Tpas at the Regulation and Governance Conference - October 2025
Monday 3rd of November 2025
Making the shift on how we engage with tenants – How residents have delivered real change…
Tpas Special Membership Project Lead Kai Jackson and Board member Dr.Aasia Nisar recently attended the Regulation and Governance Conference in London, organised by Inside Housing.
The event delivered the insight that boards and housing professionals need to thrive and plan effectively in an increasingly challenging operating environment.
The panel featured six speakers from various housing associations and resident groups, discussing how residents can effectively influence housing policies and organisational decisions.
Here are the key takeaways from the event:
What Makes Engagement Succeed
Multiple access points matter. The most effective organisations don't just have a resident panel—they create regular pathways for residents to meet with CEOs, sit on boards, and shape policies from the start. When residents see their input drive actual change ("You told us X, so we changed Y"), they stay invested.
Listen to people who've complained. Residents who've experienced service failures often have the clearest insights. Organisations using focus groups with complainants—especially around high-impact issues like repairs—get better feedback and faster solutions.
Keep communication simple and honest. Residents don't need grand gestures. They need consistent follow-through: sending a text when rescheduling, being transparent about constraints, and visibly closing feedback loops. These small acts rebuild trust far better than fancy engagement events.
What Doesn't Work
Token consultation destroys trust. Asking residents their views but not acting on them is worse than not asking at all, especially in communities that have already experienced service failures. The organisations that saw the biggest improvements weren't the ones that suddenly had more money; they were the ones that finally listened and showed up with visible commitment to change.
Overloading the same residents leads to burnout. Organisations become too reliant on the same engaged few, leading to information overload and reduced quality feedback. The solution: bring in broader groups for specific consultations whilst maintaining a core engaged group for ongoing governance.
Making It Real: How Leading Organisations Do It
Black Country Housing Group has made resident voice fundamental to how they work. They operate a "no voice, no approval" policy where policies don't go to the board without resident input. They track recommendations quarterly and hold department heads accountable for implementation. The result: residents feel genuinely embedded in decision-making, not treated as an add-on.
Sanctuary Housing creates multilevel engagement. Residents meet the CEO regularly, sit on the board, and help shape strategic initiatives. When residents see staff act on their feedback, it keeps them invested in the relationship.
Onward Homes finally listened to years of resident complaints about repairs. They brought in a transformation manager, invested additional resources, and came to a resident meeting to explain the data honestly. The turning point wasn't that repairs were fixed instantly—it was that residents felt heard and saw concrete investment.
Why This Matters
Genuine resident engagement isn't a compliance box. It leads to:
• Better understanding of what residents actually need
• Faster identification of service problems
• Higher satisfaction and trust
• Improved service delivery
The bottom line: Residents can immediately tell the difference between genuine partnership and performative engagement. Once they feel truly heard and see concrete action, trust rebuilds, even in organisations with previously poor relationships with residents.
Key Takeaway
Shift the conversation from "how do we engage residents?" to "how do we genuinely partner with residents to improve services?" When organisations make this shift, everything improves.
Tpas Board member Aasia said: "The session was a really good way of sharing good practice across the sector to illustrate engagement with tenants’ needs to be agile, informative and meaningful - not one size fits all”.
Tpas Special Membership Project Lead Kai Jackson said: "The session inspired prospective on how engagement is gathering strength in the sector and how tenants and staff are encouraging and implementing in different ways, tenants having a decision-making voice and influence.”