Tenant scrutiny
Tenant scrutiny offers a way for you to help us improve our housing services. By engaging in this process, you can identify what is not working well and suggest changes.
How it works
Our Resident Influence Panel picks a topic to look at, based on our performance data and what tenants tell us.
Then a small group of tenants and leaseholders meet up and decide how they will review the chosen topic. They might talk to our employees, review documents and webpages, send surveys, or even do 'mystery shopping' to see how we deliver that service. When they finish, they write a report about what they found and how we can improve.
Our Customer Involvement team helps the group throughout this process, making sure everyone can share their ideas.
Does this sound interesting?
Do you want to help make our housing services better? Join our Resident Voice pool. We'll let you know when it's time for the next review.
Scrutiny review - enhancing customer contact
After looking at results from surveys we'd conducted and complaints we'd received, our Resident Influence Panel decided to scrutinise how we deal with contact from tenants and leaseholders. They wanted to make sure you have a good experience whenever and however you contact us. Read their full report to see what they suggested.
Key recommendations and updates
Consistent customer experience
Suggestion: create one team to handle all enquiries and set clear service standards so you know what to expect when you get in touch.
What's happening: we are starting a customer contact project in 2024-25 to make this happen, using what we learned from tenants.
Customised contact preferences
Suggestion: ask tenants how they want to be contacted.
What's happening: we're making a video to show you how to update your contact details on My Housing Account (opens new window). It will be on our website soon.
Mental health awareness
Suggestion: train staff to understand more about mental health.
What's happening: all our employees have access to mental health training at work.
Community engagement
Suggestion: more interaction from staff within the community.
What's happening: our Customer Involvement team is starting to meet with you informally every six months. They visit different community groups across Gateshead to discuss what matters most to you. There are lots of other opportunities for you to meet with our staff, including estate walkabouts.
Access to translation services
Suggestion: we need to make sure all new staff know how to use translation services.
What's happening: we're training housing staff so they know why translation is important and how to access it.
Scrutiny review - stage 1 complaint responses
Our tenants have told us that they are dissatisfied with the Council's approach to complaint handling and that we need to improve the way we deal with Housing complaints. The Tenant Satisfaction Survey carried out in 2023/2024 showed that 26% of tenants were satisfied with how we handled their complaint.
In response, the Resident Influence Panel decided to commission a scrutiny review of our responses to stage 1 complaints.
A focus group made up of tenants and leaseholders volunteered to carry out the scrutiny review. After agreeing a set of criteria to assess the quality of letters against, they scrutinised a range of anonymous complaint responses from different housing services about various issues.
Read the full report and find out more about their findings and recommendations.
Key recommendations and updates
- The main recommendation is to establish a specialist team to handle all complaints about Housing Services. This would ensure an accessible complaints service with one point of contact. The aim would be to deliver a more consistent customer experience.
- Review the letter template used in complaint replies and ensure that the language used in letters is clear and understandable and does not include jargon.
- Improve communications throughout the complaint handling process agreeing a communication strategy with the customer as to how and when any outstanding actions will be communicated.
- Deliver further training to officers responsible for investigating complaints with a focus on improving the quality of written complaint responses.
What's happening next
In response to the findings and recommendations from the report, the Council are in the process of establishing a specialist complaints team. The team will have complete focus on handling complaints, to provide an enhanced customer experience. As part of this, we will be reviewing all our current training material and letter templates in line with the recommendations. Our aim is to have this team in place by September this year, we will provide further updates on the progress in due course.