Leading the Way

Housing talks to some of the first housing organisations in England to implement a new model of resident-led self regulation and finds out what works and why.

CIH started a journey almost three years ago with the aim of finding a way for residents’ priorities and views to be at the heart of the way housing organisations direct, assess and modify their own behaviour and performance. This was a tall order. Even as we speak, at the end of 2009 and with the new social housing regulator almost a year old, most English housing organisations operate executive-led self regulation within a tight framework of external regulation. In other words, the board and senior management alone deal with business planning, performance management, internal audit and scrutiny. Residents of most landlords have no real power to drive change at this level.

CIH and TPAS, with support from Tribal, investigated how residents could take a role within a housing organisation that was independent, formally constituted and had genuine power. A model of resident-led self regulation was designed that would place the collective resident voice at the heart of housing providers’ self-regulation activities. Central to the model is a residents’ scrutiny group which in turn enables residents to work in four distinct areas of self regulation: the business direction, service, the constitution and governance.

Abigail Davies, CIH Head of Policy, designed the model in 2007 and recently led a team of colleagues to meet a small number of housing providers who are using - or in the final stages of developing - resident-led self regulation within their organisations.

Ms. Davies said: "There is an appetite amongst housing organisations to hand over more power to residents and some are already creating formal scrutiny groups which will influence decision making at the highest level. We are following the progress of a few innovators and hope that their experiences will encourage others to take on the challenge."

She continued: "The new model is not a million miles away from work that is already happening. It draws on tried and tested resident involvement activities that relate to scrutiny, such as mystery shopping, tenant inspectors and service review panels, and makes them more coordinated and gives them greater influence and impact."

One of the case studies to be included in a new CIH report on implementing resident-led self regulation through tenant scrutiny, to be published in the next few weeks, is Salix Homes - an ALMO which manages around 10,500 council-owned properties across Central Salford. Salix has worked with TPAS to recruit residents to a 13-strong Customer Senate – which is a body that will hold Salix Homes to account for its behaviour and performance, the ‘conscience of the organisation’. One resident is selected from each of seven housing areas and one is nominated from each of six service specific panels, and other residents are involved in the recruitment process.

The Customer Senate can scrutinise the topics it thinks will be of greatest value to the organisation and it prepares reports and recommendations to the Board who make a formal response. The Senate can pick up on failing performance indicators, concerns highlighted by the board or areas of concern from service specific panels, customer inspectors or community calls for action. There is a target of four reviews per year. Its first review was of Salix Direct, a customer contact centre, and the second review of service standards is currently underway. The review of the customer contact centre highlighted the issue of "avoidable contact" where many customers were calling several times rather than their query being resolved on first contact. A thorough review of processes is expected to improve the customer experience and eventually cut costs.

Salix has prepared individual training plans for Senate members which include developing their knowledge and skills around audit and scrutiny. Salix managers also provide support for senators for example in writing reports, and the organisation also employs a mentor to support the Senate members, currently provided by TPAS.

Alison Hill from Salix said: "It is resource intensive, but the benefits for the organisation outweigh the costs. We have never really had customers looking at processes and procedures before and how they could work better. It is so valuable to have a different set of eyes looking at how we do things from a customer’s point of view. The benefit to all of us is continuous improvement."

Ms Hill continued: "The next big piece of work will be to communicate the work of the Customer Senate more widely to residents."

Phil Morgan, Executive Director of Tenant Services at the Tenant Services Authority (TSA) is positive about the developments in the housing sector to formalise tenants’ power of scrutiny. He said : "Tenant scrutiny is likely to be one of the key parts of our co-regulatory approach and will feature heavily in the new regulatory framework we are about to publish. It is part of the triangle of regulation which involves landlords, tenants and the TSA."

The resident-led self regulation model, according to Mr Morgan, is "a mechanism to enable tenant scrutiny, but not the only one" and he is keen to see landlords and tenants develop their own approach.

Asked whether resident-led self regulation is likely to add to a housing organisation’s regulatory burden, Phil Morgan is clear: "It is not about a double burden, but more about a different way of doing things. It is about having a more mature approach to regulation and a focus on landlords and tenants doing these things more themselves."

Aldwyck Housing Group has a long history of tenant involvement and first created a Resident Consultation Committee 16 years ago to provide a mechanism for tenant consultation within the organisation.　　　After consultation with the Committee　during 2007 Aldwyck　ran customer elections and established a Customer Scrutiny Panel　 in 2008, a tenants’ body that would be pro-active in challenging service delivery　performance in the organisation　replacing the Consultative Committee altogether.　　Aldwyck　also has a register of around 700 customers who　participate regularly.　

The Panel has 15 members and meets every three months　to scrutinise performance. Twice a year they get to meet the board over several hours and question them closely on performance.　 The Chairman of the Customer Scrutiny Panel, John Miles said: "I can’t think of any other organisation where the board can be questioned by its customers for four hours." He also emphasises that the Panel asks "serious questions" and expects answers. The Panel focuses on eleven performance indicators that it has set, and even calls officers and directors to its meetings when it has concerns over performance in a particular area and needs to challenge.　

One example where this questioning　contributed to improvements is on voids.　　Aldwyck's Board and Executive team had already　raised concerns regarding the voids performance which had reached six weeks at one point in 2008,　the Panel　also picked up on this and challenged the performance, the whole process of managing voids was re-examined and improved. Pre-inspection teams were set up to view a property before a tenant moved out, any necessary repairs were brought forward and the time a property was left empty was cut down to 18 days, which made a dramatic difference to loss of income.

Emma Walllington, Community Involvement Manager at Aldwyck Housing Group, is clear about the benefits of the Customer Scrutiny Panel: "Customers feel more empowered, they hold us to account and we can see the impact　resulting in customer services and performance improving. The Customer Panel’s inputs go into our business planning and they come up with things we don’t think about.　 It’s refreshing and beneficial to have their insight."

Aldwyck invests a good deal in building the capacity of the residents on the Customer Panel, with regular training needs assessments, training and a one-to-one relationship with a mentor within the organisation for each Panel member.

Ms Wallington added: "Involvement　and the CSP is　an integral part of our　governance and the links we have built up　with our involved customers are very positive　for staff, other customers and the business."

Cambridge City Homes, the landlord services department of Cambridge City Council, is developing a Housing Regulation Panel which will scrutinise the work of Cambridge City Homes and the City Council and provide a resident’s view about service.

The Housing Regulation Panel will report regularly to the Housing Management Board on its activities and will be able to make a call to action if it is concerned about any aspect of service or performance. The feedback from staff in the council has been positive so far but they will judge the success of the Panel by the changes which result from the challenges it makes.

Sandra Farmer, Area Housing Manager at Cambridge City Homes, said: "The advantage we see in creating the Panel is that residents will eventually lead on the way services are delivered. Residents bring their own perspective and take a wider view of housing services, and this is very welcome."

The Housing Management Board, which makes decisions on a strategic level about housing in Cambridge, already has six resident representatives. The new Housing Regulation Panel will give residents a greater level of involvement and to determine housing service delivery in the city.

The Panel is a new body which will absorb two pre-existing groups, the Standards Group and the ROAM Group and will aim to capture much of the expertise and knowledge already existing when it recruits members in 2010.

Ms Farmer continued: "Our residents are very much on board with our moves towards resident-led self regulation and are already involved with us on so many different levels. They see this as a natural step on in the process."

Janet Hale, Director at ConsultCIH, has worked with Cambridge residents as they have developed the Housing Regulation Panel, drawn up its terms of reference and agreed how many residents should sit on it. She said: "The work at Cambridge City Homes has been led by residents from the very beginning which is excellent." Ms Hale continued: "It is important that organisations go into resident-led self regulation for the right reasons and are very open and clear about what they are doing and take their residents with them. This work is not a bolt-on, it is something that can fundamentally change the way the governance of an organisation works. It has to be taken seriously."

Abigail Davies concluded: "I am genuinely excited to see housing organisations of all shapes and sizes making resident-led self regulation a reality and really pushing things forward. It’s great that the TSA sees the strength of resident-led self regulation and I’m pleased to be working with them on the detail of how it can interact with external regulation."

The new CIH report Enhancing in-house resident scrutiny and performance to be published in 2010 draws on the experience of the leading providers in the field, it will identify the practicalities and pitfalls of setting up and running resident-led self regulation and provide suggestions, guidance, and examples to help housing providers and tenants to take this approach forward. It will also consider how it could link into the TSA’s regulatory framework both in terms of assuring quality and reducing external intervention. The previous publication in the series, Leading the Way: achieving resident-driven accountability and excellence, can be downloaded free from www.cih.org/policy