Tenant Satisfaction Survey
In October 2020, Dover District Council with the support of its tenants and leaseholders brought the housing management service back in house. Tenants were surveyed about their preference for the future arrangements for management of their homes between October and December 2019 and it was felt prudent to leave any full-scale testing of satisfaction with services until the summer of 2020.
The Tenant Satisfaction Survey was managed in house by the Housing Service team. Tenants and leaseholders were encouraged to participate in the survey between mid-June – August 2021.
The Housemark, 'STAR' survey model, was used for this survey. STAR ('Survey of Tenants & Residents') is a survey model designed for social housing and was developed with the input of social landlords and residents. The survey carried out was an industry standard type survey based on perception rather than transaction.
While the Council is not part of Housemark and therefore does not have access to the benchmarking system, using this survey model means we can better monitor our performance against industry standard methods of improvement.
The primary aims of the survey were to:
- Measure satisfaction with the services we provide
- Compare levels of satisfaction with those report in 2017 when Housing Services was part of East Kent Housing (EKH)
- Enable benchmarking with other similar social housing providers
Overall results
|
|
Question
|
2021
|
2017
|
|
|
Question
|
2021
|
2017
|
|
1
|
Quality of home
|
69%
|
83%
|
|
7
|
Housing Service is easy to deal with |
56% |
- |
|
2
|
Safety & Security of premises
|
71%
|
-
|
|
8
|
Rent provides value for money
|
76%
|
87%
|
|
3
|
Neighbourhood as a place to live
|
72%
|
85%
|
|
9 |
Service charges provide value for money
|
76%
|
48%
|
|
4
|
Repairs & maintenance
|
49%
|
78%
|
|
10
|
Listens to views and acts upon them
|
43%
|
64%
|
|
5
|
The LAST repairs carried out
|
55%
|
-
|
|
11
|
Council involves tenants
|
46%
|
-
|
|
6
|
Overall service provided by DDC |
66% |
83% |
|
|
Average satisfaction level
|
62%
|
75%
|
You Said, We Did
| | What you told us | What we're doing or have done |
|---|
| 1 |
44% of tenants say we need to improve the telephone system and 20% of tenants responding to the TSS are dissatisfied with the overall housing service |
- From 1 December 2021 we launched two new telephone lines to separate tenancy calls from maintenance calls to help tenants reach the team they needed more quickly and accurately.
- We will be setting up a communicators focus group to work with tenants to test call handling and help make some recommendations for improvements.
- We will be rolling out customer care training for all staff who take calls from tenants.
|
| 2 |
18 % of tenants were dissatisfied with their estate as a place to live in and 39% of respondents said that grounds maintenance and 34% of tenants said that refuse arrangements needed to be improved. |
- We have publish our estate walkabout programme and encourage tenants and representatives from other agencies to join us at inspections.
- We are actively publishing details about improvements on estates and taking before and after photos to show viably how we're making a difference and improving estates. See our newsletters.
|
| 3 |
26% number of our tenants feel that do not act upon their views
|
- We have established focus groups with interested tenants and leaseholders to help us improve our services.
- A new tenant engagement strategy is being written along side tenants to outline all the opportunities for involvement over the next 5 years. We will publish this strategy later in 2022.
|
Getting involved
- You can give us feedback on our services at any time by filling in our handy online form. We want to hear from you.
- Do you want to get involved and help us improve services? Find out about all the ways you can do this here, alternatively you can email us on tenantinvolvement@dover.gov.uk.
To keep updated with the latest news and consultations about the housing for tenants service, please sign up to Keep Me Posted and tick 'Housing For Tenants'.