ensure that we improve how we engage with young people, people from ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.

After listening to what residents have said there are lots of areas we have agreed to improve, for example we will:

• Ensure resident involvement is a key part of local housing and technical officers work which includes creating staff champions for resident involvement

• Improve our Estate Inspections and Health and Safety inspections for sheltered accommodation.

• Learn from our pilots on Local Offers and Partnership Meetings and ensure every resident has the opportunity, supported by workshops, to agree Local Offers in their area or on their service.

• Ensure residents have access to independent advice if their area is being considered for regeneration.

• Create more opportunities for residents to engage directly with Housing and Technical staff.

• Review with residents our approach to Minor Estate Improvement, allowing access of all community groups to the programme and introduce a new resident driven approach to assessing their value for money and effectiveness.

Improve our customer service by introducing the following:

A Repairs Working Group that looks critically at the Repairs Service we provide and a new Local Residents Panel that will lead on improving and monitoring our services have been set up. They will agree performance targets for these services, monitor complaints, and work with us to improve how we deal with and learn from the complaints we receive about our services. The panels will also be responsible for developing the Annual Report to residents.

Over the last couple of months we have been carrying out interviews with residents who are interested in working with us to improve services. If you would like to apply, we would be very interested to hear from you.

You can email us at: GetInvolved@lbhf.gov.uk

We are pleased to announce the following residents have been appointed to the Local Residents Panel and the Repairs Working Group. Interviews are still ongoing and further members will be appointed soon.

Repairs Working Group:

• Ros O'Connell
• David Strong
• Val Barker
• Tom Flynn
• John Ryan
• Sarah Edwards
• Angus Lynch
• Virginia De Felipe
• Yee Hing Lee
• Susan Roberts 
  

Local Residents Panel:

• Anthony Wood
• Paul Alexander
• Janet Gaston
• Shereze Treasure
• Michelle Akintoye
• Marilyn Mackie
• Sheila Williams
• Ibrar Dar 
  
  

Tenants Levy

Every tenant previously paid a Tenants Levy as part of their overall weekly rent to support the work that was carried out by the HAFFTRA (Hammersmith and Fulham Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations).

This levy has been collected as part of the overall rent you pay since 1992.

In 2006 Council Tenants at the Borough Forum, agreed to an extension of the levy payment for a further 4 year period. A review of this arrangement was therefore needed to determine whether teh Housing & Regeneration department should continue to collect the Levy as we want to be sure that tenants are getting value for money.

As part of the Section 105 consultation tenants were consulted on the following 3 options:

1. To continue the Levy at its current level. This would have meant that tenants continue to pay 25p per week.
   
2. To set the Levy at a lower rate of 12p per week to pay for the new Involvement Strategy.
   
3. To discontinue the Levy where tenants will not pay anything and the Council would instead cover all costs in the Housing budget.

The formal consultation ended on the 27th January 2012.

The results of the consultation have been analysed and a decision to cease collection of the HAFFTRA levy from 23rd April 2012 and to adopt the Resident Involvement Strategy was taken by Cabinet on 5th March 2012

• Foreword by Cllr Johnson (opens as pdf 16KB)

• Resident Involvement Strategy (opens as pdf 64KB)

• Resident Group Recruitment Pack (opens as pdf 62KB)