Issue - meetings

This reports on the outcomes of the 2016/17 annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey which is the biggest single gauge of satisfaction across landlord services by tenants of council owned housing stock.

Resolved: 

(i)           That the results of the 2016/17 Tenant Satisfaction Survey be considered and that the officer comments regarding future actions be noted.

(ii)          That a Tenant Satisfaction Survey for 2017/18 be agreed.

Reason: To ensure that City of York Council has up to date information regarding customer satisfaction, enabling landlord and building services to target resources and improvements to those services prioritised by customers, and to feed into the annual Housemark benchmarking return.

The Executive Leader considered a report that highlighted the outcomes of the 2016/17 annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey which was the biggest single gauge of satisfaction across landlord services by tenants of council owned housing stock.

Officers gave an update and confirmed the survey had taken place between September and November 2016 and was primarily carried out by post. The number of questions asked in the survey had been reduced from 44 to 25 and it was sent to 2800 tenants generating a 23% response rate.

Officers discussed the analysis and confirmed:

·        the 2016/17 results were statistically significant to within +/-3.69%.

·        it was not possible to compare City of York Council’s performance with other providers until later in 2017 due to the time lag in data collection and analysis.

·        satisfaction had increased across four of the six Housemark core  questions.

·        satisfaction regarding complaints had decreased in all areas.

·        satisfaction within the four housing themes Your Property, Your Place, Your Service and Your Say had generally improved in most areas with a significant increase in the availability of storage space.

·        the Estate Improvement Grant would be allocated in April 2017 and would bring a range of changes including a renewed focus on targeting ward priorities identified through the survey.

·        the results would be used to inform a restructure of housing services which would move towards a new staffing model to address tenants preference to have a single clear point of contact within housing services.

In answer to the Executive Leaders questions and concerns regarding the decline in satisfaction within complaints handling, officers confirmed they would be investigating the issues raised with the Customer Complaints and Feedback Team.

The Executive Leader thanked officers for their update.

Resolved: 

(i)            That the results of the 2016/17 Tenant Satisfaction Survey be considered and that the officer comments regarding future actions be noted.

(ii)          That an update report highlighting the actions taken to improve the process of making a complaint be brought to a future Executive Leader (incorporating Housing and Safer Neighbourhoods) Decision Session.

(iii)        That a Tenant Satisfaction Survey for 2017/18 be agreed.

Reason: To ensure that City of York Council has up to date information regarding customer satisfaction, enabling landlord and building services to target resources and improvements to those services prioritised by customers, and to feed into the annual Housemark benchmarking return.