Somer Housing Group members become first TPAS accredited social
landlords in the South West
28th April
Somer Housing Group’s reputation for resident
involvement has been cemented after two of its members were awarded
accreditation by the Tenant Participation Advisory Service
(TPAS).
TPAS is a national tenant participation organisation, which
works with social housing residents and landlords to improve the
level and quality of tenants’ influence. Accreditation means that
the associations’ resident engagement has been successfully tested
against 29 main criteria looking at how well it knows its residents
and their aspirations. Other areas considered include whether
policies are easily accessible by residents, and if it has robust
processes to ensure accountability to residents for its
services.
Redland Housing Association and Somer Community Housing Trust
are the first two housing associations to earn the quality mark in
the South West.
For the Trust, the news came on the day it celebrated the tenth
anniversary of its stock transfer from Bath & North East
Somerset Council. Since 1999, it has always had a strong, formal
resident involvement structure, with five tenant trustees on its
board. The accreditation process started with a self-assessment in
April 2008 and was followed-up with a ‘reality check’ where an
independent assessor talked to residents and staff, and attended
residents’ meetings.
Angela Gascoigne, managing director of the Trust, said:
‘This has been a long, but worthwhile process
for us. We’re very proud that the Trust was set up from the
beginning with a formal structure that fully involved residents in
decision making. Nevertheless, the high standards demanded by TPAS
are challenging for a large organisation like the Trust to meet,
and we have invested in and developed our resident involvement
structure to stay ahead of the times.’
Redland Housing Association started work on the accreditation in
September 2008. In the ‘reality check’, inspectors praised Redland
for the way residents can influence strategic decision making – one
example was how residents were asked to prioritise at last year’s
Tenants’ Day, where they want to see the association investing
resources and this information was fed in to the board strategy
day. All of the staff were also interviewed or observed to see how
they involved residents on a day-to-day basis.
Louise Swain, Redland’s managing director, said:
‘We are really proud of this achievement,
which has only been possible due to the productive partnership that
has developed between staff and residents within Redland.
Developing the new partnership agreement with residents and giving
them control of our service standards has also really focused our
efforts on what’s important to them.’
The chief executive of TPAS, Michelle Reid, will present Redland
with its quality mark at its Tenants’ Day in August; the Trust will
receive its presentation in June.
|
|