The Social Housing White Paper Selfassessment for landlords

The Social Housing White Paper Self-assessment for landlords 25/12/2021

Background Designed for all housing organisations, this guide walks through the white paper, chapter by chapter. We draw out key considerations to help you: • Start a dialogue with colleagues, stakeholders and residents • Plan your strategy to stay complaint with upcoming legislation • Improve your organisation’s understanding of sweeping changes www. iffresearch. com

Seven chapters and key themes 01 02 03 To be safe in your home: To know how your landlord is performing: To have your complaint dealt with promptly and fairly: Key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure performance, access to performance information and transparency Easier, quicker, consistent process for handling complaints Emphasis on both being safe, feeling safe and rebuilding trust www. iffresearch. com

Seven chapters and key themes 04 05 06 To be treated with respect, backed by a strong consumer regulator: To have your voice heard by your landlord: To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in: New consumer standards and a return to inspection Seek out best practice in resident engagement Review Decent Homes standards, review allocations, tackle antisocial behaviour (ASB) www. iffresearch. com 07 To be supported to take your first steps to ownership: Redesigned shared ownership model

Chapter 1: To be safe in your home

01: Feeling safe, rebuilding trust Safety will become part of the redesigned consumer standards Safety measures across the private and social rented sectors will be levelled Nominated, publicly named person responsible for safety compliance Mandatory installation of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms Increased focus on electrical safety www. iffresearch. com Accountable person for every high-rise building must produce and action a resident engagement strategy

01: Feeling safe, rebuilding trust Self-assessment Consider: • How will you ensure all high-rise residents can access key safety information? • Format, translation, braille, large print, discussing information with supported customers • How will you ensure it’s provided to all new residents, reviewed and kept up to date? • What mechanisms you need to put in place so high-rise residents can quickly, easily and effectively feedback any safety concerns? www. iffresearch. com

Chapter 2: To know how your landlord is performing

02: Customer experience (CX) performance KPIs The Regulator will develop a set of CX metrics, following themes of the green paper Gathered KPIs will need to be shared with residents in a standardised and consistent way At least annually, but preferably on a continuous basis - using technology Landlords must publish expenditure data, including Chief Executive and Executive Team salaries www. iffresearch. com Must name nominated person responsible for consumer standards compliance; someone suitably senior and identifiable to all

02: CX performance KPIs Self-assessment Consider: • How will these KPIs fit into your customer experience strategy? • Do you need to review your current surveys? • Should you take a baseline measure now, so you know how you will compare? • Do you need to compare salaries with other similar landlords? • Who should take on the ‘nominated person’ role? • What advanced training, support and guidance might they need? www. iffresearch. com

Chapter 3: To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly

03: Faster complaint resolution Improved consistency with greater emphasis on learning from complaints from The Ombudsman’s new complaints handling code Faster complaints handling, including removing the “democratic filter” Complaints and outcomes reports will be published for each landlord Action taken against landlords who are “systemically unreasonably slow” ‘Complaint handling failure orders’ naming the landlord and failures Centralised awareness raising campaign of social housing residents’ right to complain led by The Regulator, The Ombudsman and the Government

03: Faster complaint resolution Self-assessment • Start retrospectively analysing complaints data to understand what drives complaints and document the impact: • What are the most common complicating factors? • How will you incorporate formal and informal complaints feedback into your improvement programmes? • What service standard, process or guidance changes have been made due to previous complaints? www. iffresearch. com

Chapter 4: To be treated with respect, backed by a strong consumer regulator for tenants

04: Stronger consumer regulation Rewriting the consumer standards including: - Safety - Tackling domestic abuse - The new KPIs - Seeking out best practice in resident involvement - Being more transparent “Serious detriment” threshold is scrapped and replaced by four-yearly inspection cycles, including an annual desktop review Regulator to survey condition of properties with 2 days (instead of 28 days) notice and will be empowered to complete emergency repairs www. iffresearch. com Landlords required to selfrefer any breaches to The Regulator. Cap on fines removed, with Performance Improvement Plans introduced for failing landlords

04: Stronger consumer regulation Self-assessment Consider: • If you already gather any of the proposed KPIs, how does your performance compare against your peers? • What criteria will you use for your nominated individuals, and how will you include them in important conversations and decisions? • How will you involve residents and stakeholders in shaping your services? How will you demonstrate that you are engaging residents in your decisions? www. iffresearch. com

Chapter 5: To have your voice heard by your landlord

05: Hearing resident voices The Regulator will review if landlords have “sought out best practice” in resident engagement and involvement Engaged residents will have the opportunity to ‘upskill’ via a Government-led learning and support programme www. iffresearch. com Working group to review professional training and development, including the need for mental health awareness training for frontline staff

05: Hearing resident voices Self-assessment • Do you follow Together with Tenants, See the Person (National Housing Federation’s resident engagement charter) and the Housing Ombudsman news and blogs to learn best practice? • Review your current tenant involvement strategy and approach. Start documenting how this has evolved over time. • What are you doing to ‘share your best practice’? • Do you broadcast the impact your involved tenants have in shaping services? • Do you tell people about innovative ways to engage customers? www. iffresearch. com

Chapter 6: To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in

06: Homes and Neighbourhoods Review of the Decent Homes Standard (by Autumn 2021) to include energy efficiency, decarbonisation and access to green space KPI on satisfaction with handling of anti-social behaviour, with greater clarity on responsibilities of police and landlords/ how residents can access multi-agency support Re-designed consumer standards will include requiring landlords to have a policy to tackle issues surrounding domestic abuse www. iffresearch. com Review allocations process, ensuring building cohesive neighbourhoods, ensuring people with disabilities are allocated adapted homes

06: Homes and Neighbourhoods Self-assessment Consider: • Do you have a published policy on tackling domestic abuse? Is the policy prominent? • How do you currently monitor satisfaction with anti-social behaviour handling? • How do you currently monitor outcomes and additional actions beyond your process? • Do you track the number of multi-agency ASB Case Reviews? www. iffresearch. com

Chapter 7: To be supported to take your first step to ownership

07: Steps to homeownership Half the homes delivered under the Affordable Homes Programme (up to 180, 000 homes) will be “affordable home ownership” In new shared ownership model, landlord to cover repairs for the first 10 years Reduced initial stake of 25% (compared to 10%) and staircasing in increments of 1% www. iffresearch. com Introduce ‘right to shared ownership’ giving residents the opportunity to buy 10% stake in their home and become a shared owner

07: Steps to homeownership Self-assessment: • Shared owners are almost universally the least satisfied tenure grouping. Analyse and interrogate the drivers of shared ownership dissatisfaction in greater detail: • Key issues? • Will the new model address them? • How can they be overcome? www. iffresearch. com

How did you do?

Taking your results forward Taking everything you learned during this exercise, you can: • Consult with customers and stakeholders to create your white paper strategy • Underpin your strategy with SMART action plans designed to hit key milestones • Set up resident panels and working groups to hit targets and ensure compliance with new legislation www. iffresearch. com

Need further guidance?

IFF Research can help: Baseline survey The recently published white paper confirmed what we all expected: greater consumer regulation is coming. And with it, expectation of performance against new metrics. We can help you: Better understand how you’re perceived by your customers Clarify your current customer relationship status Identify areas for improvement Get in touch with our housing experts today at hello@iffresearch. com

IFF Research can help: Complaints analysis From March 2021 failures in complaints handling will be published. If this prospect is worrisome, you’re not alone. We can help you: Collect documented evidence between complaints data and service improvements Meet regulatory requirements (and minimise your presence on the list) Improve the service your customers receive Get in touch with our housing experts today at hello@iffresearch. com

IFF Research can help: Resident engagement strategy Resident engagement takes centre stage. With the upcoming changes you must demonstrate that you’ve sought best practice in resident involvement, with a strategy that evolves over time and meets growing expectations. We can help you: Identify weaknesses in your current strategy, suggesting proven solutions to better engage your residents Create a new strategy with a plan for improvement and evolution over time Evidence that you have sought out best practice Get in touch with our housing experts today at hello@iffresearch. com

IFF Research can help: Tenure-specific CX support Leaseholders, homeowners, and shared ownership customers are fundamentally dissatisfied. We can help you: Develop a tenure-led customer experience strategy to improve satisfaction and better meet expectations Mitigate risk, given the increasing size of the segment, shifting demographic and government policy narrative Enhance your communications and improve your reputation to attract all types of shared owners Get in touch with our housing experts today at hello@iffresearch. com

Contact us hello@iffresearch. com IFF Research www. iffresearch. com/housing @IFFResearch