Introduction – Kevin Morgan, Chair of The Wrekin Housing Group’s Customer Committee
Welcome to our first ever Tenants Satisfaction Measures results report.
Wrekin’s mission statement is ‘Making A Difference to People’s Lives’. Key to this is ensuring that our customers are at the heart of everything we do. This means understanding and reflecting on the diverse needs and expectations of our customers in every area of our decision making. We recognise that we still have areas to learn and improve upon further. We’ve got plans for further improvements which are based on making it easier for customers to access our services and improve communication at all stages.
Your feedback is so important, whether it’s because we're doing well or because we haven’t got it quite right. We also want to share with you how well we are doing against key measures set by Government.
Previously we have shared our satisfaction results in our annual report and on our website, but this year the Regulator of Social Housing has introduced some new measures called Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). These measures are for all social housing providers and with us all sharing our results you can compare our results against theirs.
Thank you to the 1,553 customers who have taken part in our Tenants Satisfaction Surveys. The results, and the feedback we collect throughout the year, have given us a clear understanding of what customers think of the services we provide and highlighted where we must focus more attention to improve.
Kevin Morgan
Chair of Wrekin's Customer Committee
What are the TSMs?
'Tenant Satisfaction Measures' (TSMs) are a new way for customers to find out how social landlords like Wrekin are performing in areas such as repairs, safety checks and complaints. The TSMs were introduced by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) in April 2023 for all social housing providers.
There are 22 Tenant Satisfaction Measures that we are reporting on, split into two parts:
- 12 customer perception measures: These show your satisfaction with the services we provide, for example, how well we’ve managed your repair or resolved complaints.
- 10 performance measures: These measures are based on our performance information, for example, how many of our homes meet the Decent Homes Standard and how many cases of anti-social behaviour have been reported to us.
We started to collect the TSM data from 1st April 2023, and this is our first full year performance report. In this report we look at how we’re performing, what we’ve learned, and any actions and improvements that we are taking as a result.
How are they measured/who takes part?
Since April 2023, we have been contacting customers to get their views and feedback on the following key areas:
- Overall satisfaction
- Keeping properties in good order
- Maintaining building safety
- Safety checks
- Respectful and helpful engagement
- Effective handling of complaints/ASB
- Responsible neighbourhood management
We partnered with independent market research companies CX Feedback and Pexel Research Services who undertook the telephone surveys on our behalf. Each month a group of surveys were sent out and aimed at reaching as many customers as we possibly could, respecting where some people have said they would prefer not to receive surveys too. The survey was carried out by phone (and email) and a total of 1,553 customers took part. This report contains key results from the survey in respect of customers’ opinions about their homes and the services they receive.
For a small number of customers (58) who live in our adults with learning disabilities schemes we have used other ways to find out their views. When we looked at our survey results, we did see that some customer groups had returned more surveys than others, for example people who lived in bungalows.
Working with CX Feedback we looked at our results and carried out a process called ‘weighting’. We chose to do this on age groups as this was where some groups had returned more surveys than others and was where satisfaction between age groups showed most difference. This meant that we adjusted our scores so that they represented the customer age groups for all of our tenants more closely. Further information on this can be found in our method statement.
Overall results
Below shows the ratings for all the surveys carried out in 2023/24, for the twelve Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs), which Wrekin is required to collect for the Regulator of Social Housing.
90.3%
Overall customer satisfaction
89.5%
Overall satisfaction with repairs service
90.2%
Satisfaction with time taken to complete most recent repair
89.4%
Satisfaction that the home is well maintained
90(.0)%
Satisfaction that the home is safe
77(.0)%
Satisfaction that the landlord listens to tenant views and acts upon them
81.8%
Satisfaction that the landlord keeps tenants informed about things that matter to them
87.3%
Agreement that the landlord treats tenants fairly and with respect
49.6%
Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling complaints
73.7%
Satisfaction that the landlord keeps communal areas clean and well maintained
74.8%
Satisfaction that the landlord makes a positive contribution to the neighbourhood
69.9%
Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour
Maintaining building safety
- 100%: Proportion of homes for which all required gas safety checks have been carried out
- 100%: Proportion of homes for which all required fire risk assessments have been carried out
- 100%: Proportion of homes for which all required asbestos management surveys or re-inspections have been carried out
- 100%: Proportion of homes for which all required legionella risk assessments have been carried out
- 100%: Proportion of homes for which all required communal passenger lift safety checks have been carried out
Anti-social behaviour
- 52.6: Number of anti-social behaviour cases, opened per 1000 homes
- 0.2: Number of anti-social behaviour cases that involve hate incidents opened per 1000 homes
Decent Homes Standard (DHS) and repairs
- 0.1%: Proportion of homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard (6 homes in total)
- 92(.0)%: Proportion of non-emergency responsive repairs completed within the landlord's target timescale
- 99.4%: Proportion of emergency response repairs completed within the landlord's target timescale
Repairs and maintenance
Of the customers that have had a repair carried out to their home by Wrekin in the last 12 months, 89.5% are satisfied with the overall repairs service during this period. The same number of customers are satisfied with the time taken to complete their most recent repair after they reported it (90%).
Case study – Rob Walker
Our Shrewsbury-based customer Rob Walker gave us his views on our repairs service.
Communications and engagement
Over three quarters of customers are satisfied that Wrekin listens to their views and acts upon them (77%). While 87% of customers agree that Wrekin treats them fairly and with respect.
When asked if they are satisfied that they are kept informed about things that matter to them, 81.8% of customers were satisfied.
Hear from our Wrekin Voices
We spoke to some of our customers who gave their views on our approach to customer engagement:
Enise's story: read Enise's story here
Roger's story
Peter's story
Effective handling of complaints
- 49.2: Number of stage one complaints received per 1000 homes
- 2.7: Number of stage two complaints received per 1000 homes
- 91.8%: Proportion of stage one complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code timescales
- 68.6%: Proportion of stage two complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code timescales
While we aim to get everything right first time, we appreciate that on occasions things might go wrong with a service we have provided or decision we have made. We encourage customers to tell us when something has gone wrong or when they are dissatisfied so we can do something about it and learn to improve services.
Nearly half of customers customers (49.6%) who made a complaint over the last 12 months were satisfied with our approach to complaints handling.
How we're responding
During the last 12 months, we have reviewed and made changes to the way we handle and deal with complaints. A customer no longer needs to use the word ‘complaint’ for it to be treated as such. It is our responsibility to ensure that when a customer says they are unhappy that we advise of our complaints process. We have also made it easier for customers by introducing new ways to make a complaint, including the My Wrekin App.
Click here to learn more about our approach to complaints
Neighbourhoods
In addition to great homes, it is also our responsibility to ensure our neighbourhoods are clean & safe. We have a range of teams whose actions contribute towards achieving this, from our dedicated housing teams to our employing our own, dedicated Police Community Support Officer (PCSO). We regularly engage with our customers to see how they feel about our estates and ensure our services are running effectively.
69.9% of customers are satisfied with our approach to handling anti-social behaviour. While nearly three quarters (74.8%) believe Wrekin makes a positive contribution to their neighbourhood.
Finally, 73.7% of customers with communal areas are satisfied that we keep these areas clean and well maintained.
How we’re responding
- Making it easier for customers to provide ASB-related evidence with changes we’ve made to our noise app
- Using the My Wrekin App to keep customers updated on their ASB complaint
- Working with a new, independent provider to support us with our mediation service
- Delivered new ASB awareness training for staff.
Case study – Tackling ASB Chockleys Drive
The Wrekin Housing Group, Telford & Wrekin Council and the local Policing team in Hadley, arranged for fencing to be installed at the bottom of a large turning at Chockleys Drive.
This was in response to regular incidents of anti-social behaviour that were affecting residents living in that area and the wider estate, including:
- Reckless use of scramblers
- Quad bikes
- Noise complaints
- Drug and alcohol use
- Fly-tipping
The fence was installed on private land, not listed as a public right of way. Since installation, neither The Wrekin Housing Group or the Police have received any reports of anti-social behaviour in that area.
Residents have told us they now feel safer leaving their homes.
Following concerns about access, a meeting was held with residents and a survey was sent too.
- 92% of residents wanted the fence to stay
- Only 4 properties asked for a section to be removed
As a result of partnership working and engaging with the residents affected, we took the decision to keep the fence in place.