With the first year of annual reporting on the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) now complete, housing providers are now patiently waiting to see how they’ve performed, with all results expected to be published in autumn 2024. However, if the results published over the summer by some local councils are anything to go by, many housing providers will be facing wake-up calls.
Charnwood Borough Council is one council that has already published its results, indicating poor satisfaction levels; only 58 per cent of respondents are satisfied that their home is well-maintained, and as few as 28 per cent of respondents are satisfied with the council’s approach to complaints handling. Housing experts are predicting poor results for many housing providers, pointing to several factors including the lack of maintenance support, poor communication strategies and responses to complaints for such a stark decline in satisfaction levels.
The TSMs aim to improve the lives of social housing tenants by making sure that they are listened to, able to live in safe homes in good repair, and their complaints are well-handled. However, according to a Housemark survey, only 59 per cent of tenants feel their housing provider listens to their views, leaving almost half feeling overlooked. Early indications suggest that many housing providers aren’t providing enough for tenants regarding building safety, housing conditions, maintenance and repairs. These early results highlight how crucial the new TSM reporting will be in defining what good tenant services look like, while holding housing providers to account if the services aren’t up to scratch.
The prediction of poor results
Analysis from Housemark indicates that overall satisfaction has fallen by around 15 per cent over the past five years, from 85 per cent in 2018/19 to 69 per cent in 2023/24. The overall satisfaction rates for housing providers were 73 per cent compared with 66 per cent for local authorities.
However, given that this is the first year of official TSM reporting, housing providers could arguably be given some leeway if they show improvement plans to meet the required satisfaction level. At the same time, there currently aren’t any clear consequences from the newly-elected government on those that don’t meet the required standard.
Rather than penalties for poorly-performing organisations, the government should help to create and enforce performance improvement plans. For example, the problems many smaller housing providers have is their lack of funds to make significant improvements to cater to tenants. However, rather than penalising the housing providers and taking more money from them through penalties (and thereby exacerbating the funding problem), the government could work with them to create improvement plans that will ensure suitable changes are made.
Listening to forgotten voices
While the focus should remain on the housing providers to meet the TSM standard, the most important voices are often forgotten, those of tenants themselves. Feedback from tenants is a key priority for housing providers and it makes tenants feel listened to about topics such as housing conditions and maintenance.
However, most of the noise in our sector surrounds the need for housing providers to meet the new standards. Very little is focused on what tenants want, yet that is the fundamental point of the TSMs. It could be argued that there is a cultural problem within housing providers and that tenants’ voices aren’t brought into the conversation enough when it comes to reporting.
If housing providers want to improve on the predicted poor results then there needs to be a more proactive and engaged approach in their communities. Rather than just waiting for tenants to share their feedback, housing providers should be proactive and create multiple communication channels that allow tenants to share their voices. Collecting feedback can take up a lot of bandwidth but setting up the relevant channels will allow housing providers to easily collect feedback at any given time and then act on it.
Are TSMs enough?
There is a debate about whether TSMs will have sufficient impact to push housing providers into action if results are poor or whether it’s just a toothless framework telling us what we all already know but with no outcomes for failure.
Thus far, the available data suggests that the majority of housing providers are engaging successfully with the new framework. Many are finding TSMs useful, with a sizeable proportion of them using the results of TSM surveys to shape their services and business strategy for the next year.
Reporting TSM surveys isn’t enough; housing providers need to share their solutions. Sharing knowledge and insights can be hugely beneficial, especially for smaller housing providers that can’t gather as much data from their tenants as the larger housing providers can. Creating a more collaborative environment and sharing good practice will encourage other housing providers to act.
What to do next?
The majority of housing providers still use outdated systems and disconnected solutions; because of this, many tenants find it difficult to report a problem to their housing provider about housing conditions or building maintenance.
With the ongoing evolution of AI, there is now so much automation available to do the ‘heavy lifting’. For example, using low/no-code solutions to create a case management system can integrate a wide variety of tenants’ different concerns, including repairs, complaints, ASB and damp and mould, into a single, unified view. Using low-code tools, housing providers can harness data from multiple legacy systems to streamline workflows and create self-service tenant experiences by having the right data in the right place at the right time.
Using AI enables housing providers to implement preventative measures for tenants rather than reactive solutions. With the right tools and by leveraging technologies such as AI, low code and RPA, housing providers can keep tenants’ needs clearly in focus, while achieving their TSM objectives alongside financial savings and productivity efficiencies.
TSMs should be considered as the minimum standard that housing providers deliver to their tenants. Everyone should be aiming to go beyond these standards, and with the development of new technologies, housing providers have the opportunity to ensure that tenants’ voices are heard and acted on in a cost-effective and efficient manner.
Mark Gannon is the director of client solutions at Netcall.
