Why we are improving our tenant services
As part of our Council Plan (pdf / 6 MB), we aim to ensure that all residents are ‘free from harm and feel safe and protected’ and to deliver ‘good quality affordable and sustainable housing which meets the needs of our communities’. Our Housing Strategy 2024 to 2029 (pdf / 7 MB) sets out our ambition to be an ‘Exemplar Social Landlord’.
Following the creation of North Yorkshire Council in 2023, and a subsequent restructure of the housing service, the council identified a range of issues within our tenant services which led to a self-referral to the Regulator for Social Housing and a C3 Regulatory Judgement.
Those issues included a lack of reliable information about:
- the condition of its homes
- a failure to meet aspects of landlord health and safety requirements
- a lack of reliable information to support its understanding of and response to the diverse needs of its tenants
- limited and inconsistent meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinise its services
We have undertaken a root cause analysis to understand the background to non-compliance, to ensure lessons are learned and sustainable improvements are implemented.
Using this information, alongside our ambition to deliver high quality services based upon tenant needs we have developed a Housing Improvement Plan, designed to ensure that we understand and meet those needs, deliver transparent services, make data led service improvement and provide a safe and secure home for everyone.
What are we doing
Since we made the self-referral we have made some immediate changes to the services we deliver for tenants. In the background we have also strengthened our governance around housing services, created a Housing Improvement Board and a Housing Improvement Plan which focusses on addressing those known areas of non-compliance.
We are basing our Improvement Plan on our internal review of compliance with the regulatory standards, our root cause analysis, internal audit of our rent compliance and feedback from residents.
We are also linking in with our wider Transformation Programme, understanding where we can join up with projects around ‘Customer’ and ‘The Way we Work’ to maximise value for money.
Our goal is to improve the quality of our tenant and leaseholder services in North Yorkshire.
What we want to achieve
By delivering the actions within the plan we hope to achieve the following strategic outcomes:
- The presenting issues and underlying root causes of the regulatory downgrade have been understood and addressed with learning embedded in revised governance and reporting structure.
- Culture reflects high performing organisation seeking continuous improvement.
- Robust policy framework in place which supports delivery of the strategy.
- Governance is sustainably fit for purpose to manage the risk profile of the housing function.
- Mitigations to presenting risks are in place and effective.
- Systems and data are right size and effective to support service delivery, reporting and oversight.
- All properties have an up-to-date stock condition survey.
- Data relating to assets and compliance is robust and maintained.
- All properties have valid and evidenced compliance certificates for all elements of landlord health and safety.
- Effective complaints handling approach which meets the expectations of the Housing Ombudsman complaints handling code and consumer standards.
- Governance and reporting framework is robust and provides sufficient oversight of complaints.
- Staff have sufficient knowledge to effectively handle complaints.
- Resident engagement framework is comprehensive and in place with clear feedback and learning loop established throughout the governance framework.
- The repairs service delivery is effective, and any backlog is cleared.
- A clear framework of service standards, policies and procedures is developed for all service areas and reporting framework against these standards established.
- Approach to tenancy management is clear, set out in policy, monitored, and delivers the outcomes of the Tenancy Standard.
What we have achieved so far
- stronger governance - we have established an Improvement Framework, Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Housing Improvement Board, Tenant Scrutiny Panel and Performance Framework
- regulatory engagement - we are working positively with the Regulator for Social Housing to improve our compliance position and to work towards a C1 position; that overall the landlord is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards
- landlord compliance - we have developed management plans for the ‘Big Six’ health and safety concerns. We have also commenced a programme of Decent Homes Surveys and implementation of an Asset Management System
- listening and engaging with residents - over 2,000 tenants took part in our first Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey - we are conducting quarterly surveys to keep a better track on performance. We have developed a Tenant Involvement Strategy, recruited to the Tenant Panels and launched ‘Open Door’ the tenant newsletter
- policy harmonisation - we have developed a policy framework which details the priority policies we will seek to harmonise and timescales. We have already harmonised critical policies on Allocations, Domestic Abuse, Tenancy Strategy, Repairs and Anti-social Behaviour
- complaints handling - we have created a dedicated resource within the Community Development Directorate and have improved our complaints classifications and data collection to ensure we can now report on and learn from our complaints
- damp and mould - we have improved our damp and mould processes to be compliant with Awaabs Law and launched an online reporting tool to make it easier for tenants to let us know when there is a problem
What is next
Our Housing Improvement Plan focusses on seven key themes:
- Governance and oversight.
- Understanding stock quality.
- Keeping homes safe and compliant.
- Understanding tenants and responding to diverse needs.
- Effective repairs and maintenance service.
- Working with others to ensure safe neighbourhoods.
- Allocate and let homes fairly and manage tenancy.
Themes one to four directly address issues of regulatory concern highlighted in the Regulatory Judgement. Themes five to seven pick up other areas, not highlighted within the Regulatory Judgement but where we are aware work is required to further our compliance position.
Timescales
Actions within the current improvement plan are scheduled to be complete by March 2027 and are split into seven phases:
- phase one: starts September 2024; ends December 2024
- phase two: starts January 2025; ends March 2025
- phase three: starts April 2025; ends June 2025
- phase four: starts July 2025; ends September 2025
- phase five: starts October 2025; ends December 2025
- phase six: starts January 2026; ends March 2026
- phase seven: starts April 2026; ends March 2027
- phase eight: starts April 2027; ends onwards
Further, operational, actions plans have been developed to address those areas of the Consumer Standards where we feel further development is required in order to achieve our ambition to receive a C1 grading and ultimately to become an exemplar social landlord.
Staged improvement
We recognise that a staged approach to recovery is required, and we have aligned these stages with our ambition to achieve regulatory upgrade:
| Stage | Description | Position | Indicative time frame |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage one | Crisis recovery | C3 | May 2024 to June 2025 |
| Stage two | Stabilisation and adjustment | Journey to C2 | June 2025 to March 2027 |
| Stage three | Strategic review | Journey to C1 | June 2025 to April 2029 |
| Stage four | Continuous improvement | Exemplar | April 2029 onwards |
The Housing Improvement Strategy will be delivered in the knowledge that recovery is not a linear journey and there may be both internal and external factors, such as tenant feedback, regulatory engagement and additional legislative change, which cause us to pause and modify our response.
The stages of improvement are not distinct. Phases two and three could, and should, happen concurrently, as the service focusses on harmonisation and compliance in the short to medium term whilst framing scenarios for longer term improvement post-crisis and stabilisation.
Stage one - crisis recovery
- root cause analysis
- restructure
- improvement planning/ prioritisation
- financial/ performance/risk management and assurance established
- reset customer relationship
- establish governance
- AGILE approach to service improvement - immediate responses, stabilise then assess
Stage two - stabilisation and adjustment
- people - supporting our people out of crisis recovery; cultural change
- processes - harmonisation of policy and process
- systems - implementing required systems and improvement plans
- management of finance/performance/risk
- customer feedback - Tenant Satisfaction Measures informing service delivery
- building on and interpreting data moving into forecasting
- assessing impact and make informed adjustments based on above
- achieving a stable base upon which strategic review can take place
Stage three - strategic review
- strategic review of service - New Operating Plan with effective governance and assurance process in place (revised from crisis stage)
- evidence based long term investment and asset management plans
- Service Delivery model based upon evidence based assessment of tenants current and future diverse needs and vulnerabilities
- Ongoing Strategy/Policy/ Process Review programme based on evidenced understanding, directed by tenants and overseen by elected members
- outward facing service - working in partnership with other council services and external partnerships to deliver holistic services for tenants
- people - Effective Learning and Development Strategy and Workforce Planning Strategy to ensure culture, knowledge and professionalism is encouraged and retained
Stage four - continuous improvement
- continuous improvement embedded as business as usual
- tenant-centred approach to service review and improvement
- a predictive asset maintenance strategy
- regular training and development of our people, creating a professional workplace that attracts talent
- strategic partnerships are valuable and provide direct benefits to tenants
- excelling at community engagement and support services
- encouraging sustainability in our homes and communities
Tenant involvement and transparency
In order to ensure that all those involved are kept up to date with progress on delivery of the strategy and of any service improvements which might impact directly on tenants, a Communication Plan has been developed.
Our Tenant Involvement Strategy sets out how we will ensure that tenants have the opportunity and means to be involved in our service improvement and delivery reviews. It also details how we will engage with and inform tenants of changes which affect them and their households.
Ensuring transparency with tenants is critical to our approach and we will strive to make our service data available and accessible to tenants, leaseholders, elected members and external bodies both as standard through our performance information and publication scheme and upon request.
How we will measure our performance and impact
Our Performance Framework details the performance data which will be collected.
Our performance will be monitored, by the Housing Improvement Board and the Regulator for Social Housing on a monthly basis. Progress will be reported to Overview and Scrutiny, Management Board and Executive Committee quarterly.
Financial Monitoring reports will be published regularly. These reports set out our progress against our budgets.
We will measure our performance through the annual Tenant Satisfaction Measures and incorporate learnings and feedback into the Housing Improvement Plan.
Using the 2023 to 2024 Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey results as our baseline we will seek to improve our performance..
We have appointed an external consultant, Savills, to be a critical friend to us, and challenge and support us to deliver on our Improvement Plan.
Strategy review
The Housing Improvement Strategy will be agreed by the Executive Committee and monitored via the methodology above on a quarterly basis.
An annual Housing Service Improvement and Performance Report including complaints handling and Tenant Satisfaction Measures performance (the statutory requirement) will be reported to the Overview and Scrutiny, Executive and Tenant Panel - this will also serve as the strategy review document, ensuring that sufficient progress is being made and impact is being felt, on an annual basis.
How you can get involved
Do you have ideas on how we can improve our housing services? Whether you can spare a few hours or want to be involved regularly, we would love to hear from you. Contact us at myhousingvoice@northyorks.gov.uk.
Find out more on our tenant involvement page.