Working with our customers: engagement update Jan-March 2022

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 from January-March 2022…

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.

• 51 customers now part of the CVP
• 24 customers attended January’s CVP meeting
• 15 CVP meetings and other engagement activities held this quarter
• 9 CVP members attended a virtual meeting held to review and give feedback on our Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) satisfaction measures.

CVP Members have also:

• Reviewed our current Unreasonable Behaviour and Complaints policies
• Been consulted with on new proposed key performance indicators for our Board
• Carried out our quarterly round of neighbourhood inspections
• Participated in the second phase of our pilot customer void inspections. We held an in person and virtual training session for customers and carried out void inspections on a Saturday. Following this we analysed all the relevant data and reported recommendations back to our Voids team.

Customer void inspections

As part of our work to improve the standard that you can expect when you move into an FCHO home - from gardens to cleanliness as well as the general condition of your property – we have recruited volunteers from our CVP to be Customer Void Inspectors.

• 15 members of the CVP are now Customers Void Inspectors
• Training was held on Tuesday 16 March in readiness for second phase of inspections on Saturday 19 March
• 5 properties inspected that day
• 5 customers visited each property in person
• 5 customers inspected the properties via video link, in real time.

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.

• 26 customers took part in the February inspections

We have now gathered 12 months’ worth of data from our Neighbourhood Champions’ inspections. This will be reviewed and scrutinised by our Customer Voice Panel to help shape our neighbourhood services.

We support community and voluntary groups in Oldham with a number of funding streams.

ROCA (FCHO Funding)

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

So far in 2022:

• 14 grants totalling £10,219 given to projects across four of five Oldham districts
• 9 ROCA grants totalling £6,600 are in the process of being awarded

We are planning a round of ROCA specifically targeted at community and voluntary groups in the Oldham North district to improve community investment across all Oldham districts.

Community Funds

• Community researcher initiative is in planning stage with community delivery organisations in Sholver to gather feedback through the Place Standard on how residents feel about their local area.
• Community interpreters course costs for four students supported via Community Impact fund. This will support interpretation services for Afghan communities.

Funding & Partnership Development

• 30 active partnership proposals in development across 63 community partners and agencies.
• Two funding applications submitted for external funding opportunities to support community partnerships deliver activities for residents in Oldham neighbourhoods.

Community/Place Based Research

Everyone has their own experience of the place where they live and work and we want to get conversations going with our customers about what matters to them in their neighbourhood. We are using the Place Standard questionnaire to do this.

• Higginshaw Village Place Standard questionnaire work is now underway.
• Place Standard work will also begin in Royton, Alt, Barker Street and Sholver.

Community Groups/Networks

We are involved in multiple community partnerships and networks. It supports community groups with activities like grant funding applications outside of ROCA and our Community Awards.

• Since January 2022, four community centres (Apfel Lane, Daisy Hill, Ridgefield Street and Barker Street) have now re-opened for weekly sessions. These offer a variety of community activities including cooking sessions, exercise classes and support sessions.
• 34 volunteers have signed up to run sessions at our community centres.

West Vale is our project set to transform the area where tower blocks Crossbank House and Summervale House once stood. On the vacant site we are building 88 high quality, new homes to help meet local housing need. We are working with local people and organisations for the benefit of the community as the West Vale project progresses.

Consultation survey about environmental regeneration plans for the area

• During door-to-door engagement activity on 27 January 2022, 41 people took part in the survey.

West Street Digital History Project, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund

• First in-person session held at Barker Street Community Centre on 1 March 2022. Activity included a performance from Oldham Coliseum and a timeline of maps and historical photos of the West Street area were on display.
• Market stall hosted at Oldham’s Tommyfield Market on 29 March 2022 to promote the project and engage with local people
• Dedicated project website launched oldhamdigitalhistory.co.uk

Customer engagement in the Higginshaw neighbourhood is now underway. We are working with our contractor, which is delivering investment work in the area, Connolly’s to engage with customers and build up a better understanding of the current needs within the area. We have engaged with 34 households so far and they have completed the Place Standard questionnaire.

Here’s some of the things customers told us during this quarter …

CVP members have told us that they think it’s crucial for customers to receive text/voice messages to keep them informed/remind them about booked repairs and help reduce the volume of ‘no access’ visits to customers’ homes for repairs. In response to this we are implementing a new system to keep customers for whom we have a mobile phone or landline number stay up to date with the progress of their repair appointment.

Following the first phase of Customer Voids Inspections held in November, CVP members gave us feedback that holding inspections at weekends may increase availability of customers to take part. We took this onboard and held the March inspections on a Saturday, doubling the number of participants.

Customers have told us that they want to be able to see what events are being held in our community centres and this will help increase the number of people who use them. Following this we have invested in notice boards at the centres. These will be used to inform customers of what’s on and attract people to take part in sessions.