Agenda item - Survey of Tenants and Residents (STAR) 2016 - Detailed response to Tenant Feedback

Report of Executive Director Neighbourhoods, Communities & Housing (copy attached).

(1)            That the report be noted along with the comments of the Committee.

30.1   The Committee considered a report of the Executive Director, Neighbourhoods, Communities & Housing which provided a detailed account from Housing on actions arising from the customer feedback responses to the Survey of Tenants and Residents (STAR) satisfaction survey carried out in June 2016. The survey results and the council’s immediate response to them were reported to the Committee on 18^th January 2017. The actions detailed in the report were designed to improve the areas of service tenants were most concerned about as expressed in their free-text responses to six open-ended questions. Alongside that, there were two main areas where satisfaction levels had gone down slightly against the previous STAR survey carried out in 2014 – ‘Your neighbourhood as a place to live’ and ‘the overall quality of your home’. The report was presented by the Head of Income, Involvement & Improvement.

30.2   Councillor Mears thanked officers for the report and remarked that it was helpful to see tenants’ comments on a wide range of services. Councillor Mears commented that in relation to neighbourhoods there was housing land which ran into City Parks land. She stressed the need for more joined up working.

30.3   In response to questions put by Councillor Gibson, it was explained that with regard to access to customer services, phone calls had once been recorded in part of the service, but this became very expensive.  Officers were looking at ways of reducing costs and re-introducing recorded calls.  The recordings could be used for staff training and also used to respond to some complaints. This could be looked at as part of a procurement of a new IT system. The IT system would widen the scope of the services that could be accessed. The current system was 20 years old and tenants could not currently report repairs on the system. The new system could be linked to My Account.

30.4   Councillor Lewry asked if the questionnaire was sent to all tenants. He referred to paragraph 3.10.5 regarding various tasks currently carried out by the Estate Services Team to improve neighbourhoods and mentioned that the fire escape in one estate in his ward was covered in moss. It was explained that 3000 tenants were randomly selected for the questionnaire. The survey was always mentioned in Homing In. It was stressed that an estate budget was available to all estates even when there was no tenant association.

30.5   RESOLVED:-

(1)            That the report be noted along with the comments of the Committee.