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Resident Engagement Your guide to getting involved
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Resident Engagement
As the aspirations and needs of our residents’ change, so does our business and our services. Our residents are always at the heart of what we do. Talking to you, as our resident, and understanding what is important to you is a critical part of monitoring and improving our services. When you become engaged with us, you are not only helping us to improve your services, you are helping to improve the services we provide to all our residents. By giving us your views and influencing the decisions we make about your homes and services, you can make your home and neighbourhood a better place to live. This leaflet explains the ways in which we engage with our residents, and the ways in which you can engage with us. If you would like to know more, please download or request a copy of our resident engagement strategy, or contact your regional customer contact centre.
Helping us make decisions right at the top The Accent Group Board The Accent Group Board is responsible for managing and governing Accent, and one place is reserved for a member with experience of being a housing association resident. Customer Service Committees (CSCs) The Accent Board is supported by our five regional customer service committees (CSCs) who are responsible for scrutinising our performance and delivering services locally. Membership of our CSCs is made up of three independent members, three resident members and a chair.
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Resident Engagement
We advertise vacancies on our committees when they become available, but please speak to your housing officer if you would like to know more. Accent Residents’ Panel The Accent Residents' Panel is made up of residents from our regional CSCs and Scrutiny Panels. The panel meets four times a year to review performance, budgets and our business plan. The panel has instigated group-wide reviews across a number of service areas, (most recently complaints), which have led to significant improvements and greater consistency of service quality. Please speak to your housing officer if you are interested in becoming a panel member, you would start by coming to a meeting as an ‘observer’. Scrutiny Each of our regional offices has a group of residents involved with scrutinising our performance and the quality of our services. This could include getting involved in a number of things, including a regional residents’ forum or panel, taking part in mystery shopping or reviewing our services. Residents’ Communications Panel We have 10 members on our resident communications panel who review and edit all our communications to make sure they are user-friendly and written in plain English. Urgent documents are reviewed by email, and less urgent documents are reviewed by post, which means we do not leave out any residents who want to get involved but do not have internet access.
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Resident Engagement
Residents’ Groups and Associations On many of our schemes and estates, we have local residents’ groups and associations which help to make service improvements for their residents and their local communities. These groups are great for getting together with your neighbours to talk about the things that affect you and your area, and can give you some influence to change things you are not happy with, but they are also good for arranging social events. Your housing officer can give you advice on how to set up a group if you do not have one where you live.
Staying in touch Social Media We use our Twitter and Facebook pages to share news and information we think you will find useful or simply enjoy and you can respond on anything we post or reply to any tweet. If you want to join our social network community, the details can be found on the ‘contact us’ page of our website, and in our customer newsletters. We always try to respond promptly to a Facebook comment, but we won’t usually reply outside normal working hours. Accent News Accent News is our resident newsletter. It is currently published four times a year, (one issue contains our annual report to residents). It includes a mix of ‘corporate’ news – things we usually need to tell you, local news – things which are happening in your area, and regional news which might be a bit of both. Please tell us what you think of Accent News by emailing questions@accentgroup.org.
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Resident Engagement
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Collecting your Views We use focus groups and online, text, postal and telephone surveys to collect your views when we are reviewing our services. Your views are important to us, we use them to improve our services. We carry out some surveys all the time. For example, if you’ve recently had a repair done, or moved into an Accent home, we ask you if everything went okay. (If the answer is no, we get back in touch with you to find out why). Some surveys are carried out less often, and involve only a random sample of residents. Estate and Scheme Inspections Scheme and estate visits and inspections give you the chance to raise any issues concerning your home and estate. Once an issue is raised, your housing officer, or staff from the local contact centre, will keep you updated on what is happening. They will tell you if something you ask for can’t be done, and explain why. We have a small community budget in each area for helping to improve your estate. Why not come and talk to us at your next estate visit and tell us how you think it could be spent to improve life for your community. Your housing officer can tell you what dates he/she has planned to visit. How do residents know their voices are being heard? Resident engagement staff in each of our five regions closely monitor what impact your involvement is having. In our annual report to residents, our newsletters, and in other updates we may produce during the year, we use a ‘you said, we did’ approach to tell you directly what changes your views have influenced and how they have helped to improve service for residents across Accent.
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Resident Engagement
Understanding what you want We want to improve how we collect and use your information. We will improve our customer profiling information to make sure we have a detailed picture of your characteristics to help us understand who you are and what services you personally need, so we can deliver a more personal, modern and better service. Residents’ Training From time to time, in partnership with agencies, our contractors, employers and our community partners, we offer accredited training courses and qualifications which help residents improve their skills and find employment. We advertise these opportunities on our website, and on our Facebook and Twitter pages. In the future, we plan to offer more training to benefit more residents. We will meet reasonable out-of-pocket expenses of residents, if they become involved with us and if they attend training sessions. Making a difference to you When you become engaged with us, you are not only helping to improve your service, you are helping to improve the services we provide to all our residents. By giving us your views and influencing the decisions we make about your homes and services, you can make your home and neighbourhood a better place to live.
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Our new customer leaflets are now available to view or download from our website www.accentgroup.org Have you visited our website recently? Did you know you can also: // Pay your rent // Report a repair // Report anti-social behaviour // Keep up to date with the latest news from around the group // Discover the many diffferent ways to get involved with Accent… We’re constantly updating the site, planned improvements include: // A new ‘Find a home’ site – an easy to use search facility enabling you to see what homes we have available in your area // A ‘Residents Portal’ – view your rent and repairs information, and much more…
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Get in touch‌ Accent Nene
Accent North West
0345 678 0595
0345 678 0590
peterborough@accentgroup.org
burnley@accentgroup.org
@accentpb
@accentbrn
facebook.com/accentpb
facebook.com/accentbrn
Accent North East
Accent South
0345 678 0573
0345 678 0577
middlesbrough@accentgroup.org
camberley@accentgroup.org
@accentmb
@accentcmy
facebook.com/accentmb
facebook.com/accentcmy
Accent Yorkshire 0345 678 0550 bradford@accentgroup.org @accentbd facebook.com/accentbd
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