Working with our customers: engagement update Jan-March 2021

Engaging with our customers and listening to their views is very important to us. Customer feedback makes a difference to the way we deliver our services, drives improvements for everyone who lives in a First Choice Homes Oldham (FCHO) home and local communities, and helps us as we strive to be an excellent landlord.

On this page you can see all the ways we’ve worked with our customers to make positive changes Jan-March 2021…

Our Customer Voice Panel (CVP) is made up of customers from across our neighbourhoods and has been set up to give a real voice to those who live in our homes, so they influence our services and bring about improvements.

• 48 customers now part of the CVP
• 24 customers attended the January CVP meeting
• 13 CVP meetings held altogether. Customers reviewed our performance, signed off survey questions and attended additional focus groups
• Reviewed our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy
• Reviewed our General Data Protection Regulation policy

Our Neighbourhood Champions carry out quarterly neighbourhood inspections and report back on the condition of their neighbourhood including grounds maintenance, communal area cleaning, litter and flytipping.

24 customers took part in January inspections.

Following January’s inspections we have:

• Reviewed and developed the inspection checklist
• Worked with Neighbourhood Services and Building and Fire Safety teams to include more specific safety questions to help us capture more meaningful customer feedback
• The improved checklist will be used by the Neighbourhood Champions when carrying out the April inspections.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Champions are working with us to develop and implement our EDI strategy.

• 2 online focus groups with 12 customers who provided input and feedback to help shape our EDI strategy.
• Customers held an online meeting with our Head of Legal Services to discuss their feedback on our strategy.
• EDI Working Group formed with 4 customers who will input into our EDI strategy and support us to deliver our EDI action plan.

ROCA (Respect Our Community Awards) is our grant scheme which offers funding
to community and voluntary groups in Oldham.

Grants of up to £500 are available and are awarded to groups that provide the most benefits to our local communities.

Our February round of ROCA funding saw:

• 10 applications
• 3 awards made to 3 community groups
• £1,468 funding awarded in total

2021 ROCA funding:

• Launched on 22 March 2021
• Made more accessible with simplified form and option to submit video applications.

£54,685 grant secured from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

This will be used for our West Vale digital history project, which will document the demolition of Crossbank House and Summervale House tower blocks and the redevelopment in the neighbourhood.

During this quarter we asked customers for their views on EDI, GDPR, air-source-heat-pump heating systems, our Independence service, building and fire safety and our tenancy agreement.

Their feedback has helped shape our work and services.

236 customers involved in service reviews Jan-March 2021.

Here’s some of the things customers told us …

You said: You would like the tenancy agreement document to be more reader-friendly.

We have: Redesigned our tenancy agreement to make it simpler to use and understand.

The result? All of the customers asked said the updated tenancy agreement is much better.

“Opinions from residents have been taken into account with the new tenancy”

“I would say my feedback and other people’s feedback has been listened to.”

“I think my ideas were listened to.”

You said: Customers would like to be involved in how we implement our EDI strategy.
We have: Recruited 4 EDI champions to input into our EDI strategy.

Competition launched to name a street at our new development in the Alt neighbourhood.

• Telephone engagement carried out with customers in Alt.
• Promoted the competition through SMS messages to customers in Alt along with publicity in the local news media, on the FCHO website and on social media.
• Competition judging panel comprised an Alt resident and FCHO customer; a local Councillor; and a customer representative on the FCHO Board. Joining them were members of the FCHO team including our CEO and representatives from the Development and Stronger Communities teams.
• 145 competition entries received from across the borough.
• ‘Pear Tree View’ chosen as the competition winner.
• Winner was Alt resident, Alan Tupman.

Here’s some recent feedback on our customer engagement from our customers and colleagues.

“Thank you for allowing me to take part in the CVP. I really enjoyed myself. I actually preferred this method of getting involved rather than attending in person as I struggle to get out of the house.”
G. Jabbar, customer

“I actually found it very informative and it was nice to see what you guys are doing there. Being in development accounting, we only see and hear of the build sides so this was very interesting.’’
Abdus Samad, FCHO Assistant Development Accountant, Finance