The Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard

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• Annual Report for Tenants and Leaseholders Oct 2011
• The Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard

• Customer Service Choice and Complaints
• Involvement and Empowerment
• Understanding and Responding to the Diverse Needs of our Tenants and Leaseholders

Customer Service Choice and Complaints

Our Local Offer highlights the Council’s Customer Standards as part of our Customer First Performance targets. These Standards have been adopted so that you know exactly what level of service you can expect.

If you would like a copy of the Council’s Customer Standards booklet please go to Also See section at bottom of this page.

Alternatively you can call the Customer Contact Centre on 020 8547 5003.

As part of Our Local Offer we will:

• Answer 80% of telephone calls within 30 seconds
• See 95% of customers visiting one of our customer contact points without an appointment within 15 minutes of arrival
• Acknowledge all emails within one working day
• Reply to all written correspondence (letters and email) within 10 working days
• Resolve 80% of queries received by the Customer Contact Team, either over the phone or face to face without referral to anyone else.
• Not use voicemail on telephone numbers that are published for customers during office hours.
• Ensure tenants and leaseholders can access the Council’s services in a way that suits them, either by phone, email, letter, face to face, in a Council office or by appointment in their own home.
• Ensure all tenants can view their rent accounts online and make rent payments by phone or through the Council’s website
• Allow tenants and leaseholders to report a repair and be able to track the progress of any repair online.

Our Local Offer states we will also introduce Service Standards across a whole range of our service areas. This means you will know what to expect in terms of service provision and performance.

How Are We Doing?

• At the end of March the Council’s Customer Contact Centre answered 72.92% of its calls in 30 seconds and 94% of all calls. On average people waited 42 seconds to speak to a member of our Customer Contact Team.  
• At the end of March we saw 77% of people within a target of 15 minutes at our Guildhall 2 Information and Advice Centre.
• All emails sent to the Customer Contact Centre receive a receipt automatically.
• 85% of queries to the Customer Contact Centre are dealt with without a subsequent referral.
• We offer a full range of ways for you to contact us, which suits your needs.
• You can pay your rent either on line or over the phone but you can’t yet see your rent account
• You can report your repair on line, but as yet you can’t track progress – this will be possible through the introduction of a new housing computer system in April 2012.
• We have an existing Service Standard for repairs. However we know that it needs to be updated and that we need to have new standards in place across a much wider range of our services.
• We have introduced regular performance reports to the Housing Consultative Committee
• The Council has a comprehensive complaints procedure that allows residents to make a complaint in person, by phone, by letter or online.
• Between April 2010 and March 2011 we received 55 formal complaints. Of these six were upheld and 21 were partially upheld. The most common area of complaint was about staff conduct (13). Of these five were partially upheld. The second most common area of complaint was in relation to repairs. Nine complaints were received, two of which were upheld, three of which were partially upheld.

Looking Forward

• The Customer Contact Centre opened in June 2010 and since then our performance has improved steadily resulting in a ‘Top 50 Status’, which is a national benchmark across both private and public sectors.
• We have invested in better technology and this year we will put in place a new Custom Relationship Management system. This will allow us to securely store all your information and the details of your contact with the Council in one place. We will be able to monitor our performance more accurately, so that we can continue to adapt and improve. We are also training our Customer Contact staff so that they can answer a wider range of queries about a whole range of Council services.
• We are introducing a new housing computer system that will enable you to access a full range of services on line. This will be ready by April 2012.
• We are going to produce new Service Standards across the whole range of the services we provide to you. We know we cannot do this all at once so we will agree what is most important with resident representatives and we will write the standards in consultation with them.
• We will improve the way in which we monitor and report performance, so we can report back at a more local level.
• We will increase the number of Resident Inspectors so that they can independently check our performance by carrying out mystery shopping and estate inspections.
• We will carry out a comprehensive survey of our tenants and leaseholders so that we know in much greater detail what they think about a whole range of our services.
• We will review our Local Offer by April 2012.

Conclusion We are continually striving to deliver improved services to our residents in a more efficient way, and our performance within Customer Service has advanced significantly, with achievements to be proud of. We will look to introduce new information-storing technology which will allow us to better monitor your feedback and customer details. We will also review our Housing Service Standards to ensure we are meeting your expectations.

Involvement and Empowerment

Our Local Offer to you makes significant commitments to the way in which we develop and improve the way we involve our residents.  The Council will:

Develop Estate Management Agreements

The Council will establish Estate Management Agreements (EMA) for any interested estates or group of estates. The Offer recognises that the Agreement may vary from estate to estate to reflect local priorities, but the overall aim is to give local people greater influence over the design and implementation of services. This will be done with a view to improving local efficiency, effectiveness and the Council’s responsiveness to tenants. The Agreements will aim to make the Council even more accountable to its tenants and leaseholders.

Offer a Menu of Involvement

The Council is committed to making it as easy as possible for all its tenants and leaseholders to get involved in developing and monitoring the Housing service. To do this the Local Offer commits the Council to introduce a Menu of Involvement which includes:

• Attending Local Residents’ Association Meetings
• Setting up a Local Residents’ Association
• Attending the Housing Consultative Committee (HCC)
• Joining the Sounding Board
• Completing Surveys
• Mystery Shopping and Tenant Inspection

Involve Residents in Making Policy Changes

The Council has committed itself to ensuring that resident representatives are involved in all significant changes to housing policy and procedures, which impact directly on tenants and leaseholders.

How are we doing?

• The Local Offer to Kingston Tenants was agreed in April 2011.
• We have started talking to residents on School Lane and the Cambridge Road Estate about setting up Estate Management Agreements (EMAs) with the aim of having one established on School Lane Estate and Cambridge Road Estate by April 2012.
• We have agreed a Menu of Involvement with our tenants and leaseholders.
• The Council and the Kingston Federation of Tenants (Fed) have agreed an action plan setting out a timetable for future improvements.
• Residents have been actively involved in the review of the Council’s Anti –Social Behaviour Policy and Procedures.
• We have consulted with residents via the Sounding Board about changes to the Allocations Policy.
• Residents have been involved in reviewing the Council’s voids and lettings procedures and standards.
• The Kingston Federation of Tenants has been given dedicated funding to enable them to act independently of the Council and to prioritise their own activities.
• We recognise that there is a need to increase the overall level of resident participation in the borough and in particular the number of active tenants to offer effective leadership.

Looking Forward

Over the next year the Council will aim to -

• Conclude negotiations with the residents of School Lane Estate and Cambridge Road Estate and put their EMA’s into action.
• Work with residents to increase the number of Resident Associations we have in the borough by at least four over the next year and increase the overall level of participation across all the methods set out in the Menu of Involvement
• Work with the Kingston Federation of Tenants to review the Resident Compact between the Council and its residents. We will agree a timetable for service reviews and get a wider range of tenants to work with us.
• Increase the number of Resident Inspectors and members of the Sounding Board to ensure we get a representative view of the services we provide.
• Ensure that the Housing Service has a significant input into the One Norbiton Project and that the voices of the Council’s tenants and leaseholders are heard.

Conclusion The Council has made significant strides in improving the involvement of residents in the way in which they run their homes and has set out a vision of how that can be taken further. We will be working closely with our colleagues in other service areas to ensure our approach is consistent and look to include our tenants and leaseholders involved at a variety of levels.

Understanding and Responding to the Diverse Needs of Our Tenants

The Council is committed to ensuring that all of our tenants and leaseholders have equal access to the services that they need and that they understand how the services can benefit them. We recognise that this is a fundamental part of delivering excellent customer care.

How are we doing?

The Council collects information where possible (with the resident’s full consent) so that we can design and target our services more effectively. We collect information regarding:

• Gender
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Religion or belief
• Sexuality
• Disability
• Social economic grouping (occupation)
• Language

• The Council holds monitoring information on approximately 75% of its tenants and we use the information to produce reports on a number of different service areas, including arrears and allocations.
• The Council ensures that tenants have access to a translator where required and provides translated information on request. This also includes the production of communications in large print, Braille or in an audio format.
• Where possible the Council carries out adaptations to people’s homes so that they do not have to move to a more suitable home.  The Council has made contact with a variety of different faith and community groups and is supporting local residents groups to do the same.
• The Council participated in developing the borough’s Refugee and Migrant Strategy.
• All Council staff, and those of its contractors, have been trained in the safeguarding of our vulnerable residents. Our Older Peoples Housing Team has also had an input into the way that services are offered to all of our tenants in Sheltered Accommodation.

Looking Forward

Over the next year the Council will aim to -

• Increase the number of people on which we hold equalities information to 90%.
• Through the new Housing computer system we will improve our ability to report on equalities issues across a wider range of services and at a more local level.
• Ensure that all key information is translated into the borough’s main minority languages.
• Have key communications (such as rent arrears letters) sent automatically in the first language of the recipient.
• Work with residents who are in Sheltered Housing to ensure that the service meets their needs and their homes are fit for purpose.
• Work with other Council services and partnering organisations to ensure that the needs of our most vulnerable tenants are understood. We must also work together to provide the best and most appropriate level of service.

Conclusion The Council holds demographic information for most of its tenants which allows us to better target our resources. We will look to increase the number of tenants on who we hold information for and make better use of the information.  We need to make sure we take a more pro-active approach to the way we communicate with our residents. At the same time we will work very closely with colleagues in a wide range of services to ensure that we deliver an excellent service to our most vulnerable tenants.