County Durham Housing Group
Contract for: Appointment of a Consultant to undertake a STAR Survey of Dale & Valley Homes, Durham City Homes and East Durham Homes Tenants
ITT Schedule 2
Contract Agreement
Introduction to the Contract
1. County Durham Housing Group (the “Group”) is one of the largest providers of social housing in the north-east of England and consists of three local landlords, Dale & Valley Homes, Durham City Homes and East Durham Homes. The Group was formed in April 2015 following the Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT) of approximately 18,400 homes from Durham County Council.
2. As part of the Group, Dale & Valley Homes own and manage around 4,200 properties in the west of the county (Wear Valley), Durham City Homes own and manage around 5,900 properties in Durham City and its surrounding areas, and East Durham Homes own and manage around 8,300 properties in the east of the county (Easington).
3. The Group currently provides homes and services to approximately 22,050 tenants, with approximately 5,050 at Dale & Valley Homes, 6,900 at Durham City Homes and 10,100 at East Durham Homes.
4. The Group wishes to appoint a suitable organisation (the “Supplier”) to carry out a survey of all of the Group’s tenants and joint tenants to identify satisfaction levels across a number of different services and potential improvement priorities for their homes, neighbourhoods and services moving forward.
5. The Group wish to collate tenant satisfaction information and evidence of tenants’ priorities and preferences to understand:
· Levels of satisfaction with the housing services currently provided. This will assist the Group in identifying priority service improvements that can be made.
· Tenant priorities for improvements to homes and neighbourhoods, this will assist the Group in developing appropriate investment programmes.
· How the Group can gear its future services to tenants and appropriately meet any potential increase in demand for support and advice.
· How satisfaction levels measure up against other organisations and how they compare with the previous Group STAR survey which was undertaken with all tenants in 2013.
6. The appointed Supplier will be required to collect a comprehensive set of opinion data from 50% of the Group’s tenants in 2015 and the remaining 50% of tenants in 2016; this equates to around 11,025 tenants for each survey set (2,525 at Dale & Valley Homes, 3,450 at Durham City Homes and 5,050 at East Durham Homes). The surveys will consist of numerous core questions from the STAR survey questionnaire and a series of additional questions specifically targeted at identifying tenants priorities and views around current services.
7. Following the completion of surveys in 2015 and 2016, an option will be provided within this Contact for the successful Supplier to undertake a further two STAR surveys of a similar nature in 2017 and 2018; again 50% of the Groups tenants and joint tenants would be surveyed in 2017 and the remaining 50% would be surveyed in 2018 if the option is enacted.
8. Following the completion of the STAR survey in 2016, the Group will assess the quality and value for money achieved through the two initial surveys and in the context of future business needs, the Group will information the successful Supplier that it intends to instruct them to undertake further survey(s) in 2017 and 2018.
General Requirements of the Contract
9. The Group requires a survey organisation to carry out a tenant satisfaction survey on behalf of County Durham Housing Group Limited and its subsidiary landlords - Dale & Valley Homes, Durham City Homes and East Durham Homes. The survey is required to measure tenant satisfaction with housing services and identify priorities for homes, neighbourhoods and services in the future.
10. The Group intend to use the findings of the core STAR survey questions to assist service improvements and provide benchmark information across the group, and against other similar regional and national organisations through Housemark.
11. The Group requires all of its tenants to be issued with the same survey questions irrespective of the subsidiary landlord area they live in (i.e. Dale & Valley Homes, Durham City Homes or East Durham Homes). The Group may however wish to include the identification of its subsidiary landlords on the survey distributed such as logos and watermarks so they are specific to the tenants of each landlord. This will be confirmed at the inception meeting with the successful Supplier. The survey must be supported by a covering letter specific to the tenants of each landlord and this must contain the appropriate identification of the relevant landlord, including logos and watermarks and as per the instruction detailed at Stage 2 (para 17-23) below.
Key Outcomes of the Contract
12. The role of the successful Supplier will be to use experiences gained in completing similar projects to:
· Advise on the content of the STAR survey, particularly the structure, format and style of questions to reflect existing STAR survey methodology.
· Carry out the survey including the design, print and distribution of postal surveys and provision of an online survey, providing appropriate tenant support.
· Maximise the return rate of the survey and achieve a minimum of a 25% response rate from the Groups tenants.
· Analyse returned data to complete and deliver a suite of comprehensive analysis reports on the findings of the survey.
· Provide the Group with all returned raw data relating to the provided reference number for the relevant landlord (Excel spread-sheet).
Key Stages:
Stage 1 - Content and Design of STAR Survey
13. The STAR survey will primarily be a postal questionnaire, with an online version produced and made available to tenants. The content of the survey will be provided by the Group. Draft survey content is attached (at Appendix 1) to support costing / responses to the ITT Technical Questions. It is the intention of the Group to finalise survey content on, or around, the Pre-Contract Start Inception Meeting.
14. As part of this procurement exercise (Question 4) Bidders must advise the Group of the content, format and design of the draft survey with any appropriate amendments in the Technical Question response. The survey organisation must provide their proposed and designed version of the STAR survey as part of the ITT Response Document, and this must be:
· Compliant with best practice and with Housemark requirements set out in the most recent Housemark STAR and STAR features guides.
· User friendly and attractive, with colour.
· Put through Plain English to ensure it is easy for tenants to understand and complete.
· Easy for tenants to understand that they are being asked to provide their views on the services provided by their local landlord.
15. The Group’s tenants are familiar with their local landlord, therefore every survey must be distributed with one of three covering letters, referring to the Group and the appropriate relevant local landlord; reasons for the survey and how its findings will be used in the future; including confidentiality assurances and an explanation that the survey is not anonymous and that tenants may be contacted in the future. The letter must also provide details of the support available to assist tenants in completing the survey.
16. The successful Supplier must also provide a supplementary on-line survey capability with appropriate mechanisms to prevent multiple responses from the same household when submitting methodology information (both postal and online).
Key Milestones for Stage 1:
· Tenders are submitted to the Group (with an example of a designed survey) – Monday,15 June 2015 12 noon
· Final version of postal and online survey is presented to the Group for sign off – Monday, 29 June 2015
· 3x Covering letters agreed – Monday, 29 June 2015
· Online scripting prepared – Monday, 29 June 2015
· Provision of final survey address list to successful Supplier – date to be agreed but anticipated as Monday, 6 July 2015
Stage 2 - Print and Distribution of Surveys and Covering Letters and publication of on-line survey
17. The successful Supplier must print and post the survey (using second class mail) to 50% of the Group’s tenants (approximately 11,025). The Group will provide the names and postal addresses to be used for the survey. The provision of tenants’ names and addresses will be subject to the responsibilities and obligations to data protection as set out in the Data Protection Act (1998 recent amendment 2011). The successful survey organisation will be expected to sign a data processing agreement.
18. The successful Supplier must print the covering letter in colour so tenants can recognise the brand of their local landlord (logo) and understand that they are expected to respond to questions about their local landlord.
19. A unique identification number or reference will be provided by the Group and must be included on all survey forms and for on-line responses. Identification/reference numbers will link to the Group’s unique Person Reference Number of each tenant to allow the Group to transport survey data into housing management systems once the project is complete.
20. The survey organisation will need to provide pre-paid envelopes for survey responses.
21. Tenants for whom the Group hold valid email addresses should also be sent a link to the online questionnaire by email at the time of the initial mail out (email addresses will be provided to the successful Supplier).
22. The survey organisation must provide a helpline and support for tenants to assist them in completing the survey, this includes translation services and other support (both postal and on-line). An incentive (entry into a prize draw) will be offered by the Group to try to increase the response rate. The successful survey organisation will provide a requested number of names, drawn at random, from amongst the returned survey forms (these must be forms that were fully completed) to the Group who will cover the cost of the prize(s).
23. The Group expects at least a 25% response rate from each area. In a survey of 50% of all tenants, this would equate to a minimum of 631 returns for Dale and Valley Homes, 863 returns for Durham City Homes and 1,263 returns for East Durham Homes (approximately 2,757 total returns). The successful Supplier must undertake a reminder exercise from Monday, 27 July 2015 and repeat the mail out of the survey form and return envelope to non-responders to maximise response rates. Included in the reminder letter tenants must also be sign posted to the helpline and the on-line version of the questionnaire. Tenants for whom the Group hold valid email addresses should also be sent a link to the on-line questionnaire by email at the time of the reminder letter.
Key Milestones for Stage 2:
· Postal survey and covering letters printed – w/c Monday, 6 July 2015
· Postal survey dispatched and on-line survey goes live – Monday, 13 July 2015
· Reminder dispatched to non-respondents – Monday, 27 July 2015
Stage 3 - Data Analysis and Reporting
24. The successful survey organisation will produce the following reports based upon an analysis of responses received to the STAR postal and on-line survey:
· Progress Summary Report during field work
· Initial Draft and Final Report of the overall findings
· A separate Report produced for each individual landlord detailing their landlord results and analysis.
25. The Final Report must include (as a minimum):
· Technical details relating to the analysis of the survey, a consideration of response rates, type of response received and respondent profile data, plus a guide to reading tables and interpreting data.
· Head line findings, which provide a quick reference to all the headline results together with trend data where it is available including analysis of free comments.
· Providing results by subsidiary landlord area, highlighting key trends by area within each subsidiary landlord.
· Results by equality and diversity profile, highlighting key trends.
· Comparison of the Group’s results where possible against the findings of previous STAR/Status satisfaction surveys highlighting any changes and trends.
· Details of any available emerging national trends based on sector intelligence and any other core questions current comparable survey work completed by the successful survey organisation
· Trend information will be required wherever possible. The successful survey organisation will be supplied with a copy of most recent tenant satisfaction data tables for comparison. Please note some of this data will be in Status Survey format.
26. The final report is to be produced in hard copy and also in electronic format (Excel and Access). The report should be supported by detailed analysis of the findings by a range of socio demographic variables using accessible graphical tools and appropriate narrative.
27. The survey organisation will complete all data processing, including data input and analysis.
28. The results of all survey data must be provided in both weighted and unweighted formats to the Group.
29. All data will be owned by County Durham Housing Group Limited and will be provided to the Group at the end of the survey project. This will assist the Group in transporting findings and data into existing housing management systems.
Key Milestones for Stage 3
· Progress Summary Report (Interim data and head line findings to the Group) – Monday, 27 July 2015
· Field work ends and data capture is closed off – Monday, 10 August 2015
· Data tables, headline results and draft reports to the Group – Monday, 7 September 2015
· Comments provided by the Group on draft reports– Monday, 21 September 2015
· Final Report and data to the Group – Monday, 5 October 2015
· Presentation to County Durham Housing Group’s Parent Board, Dale & Valley Homes’ Board, Durham City Homes’ Board, East Durham Homes’ Board, Executive Management Teams and Customer Working Group - date to be agreed, currently anticipated October / November 2015
· Presentation of findings at tenant conference – TBC.
Additional Information and Requirements of the Contract
30. The successful Supplier must make provision for all meetings (maximum of three meetings) with the Group within the contract price and include a minimum of two days within the contract price for presentation of results to key stakeholder groups (listed above and if required).
31. The contract will be managed by a nominated officer of County Durham Housing Group. The successful survey organisation will work in partnership with this nominated officer, as well as other nominated performance management officers from across the Group, as part of a dedicated project team.