Tenant Voice – improving services group

Tenants from Progress Housing Group, which RWP is part of, volunteer their time to look at the services we provide from a tenants’ perspective with the Tenants’ Voice – Improving Services group. RWP tenants are welcome to join the group.

The Tenants’ Voice – Improving Services group carries out a vital role to make sure:

• our services meet the needs of our tenants
• we provide good customer service
• we meet the standards set by the Regulator of Social Housing

Involved tenant David

Our involved tenant David shared his thoughts on the value that tenant involvement brings to improving services. He said: “Over the last 30 years it has been proven beyond doubt that tenant involvement has led to the development of continually improved services for all tenants - services developed with that invaluable first-hand experience. I believe that's reason enough to get involved.”

Reviewing activities in 2024/25

Between April 2024 and March 2025, the Tenant Voice – Improving Services group carried out reviews across several service areas. These reviews have made a real difference to the service provided to tenants.

These service areas included:

• communication
• aids and adaptations
• communal areas
• involving tenants in the rent and service charge review

Communication

We decided to carry out a review of communication as this is an issue highlighted in most of the reviews we carry out. The focus of our review was on the guiding principles for good communication and how tenants have been involved in developing these principles.

To carry out the review we:

• received a briefing from the Head of Customer Experience and the Marketing and Communications Team
• reviewed the Customer Access Strategy
• reviewed the Customer Service Style project
• reviewed the brand guidelines, including tone of voice and accessibility

We found that the following areas were working well:

• key communication issues have already been identified and are being addressed by Progress Housing Group
• we support the Customer Access Strategy and the Customer Service Style project. We feel that the actions will improve communication with tenants
• feedback from tenants via a Tenants Talk has informed the Customer Access Strategy and the Customer Service Style project

Communal areas

A review of the communal areas was carried out as low satisfaction levels were identified in the performance information provided. This showed satisfaction at 80% for RWP for the statement: “that communal areas are kept clean and well maintained”.

We decided to focus our review on:

• cleaning and window cleaning service
• level of service delivered
• information provided to tenants about the service

We also made recommendations on how the communal areas could be improved further. Once introduced these will bring about improvements to:

• information provided to tenants in different ways, making sure this is clear and easy to understand what service should be provided
• how tenants can report when something has gone wrong with the service
• same cleaning standard across all communal areas
• tell tenants what has happened after an issue has been reported

Find out more about the Tenant Voice – Improving Services group, here: Tenants' Voice - Improving Services Annual Report | Progress Housing Group