Tenant involvement and engagement standard

Our local offers-  

 Action plan-

Our progress so far…

Ensuring services are delivered at a time and place which suits the customer

1. We will complete the development of our Customer Access Strategy by May 11. The strategy will give us a number of options so that we can improve the ways you can access our services.
2. In July 11 we will work with your Area Panels to gather your views to develop the Customer Access Strategy. We will agree with the Area Panels the service areas that are most important to customers and how they will help us to monitor our performance.
3. We will apply the Customer Access Strategy by agreeing with your Area Panels a plan to improve access to our services. We will make a summary available on our website by October 2011.
4. We will tell you where you can find information about our performance and what services are covered by October 11.

1. We have completed the development of our Customer Access Strategy.
2. In June we worked with your area panels, outlining and agreeing the 3 main changes we will be making to ensure that all our customers can easily access our services.  
3. We have developed an action plan to ensure we are on track to deliver the main aims within the strategy. We have already made real progress delivering these actions.
4. We provided an update in our September edition of our residents’ newsletter, Isos News. We also committed to updating this action plan on our website 4 times a year.    

Ensuring that all of our offices (‘service points’) are equipped to deal with all of our customers.

Maximising the number of queries that are resolved at the first point of contact and resolved right first time

Our local offers-  

Action plan-

Our progress so far…

Dedicating space in our newsletters to feedback on how residents helped us improve our service

1. We will agree with your Area Panels the ways that we should feedback information to you to ensure you are kept up to date about how we are improving services by August 11. 
2. We will agree a performance management framework with our Area Panels by March 2012. A performance management framework is an agreed set of measures of the quality, cost or volume of the services we provide. By monitoring and reporting this data to our Area Panels they can decide whether we are performing well in delivering the services to you and help us improve underperforming services.

1. As well as this update on our performance and delivery of our local offers we will ensure that our website is kept up to date to include relevant performance information, action plans and information about the services we are working to improve.
2. We are developing new technology to help us manage and monitor our performance and provide reports for our area panels and Board. We are also working with Northumbria University to review the way that we measure and monitor our performance. We will involve our resident area panels in this review. We are making these changes to ensure that each panel is provided with relevant local data, performance data and information from our business plan in order that they can scrutinise our performance, ensure we are meeting the national standards and ensure we are delivering our local offers to residents.

Simplify our performance reports and provide them to our new Area Panels

Monitoring and reporting on our customer service performance.

Informing residents well in advance of planned improvement works

1. In the first edition of our new tenant magazine we will explain how we have improved services in response to feedback from customers.
2. The programme for the next three years will be published each February, details of the programme will be sent to each tenant whose property is included in the programme. 
3. We will write to you at least 1 month before planned works will start at your home to discuss the extent of the work and any special requirements you may have

1. In our summer edition of 'Isos News' we updated you about our progress in delivering our local offers and outlined our plans to develop our 'promises' to residents for 2012/13.
2. The next planned maintenance cycle (2012 – 2016) is in development.  Progress to date has been reported to the Board, our Executive Team, the Customer Service Committee and to the area panels.  A further report, providing more detail on the contract schedule, will be released for consultation in April. We aim to publicise the schedule in our summer edition of the residents’ newsletter, Space & Place. 
3. Our maintenance teams will make sure that each tenant whose property is included in the programme receives a copy of the full programme.

Our local offers-  

Action plan-

Our progress so far…

Reshaping our governance structure to include 2 Area Panels which will be Chaired by a resident, and consist of a majority of residents - a key tier in our structure ensuring high level involvement in the business

1. Our approach to Resident Engagement and Community Investment will be developed by August 2011.
2. We will openly recruit residents to join the new Area Panels and hold first meetings by June 2011.
3. A training plan for Area Panel members will be produced each year by August.

1. We have worked with your resident area panels to design a new Tenant Involvement Framework (TIF). The framework aims to ensure that residents continue to be at the heart of our organisation, directing us and making decisions so that we can continue to improve the services that matter most to our residents. At present, we have two strategic resident area panels and a number of thematic resident groups. We are considering setting up service specific groups. Opportunities for ‘armchair’ involvement are available through the Isos Hot 100 (consisting of over 400 residents) and via road show events. Space & Place, the new Isos resident’s magazine, was launched at the end of last year. The newsletter updates our customers about Isos, the communities we serve and promotes opportunities for involvement. Community walkabouts ensure residents can highlight local issues, both to Isos and the partner agencies we invite to attend the walkabouts.
2. We were pleased that so many of our residents applied to be on our area panels. The number of applications exceeded the posts available. However, we have kept a record of all the residents that applied, or expressed an interest in applying. We are keen to ensure that, as we develop our resident involvement structures, all residents have a chance to be involved.
3. Our area panel members have a broad mix of skills and abilities. We are supporting the panels by providing training, mentoring and ongoing advice. A comprehensive training and development programme has been developed for area panel members. The programme commenced in early 2012.  Area Panel members recently attended a scrutiny training event, as part of the Government sponsored tenant capacity building programme – ‘Growing Together’. In addition, the Area Panels are currently working with our Community Involvement Team on the development of the Isos Community Investment Strategy.  A series of information / briefing sessions are being held to inform this process.  

Ensuring we encourage new participants and making sure they feel they are well supported