Resident involvement - Hyde Housing Association

Resident involvement in social housing in the UK and Europe
was recognised that this required that Panel members ‘feel ...able to ask
important and possibly challenging questions [of staff]’. Training and coaching
were made available to develop this capacity. RSPs meet quarterly. RSPs were
also seen as a key interface between residents in a given area and the
organisation’s relevant Regional Manager.
At E2, popular involvement in regional decision-making was also facilitated by
resident membership of Divisional Boards descended from the governing
bodies of the organisations from which the group had been assembled and
which formerly existed as autonomous subsidiaries.
Resident involvement structures at all three English case study organisations
also included function-specific working groups or panels. At E1, for example,
there were six group-wide service improvement groups (SIGs) of residents.
These covered estate services, property services, leasehold services, customer
services, supported housing, and anti-social behaviour. At the same level were
two other resident groups, the diversity panel covering the six main equalities
strands, and the disability forum. Under E2’s slightly different model, residentchaired
Issues and Business Groups existed as sub-committees of the overall
tenants’ and residents’ federation. These brought together managerial staff and
residents to inform the federation’s thinking on matters such as repairs,
customer services and service quality.
In the other case study countries, resident involvement at sub-organisational
level mainly revolved around local housing organisation boards (in Denmark)
and estate-level residents associations (in Belgium and the Netherlands).
3.4 Chapter summary
Governing body resident membership is the main structural vehicle for resident
involvement in Denmark, where resident-controlled housing is the norm.
Minority resident representation on main boards of English and Dutch housing
associations is also typical (although not universal in England). While a Dutch
landlord must, by law, designate resident seats on its supervisory board
nominees cannot be tenants of the association concerned.
As a crucial component within the broader architecture of resident involvement,
case study landlords typically attached more significance to organisation-wide
tenant councils, panels or advisory boards or customer services committees
than to main board resident membership. Such forums, set up to input a
resident perspective to corporate decision-making, were found in Belgium,
England and the Netherlands.
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