Resident involvement - Hyde Housing Association

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Resident involvement in social housing in the UK and Europe Achieving systematic change In other cases the actions were initiated by the landlord and were more systematic or policy-driven in nature. Sometimes landlords were working to ensure that consultation with residents before a piece of work was carried out became routine. This helped to drive ‘right first time’ policies, avoided negative feedback and promoted organisational efficiencies by reducing the need for remedial works. One study landlord involved in building both for sale and for social renting used comparative exercises to survey people before and after they moved in to a new development (the exercise continuing until one year from first occupation). Residents were asked about their home, neighbourhood and community. The information from these exercises was used to inform other new developments and to aid best practice on regeneration of existing estates. D1 had developed a tool for use in researching and developing social capital among residents. Local organisations could buy the package which measures the strength or weakness of ‘social glue’, or the bonds between communities, and develop capacity building responses from it. An organisation could buy the complete package with staff carrying out all of the work but a preferred option was for volunteers from the local organisation to conduct the surveys, themselves. As well as minimising costs, the act of carrying out the surveys brought people together and generated ideas. Staff would analyse the findings and make recommendations, which the now more empowered community could take forward. The tool had proved highly successful, particularly in generating the ‘simple stuff’ such as Saturday clubs for children. N2 was in the process of developing a ‘toolbox’ for staff in support of the menu of involvement. The digital online resource was intended to enable staff to select the most appropriate idea or technique in particular situations, to stimulate involvement and ensure different options were considered. The association was working on the development with organised resident groups, giving them a role in deciding which instruments to use and agreeing a resulting programme of action. A critical factor influencing the extent to which resident views feed through into operational practice is the way that involvement forums interface with an organisation’s corporate governance and managerial structures. As noted in Chapter 3, there is a range of approaches to enabling organisation-wide residents panels to feed into decision-making by an organisation’s main governing body or senior management team. Also emphasized as important at E3 was the organisation’s model for regional residents forums mirroring the regional corporate structure so that each panel interfaced directly with the relevant regional manager. 55
Resident involvement in social housing in the UK and Europe Promoting equalities Several organisations in the study were taking initiatives to contact people from hard-to-reach groups, begin a dialogue and then respond to their wishes (see also Chapter 5). Analysis of quantitative involvement data by E1 confirmed that disabled people were under-represented. The organisation therefore used its database of residents’ characteristics to identify a sample of people with disabilities, and to contact them asking how they preferred to be contacted or to be involved. Resulting changes included greater use of the internet to enable people to participate without attending meetings, and also increased the number of disabled people becoming involved. E2 was working up an initiative to involve more lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) residents and planned to do this by using the staff LGBT group because anecdotal evidence suggested it was more likely to succeed. 6.3 Ringfenced resources to fund local resident priorities One means of empowering local communities is by offering resources to be spent as the residents wish. In Denmark the question was beside the point since local organisations already had full control over their priorities and budgets (see Chapter 2). Elsewhere, the main type of work funded from such local budgets was environmental, benefitting the local community. In some cases a group of residents alone took the decisions on which projects to fund. In others, staff would also be involved. In Denmark and in at least one English case study, staff would complete the supporting work, such as obtaining supplier prices and commissioning feasibility studies. 6.4 Improvements by means of collective challenge and scrutiny roles Wider changes at regional or organisation-wide level were emerging from the activities of the increasingly powerful resident committees and boards that are part of involvement structures. These forums, which go by a variety of names, generally have an advisory and scrutiny role as outlined in Chapter 3. At B1 the tenant advisory board ‘called in’ issues it had chosen for detailed scrutiny, and would spend a year on each topic. The method was formalised: a first meeting explored the issue, a second debated the strong and weak points of the service provided, and the third formulated recommendations to take to the management board. The board was obliged to respond and provide reasons for any recommended actions not implemented. This could result in more fundamental change than an ad hoc response as issues arose. Topics called in to 56
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