First Regional Member Event for 2024
Thursday 18th of April 2024
On Tuesday this week, we held our first regional member event in Eccles, Manchester which was hosted by ForHousing.
We were delighted with the turnout with 43 attendees from 22 different organisations from across the North.
We had a full agenda covering the latest on Housing Policy and Tpas Membership news, plus an excellent presentation from our Hosts ForHousing, who gave us an interesting insight into their engagement ethos, structure, and impact.
It was great to have such strong engagement and positivity from our members throughout the day. The hot topics identified, discussed and taken away were:
Regulation and Mock Inspections
• Can Tpas provide a platform to share inspection experiences?
• Who choses which tenants are involved in the inspections?
• Is there a danger of over-regulation just to deal with a few bad housing providers?
• Are fines really fair? Tenants hit twice. Already have bad service then have to pay for fines too.
• How involved have tenants been on the Tenant Satisfaction measures?
Staff Retention and Recruitment
• Are staff paid enough for the roles they are expected to do?
• Will more leave because they don’t have the required qualification?
• Regulation brings more demands on staff. Will they be able to just add this on to the day job?
Scrutiny
• Who decides which tenants are involved in scrutiny? Surely if scrutiny is independent, providers shouldn’t just pick or appoint people without involving tenants?
• How do we attract more people to get involved in scrutiny?
Communication
• Still not getting this right across organisations – this needs to improve.
Tracking Impact
• Collecting evidence is crucial not just for regulation but also for retaining engaged tenants and attracting new ones. Systems have to be in place for collecting and reporting impact.
Hearing Silent Customers
• Lots of work still needs to be done to ensure that everyone has a means to get their voice heard.
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion needs to be a priority.
You can read what Steve, one of our members thought of the day below:
Steve said: “There was a good turnout at the Tpas Members event in Manchester, made up of an equal number of landlords and tenants. Thanks to ForHousing (hosts) for a great buffet.
The items discussed included Customer Engagement and how various landlords are using different ways to get their tenants involved in things like scrutiny and collection of the Tenant Satisfaction measures.
Another important topic was how organisations are complying with the new Consumer Standards and how prepared they are for inspections by the Regulator.
Open discussions from both landlords and tenants have given Tpas several topics which they will send to the Regulator as areas of concern for their members.
We also heard from the host, ForHousing, on how they are engaging with their tenants.
One thought I came away with from the day, and was implied from more than one attendee, “Is the housing sector being, or close to being, over regulated?” Also are the extra costs involved detrimental to things like repairs, etc.
Instead of regulating the whole sector over the 'misdeeds' (not a harsh enough description, I agree) of the few, would it not be better to hold those responsible accountable? Either replace them or have Regulator appointees (leaders of successful HA's?) to the Board to oversee those lacking?
At the end of the day, we tenants want, and demand, the best possible services from our landlords and fines only put pressure on them and affects budgets. I call on the Regulator to consider tenant services before handing out punishment!”
We’d like to thank Steve for sharing his comments and to everyone who attended. Once again, we’d like to thank our hosts for making the event a success, and we look forward to more of our regional events over the coming weeks, with the dates already planned for:
• Tpas North East member event – Thursday 2nd May – 10 am – 2.30 pm
• Tpas Eastern member event – Tuesday 21st May – 10 am – 2.30 pm
• Tpas South West member event – Wednesday 22nd May – 10 am – 2.30 pm
You can take a look at our events on our website.
You can download the information from the day here.
We look forward to welcoming you.