Celebrations for Hull City Council – The Trailblazer
Monday 15th of April 2019
Whooo what a fabulous day we all day on Thursday 11th April – over 80 Hull CC volunteers and staff including the leader of the council, Steve Brady OBE, Councillor Black the portfolio holder for Housing and Matt Dukes, Hull City Council's chief executive
Consultancy Manager - Gill Mclaren
Hull CC qualified for the Exemplar Accreditation as they started their journey with Tpas and the Pro accreditation in engagement over 9 years ago.
Within those 9 years, as the Tpas assessor I have seen the organisation and its volunteers grow, change, challenge and influence and embrace all of the new changes that the social Housing world has thrown at organisations over that time.
Just last year Hull CC staff and Volunteers had a Tpas future proofing workshop to look at the additional tools of social media and digital engagement could be utilised within their framework and its been an eye opener – some of the key ways have included; Facebook live questionsand answers time with the Director of Housing, Hull tenant participation team having its own twitter account - @HCCTPT ; using video and vox pops for volunteers to talk about why they are involved and the benefits; the fab digital champions project where volunteers help other tenants and residents with all ‘things digital’.
The six themes Hull needed to pass
- The Tenant volunteers at Hull City Council are exceptional – there is a really high level of skills, commitment and experience which is used productively in challenging the organisation to deliver high quality, services.
- There is at a high level directors, staff and Councillors who are totally commitment to tenant Involvement and Empowerment and this can be seen through the excellent approaches to development and delivery of services
- The Framework for engagement now and into the future is based on an excellent approach to engagement that will ensure that the organisation is accountable and puts tenant’s voices at the heart of everything it does.
- The organisation is truly a trail blazer for others to learn from in the sector for engagement.
The organisation has clearly shown that it is accountable; that there is a culture of engagement and tenats voices are central to the organisation; are listened to and acted upon.
This is a fantastic achievement but a well deserved one and is the result of a fantastic relationship between staff and volunteers over many years, who have been willing to change and adapt over the years to ensure they are going in the right direction.
To meet the criteria for Exemplar Accreditation an organisation needs to have been through the PRO accreditation 3 times.
Take a look at our landlord accrediation