TENANT INVOLVEMENT ACTION PLAN 2010-11
TENANT INVOLVEMENT INITIATIVE/ACTIVITY / WHAT DO WE WANT TO ACHIEVE/ DEVELOP / ACTION PLAN FOR 2009-10 OUTCOMES AND COMMENTS / ACTION PLAN FOR 2010-11 /1. Committee and Board Membership: incorporating Housing Services, Finance Committee and Innisfree Board / There are seats reserved for tenants on both the Innisfree Board and the sub committees. We hope to expand tenant membership during the year / We promoted tenant involvement on committees and board membership.
The acquisition of Camden based properties from Family Mosaic provided an opportunity to involve tenants from a general needs background with long standing experience of Housing Associations. / Innisfree will continue to reserve two out of fifteen places on the Board for tenant members and all other sub-committees have unrestricted numbers for tenants.
Board currently has two tenant members and all other committees apart from Staffing and Remuneration have tenant representation.
We aim to have one or more tenants from ex-Family Mosaic homes sitting on one or more of the sub-committees
2. Committee and Board Membership induction and training / To ensure that all appointed tenants receive induction and training relevant to the role they are expected to perform / Training and support was offered to new members and we considered the option of training at Trafford Hall – a community based organisation set up for training tenants. / All new tenant members of the Board and committees will receive induction, support and suitable training to help settle into their roles.
3. Tenant consultation, Focus Groups and Service Reviews / To give us regular feedback on services.
Provide input into policy reviews through focus group meetings.
Participation in the monitoring of services.
We seek tenants’ views on an ongoing basis to achieve continuous improvement in our services.
We will use the complaints process as an opportunity to learn and improve services. / Feedback was offered to committees and the board every quarter.
Policies due for review requested feedback from tenants and this feedback was used to develop the policy to ensure it meets continuous change.
Tenants were consulted on new draft policies before submitting to the committee and board for approval.
A Support service review took place in March 2010. The findings of the review will be used to plan the development of support services to tenants in shared and sheltered housing.
We continued to develop alternative methods of communication with tenants to ensure a maximum base of communication is established.
We continued to liaise with tenants with the help and support of other Irish agencies such as BIAS outreaching to our Traveller tenants.
We aimed to have a database of 50 tenants by March 2010. This is at 42 tenants at the end of March 2010. / Feedback will be offered in the form of reports to Board and committees every quarter where reviews have taken place.
Policies due for review with tenant involvement will be produced to the Board and committees showing evidence of consultation and best practice to seek a wide opinion from tenants and their views on the effectiveness of the policies and their procedures.
4. Tenant scrutiny panel / To develop a Tenant scrutiny panel in accordance with the Tenant Services Authority / New for 2010-11 / This new venture will involve tenants in various areas of management of Innisfree business and will meet the requirements set by the TSA involving tenants in running of the organisation.
Existing board and committee members have been asked to attend 1st meeting on 5th May and an article in the Spring newsletter asked for additional tenants to volunteer.
A consultant has been engaged to help set up and train the group.
5. Supported Tenants / To give us regular feedback on services, provide input into policy reviews and participate in the monitoring of services.
To include supported houses and floating support schemes. / We consulted with supported tenants on the developments of a Brent based quota system for move-on to independent housing. We ensured tenants are fully informed of these developments and feed their concerns back to the borough.
We carried out research on the levels of support required for older Irish people in Brent to secure suitable floating support funding to offer help to people in this category.
All tenants were kept updated on the change in support funding and any affect this may have on the services provided. The governments Personalisation agenda will also form part of the information sharing process.
We moved tenants from temporary to independent housing of various tenures thus removing any identified silting up of the service.
We involved tenants in the Brent service review which resulted in receiving 2 A’s and 3 B’s at the review meeting.
We held a supported housing conference in February 2010 which focused on;
· Making a house your home
· Irish people and access to statutory services
· Safeguarding in the Community
· Move-on to Independent Housing / We plan to consult with our sheltered housing tenants on their views on extra care sheltered housing and use this information to inform Brent with a view to future development of extra care sheltered housing in the borough.
We will continue to support tenants through regular meetings and aim to move them from temporary housing to independent housing within two years where possible and offer or redirect to a suitable floating support service to help sustain these new tenancies.
We will ask tenants to help develop the service following the findings from review meeting in 2010. We will also involve tenants in raising the standards which help to continually improve the service provision.
We will arrange another supported housing conference in 2010-11 and involve tenants in the setting of the agenda
6. Clochar Court / To seek tenant volunteers to lead on organising a minimum of 4 meetings per year / We continued to empower tenants at Clochar Court encouraging them to hold their own meetings, attend committee meetings, develop projects, hold events and foster learning which involved all tenants and helped to continue building a strong sense of community experienced at the scheme.
A grant of £4500 was awarded to Clochar Court by the Musgrave family in Ireland. Tenants helped provide a reception at Clochar Court to receive this grant. / We will continue to develop the service offered to tenants at Clochar Court and widen its availability to older people in the local community. We will consult with tenants at Clochar Court on how this may be delivered and ensure the use of communal facilities are maximised with consent and for the benefit of all.
We will consult with tenants on the spending of the Musgrave family grant. A future meeting will be arranged to demonstrate how we spent the grant.
We will ask tenants to help develop the service following the findings from review meeting in 2010. We will also involve tenants in raising the standards which help to continually improve the service provision.
7. Block or area representatives for general needs schemes / Tenants currently assist us with monitoring services such as cleaning, gardening, communal repairs where they live. The aim is to have a representative for every block. The drive for new volunteers is an ongoing action point. / We continued to promote block representatives and meetings to address issues such as ASB, repairs and maintenance to communal areas and to strengthen a sense of community in the area. We invited other partners and agencies who offered help and support to Innisfree tenants in the local area.
We organised a series of meetings with tenants which promoted tenant involvement. / We will continue to liaise with tenants taking an interest in their local area to ensure high standards of communal facilities and an air of good community are maintained.
8. Scheme Inspections / We will ensure that all Block Representatives attend scheme inspections and any interested tenants are encouraged to attend / See 7 above. / Scheme inspections to ensure good condition of rooms in temporary housing and communal facilities in shared houses are maintained and safe to use.
Tenants in sheltered housing will be offered help to ensure their flats are safe to live in, preventing accidents and admission to hospital.
Communal facilities in sheltered housing and blocks will be regularly inspected for good repair and safe use.
Tenants will be actively involved in these inspections.
9. Surveys / We will continue to carry out full Tenant Surveys every 3 years to assess tenant satisfaction. We will also send out questionnaires when we are reviewing our services to ensure we get tenants’ views. / Sheltered and Supported housing surveys were conducted in May 2009. The results of these surveys produced higher than average levels of satisfaction with the service Innisfree offer to vulnerable people.
A General needs survey was conducted in May 2009. The results showed Innisfree provide a satisfactory service. / We will take steps to address matters from the tenant surveys in 2009 and ensure the high levels of satisfaction are maintained.
10. Mystery Shopping / We plan to train tenants to be able to undertake “mystery shopping” to assess how well we meet our own targets for customer care. / Mystery shopping was placed on hold due to pressing demands from other areas of tenant involvement. The feasibility study to conduct the exercise by BHUG was very expensive. / We will continue to explore a cost effective method of conducting a mystery shopping exercise in 2010-11.
11. Tenant Incentives / When we require feedback and views from tenants on specific subjects or fulfilling a block representative role, we will offer incentives to encourage participation / Tenants were awarded vouchers, travel costs and cash incentives to help with various areas of tenant involvement activities at Innisfree. / We will continue to involve tenants, rewarding them for their efforts by cash incentives, vouchers and organising events to attend.
12. Gardening Competition and the Going Greener Project / Continue to hold an annual gardening competition and encourage entries from as many tenants as possible.
To encourage groups of tenants to participate in garden projects to enhance their environment and control service charge costs / The Garden competition was very successful producing a high response from more vulnerable and temporary housed tenants. / Tenants in sheltered and supported housing will be invited to visit gardens which may inspire their confidence to keep well maintained communal gardens.
Vouchers will be offered to all entrants for the 2010 competition.
13. Newsletter and direct mail outs / We will continue to send out quarterly newsletters and will aim to get tenants involved in writing articles.
We will also undertake individual mail outs in relation to areas of high or specific importance
We will regularly advise tenants of service targets and performance information through the newsletters / The newsletter was slowly redesigned and advised tenants of changes to how Innisfree collected rents, how they could get involved with the running of Innisfree and other important areas of the business. / Newsletter will be professionally produced and tenants will be asked their views on its quality and value for money.
Regular articles will be produced by staff and tenants will be asked to make a contribution.
14. Social Activities and events / We regularly hold social events and activities for our tenants, which include: The annual St Patrick’s Day party, Christmas party, outings and summer garden party, competitions, Irish themed events & AGM. We shall continue to arrange events that will be of interest to tenants each year / Events held included:
St Patrick’s Day party 2010
Garden competition awards event
Summer garden party at Clochar Court
Party to introduce new Family Mosaic tenants to Innisfree?
Clochar Court held weekly events for tenants and the local community.
Clochar Court tenants visited other sheltered housing schemes and events for older people in London and the local community. / Suggestions:
St Patrick’s Day party 2011
Garden competition and awards event
Summer garden party at Clochar Court
Innisfree 25th Anniversary party on 21st May 2010.
Clochar Court will continue to hold regular events for tenants and the local community.
We will enable tenants will to visit other similar supported housing, meetings and events.
Tenants will be offered opportunities to train in specialist areas which will help gain access to supporting others, education and employment.
15. Friends of Innisfree funding initiatives / Funds raised through “Friends of Innisfree” will continue to fund activities for tenants and their children. These include one off improvements to blocks,
summer play activities and grant applications / Friends supported special cases where there was a need to offer financial support to individuals and small communal projects to benefit groups of tenants. / Friends will be available to offer limited financial support to those in need or for small group events.
16. Irish related issues. Launches of research projects. Representing the Association externally / We will continue to ask tenants to represent us at functions and launches of many Irish related events e.g., research about the Irish. / We continued to inform and encourage tenant awareness on matters which are of concern to Irish people living in London. / We will keep tenants informed of events which are of importance to Innisfree and tenants (TSA activities), especially those which are for Irish people in London.
We will continue to work closely with partner agencies to promote the cause of the Irish in London including the London Irish Centre, Brent Irish Advisory Service, Irish Support and Advice Centre in Hammersmith and Cricklewood Homeless Concern.
17. Initiatives and partnership working with other Housing Associations which involve tenants / We are working more closely with other RSLs to tackle issues such as anti social behaviour. We will encourage tenants to become involved where they live. / We continued to network with partners and other agencies who may offer help to Irish people in need of support. / We will network with other partners and agencies to ensure we take advantage of opportunities for development, tendering and procurement of services in our main boroughs. Tenants will be asked to take an active part in these areas.
18. Communication / We aim to ensure ease of contact with tenants using a variety of communication methods / We carried out an audit of the communication needs of our tenants to ensure they were fully informed on tenancy matters and other issues which Innisfree may need to inform or seek feedback on.
We continued to audit the ability needs of tenants to ensure they had access to adaptations which help them remain in their home of choice. / We will review the communication needs of tenants as they are signed up as new tenants. We will also ensure the needs of current tenants are updated where necessary to ensure effective communication to all.
19. Diversity / As part of the diversity strategy Innisfree will make very effort to involve and meet the needs of those with literacy or language difficulties, sight or hearing impairment and tenants with disabilities.
Whilst implementing this strategy we will take into account equality needs of all tenants to ensure they can access services and enable opportunities for involvement. / See above. / We will continue to develop and work with agencies which specialise in working with our tenants and service users may need particular support with language or alternative communication needs.
The tenant data held on Omni will be reviewed to ensure that 100% of tenant data relating to diversity is complete by March 2011
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