Customer Scrutiny Panel ANNUAL REPORT
Customer Scrutiny Panel The Customer Scrutiny Panel (CSP) is a key part of how Stockport Homes is governed and how it meets its obligations to give tenants and customers a role in scrutinising and reviewing how it performs and how services can be improved. This is known as ‘co-regulation’. The CSP is an award winning body, accredited by Tpas. This Annual Report provides an update on the activities of the CSP covering the period April 2020-March 2021.
Who we are We are currently
6 Members
and regularly advertise opportunities for customers to get involved in the customer newsletter, on the website and on social media. We are always looking for new members! We come from across the Borough including the Town Centre, Hillgate, Brinnington, Cheadle, and Woodley. In September 2020 following a successful interview with members of the CSP, a new customer was appointed to the Panel. Derek Morgan showed his desire to improve services provided by Stockport Homes and we were pleased to invite him to join us. When asked about his time on the Panel, Derek said ‘I joined the CSP with little understanding of what it does, but over the 6 months I have been with the group I now understand how the process works and how we can help to shape services which impact customers. I enjoy the meetings with the other panel members and am pleased to be part of a group which has a common and positive goal.’ One of our longstanding members, Sheila Smith, has decided to stand down from the Panel this year after two years’ service. We wish her all the best.
Support for the CSP We also receive support from an Independent Mentor, Jayne Boote, who assists us when we carry out reviews, making sure we are able to ask the right questions and get the right information, and to have the greatest impact. Jayne has many years’ experience working with tenant scrutiny groups and we really appreciate her support. The Governance and Scrutiny Team at Stockport Homes provide the support with the arrangements for the Panel.
Covid-19 Covid-19 had a significant impact on our work as it prevented us from meeting in between March and September 2020. After some training in the use of Zoom, we were able to get back up and running through virtual meetings, thereby keeping everyone safe. After an initial settling in period, Panel Members are now much more comfortable with this type of meeting. Because of Covid-19, most of the training and conference events that might have taken place over the last year were also cancelled, which panel members might have attended. In January, the Housing Quality Network hosted the virtual workshop ‘Making Scrutiny Matter’ which three of us joined, providing us with an opportunity to discuss and learn about new ways of working, best practices and how to produce effective final reports on our work. As a Panel we were well represented and were able to share our experiences.
Tpas National Scrutiny Week 2020 The Tpas National Scrutiny Week took place in July 2020 and provided a chance for tenants and social landlords to celebrate the impact of working in partnership to scrutinise services. Tpas are a national not-for-profit organisation who support and promote tenant involvement and empowerment in social housing. Two of our group, Bob McGechan and Pamela Hunter did just that by delivering a live virtual presentation explaining how tenant scrutiny is approached at Stockport Homes, including some case studies from recent reviews. Again, another opportunity to strengthen Stockport Homes’ national reputation for tenant scrutiny.
15 years of Stockport Homes In the Autumn of 2020, Pat Rapley, one of our longest serving Panel Members, took part in a video put together to celebrate the 15 years since Stockport Homes was created to transform the quality of the Council’s housing stock, and how the award-winning Scrutiny Panel played a role in that process. You can find a video of the highlights of those 15 years at
www.stockporthomes.org
What we’ve done Every year, the CSP aim to complete at least two reviews of SHG services, but because of Covid-19 limiting the opportunities for the Panel to meet, we only completed one review in 2020/21, on the Programme Delivery of Capital Investment Works, but at the beginning of 2021 we started a review of the One Number Service.
We’ve also been
• reviewing how we decide on what reviews to do so that they are based on what we know tenants care about and will be able to improve their experience • reviewing how we do our work to make sure that we’re getting the right information and checking the right things • reviewing how we can involve other customers in the process so that we can draw on their experiences, • making sure we’re keeping up with changes in how Stockport Homes works • working to improve our communications with other tenants about what we do and the impact its having We plan to make some changes and improvements in the next 12 months to make us even more effective and to make sure customers can find out about it.
Service reviews
The biggest part of our work is carrying out Service Reviews. This is where we take a detailed look at services, how customers experience and feel about those services. Where it’s needed, we will make recommendations about where we think Stockport Homes should consider making changes or improvements. Some of these will have positive short-term results for customers, others might take longer to lead to changes to how services are delivered. Each review provides a great learning process for both for the Panel members and for staff at Stockport Homes, and the scrutiny process evolves with each review.
Programme Delivery of Capital Investment Works
Between September to December, we reviewed the Programme Delivery Service of the Capital Investment Projects, which are the big improvement schemes on Stockport Homes estates and properties. In particular our review focused on: • How effective were the communications with tenants before, during and after the works • How vulnerable customers or customers who require extra support were identified and how they were supported during the works • How the service gets feedback from customers on their satisfaction with the works and how that’s used to monitor the programme and improve how the service is delivered in future. We found that overall the service was good but we still made a number of recommendations, including about how letters sent to customers about the works could be improved to make sure they were as clear and straight forward as possible. We also recommended that the design of the customer satisfaction survey, and how it was delivered, was reviewed to make sure it asked the right questions and as many as possible were returned.
What we’re doing next In the next year, we will have finished our review of the One Number Service and will be starting another review of an SHG service. We will also be working with our Independent Mentor and SHG officers to explore how we can get even more out of scrutiny, by working in new ways and making sure that the voice and experience of customers is central to how we choose our reviews and the recommendations we make. Over the next year we hope to use new ways to highlight our work to other customers, making more effective use of social media, and improving how we present our findings to the SHG Board. We’re always keen to bring new people on board and we will be working with officers at SHG to get more customers involved in our work, either as members of the Panel or in reviews about services that affect them, their families and communities.
Conclusion We’re all really proud to be able to work with Stockport Homes to improve the services and experiences of our fellow customers, and grateful for the support of staff at Stockport Homes for helping us in that work. To find out more about what we do and the impact tenant scrutiny has visit www.stockporthomes.org/csp You can even make suggestions about areas we might look at. If you’re interested in getting more involved in the work of the CSP, contact governance@stockporthomes.org