Council Tenancies - Housing Matters

Housing Matters Magazine is the quarterly magazine produced for our tenants by our Tenant Participation team.

The Way Forward

As mentioned in editions of Housing Matters, Informaction and in other parts of this website, South Bedfordshire District Council is changing and by April 2009 this local authority will no longer exist. In its place will be Central Bedfordshire Council as we will have merged with Mid-Beds District Council to form a new unitary authority.

What will this mean for you and the future of Landlord Services?

Well there are options we can take but one thing is for sure things will not remain the same. As part of our commitment to involving our residents in moving forward we are setting up a panel that will focus on the future of Landlord Services once we become Central Bedfordshire.

If you have a genuine interest in this we want to hear from you. We want to select a small number of residents that will be involved in this process from the early stages up to and beyond the merger.

In order for us to get the best out of you we are asking you to complete a simple form, which asks for your skills and strengths so that we can select the appropriate members to the panel. You do not need any previous experience of being involved with the housing service as we can identify transferable skills from what you tell us in the application form so please do not be put off.

If you wish to discuss this further please contact either Zulf Awan or Samantha Dalton on 01582 474155. Alternatively please download the application form from using the link below. Please email your completed form to zulf.awan@southbeds.gov.uk or samantha.dalton@southbeds.gov.uk or send a copy to Zulf Awan at the address below;

Tenant Participation Application Form

Tenant Involvement
Room 51
Landlord Services Directorate
South Beds District Council
The District Offices
High Street North
Dunstable
LU6 1LF

tel: 0845 849 6366 (direct line)
01582 474155
ext 33025 (internal)

Tenants' Voice

Following consultation with the Tenants' Forum, we will be adding lots of information specifically aimed at supporting our tenants.

The first of this is information from the Tenant Survey 2007

Also available are the surveys from 2006 and 2003.

Anti-Social Behaviour

The anti-social-behaviour booklet for housing has being posted out to all tenants and leaseholders. Anti-social behaviour can be any noise or action that disturbs or upsets other people in your neighbourhood. The leaflet provides futher information on Dealing with Anti-Social Behaviour (PDF 231KB)

Tenant Involvement Survey

As part of our commitment to being a well-managed council, where the customer is at the heart of what we do, we are improving the way we involve our tenants in Landlord Services. Following on from the Tenants Survey we completed last year, we are using the results to improve the way we consult with you, our customers. The survey highlighted the difficulties with engaging tenants in aspects of the Housing Service and listed the main reason as people not being interested in the traditional methods of communication. Although we have a number of active resident associations in the district it seems that this and other traditional styles of involvement are not the preferred method of engagement.

As your landlord we have a statutory duty to keep our customers informed of the service and proposed services we provide. With this in mind we have recently sent out questionnaires to all our properties across the district. The feedback we got was very positive with almost 400 tenants wishing to get involved with Landlord Services. Not only have they asked to be involved but each of them stated how they wish to be involved and have listed their main areas of interest.

The questionnaire listed a variety of ways for you to be consulted. For example, you can take part in a consultation by filling in a survey, being part of a panel that has a focus on a specific issue, being part of an email panel so that you can respond quickly and easily to all consultations. Judging by the response, these new methods have opened up opportunities to getting involved in the service where perhaps, in the past, our customers have felt traditional methods did not meet their needs.

All completed entries were entered in to a prize draw for the chance to win £50 of shopping vouchers and the lucky winner was Mrs Roper from Tilsworth.

What happens now?

Firstly a big ‘thank you’ for all those who have returned their forms. We have sent out acknowledgement letters to all those that replied and we will be contacting them shortly to ask their views on the areas they have shown an interest in.

With a much bigger group of tenants working closely with us we can consult with a much wider spectrum of customers giving us much more accurate and statistically reliable information. Taking this forward it will be up to the Tenant Involvement Team to ensure your views and comments are raised and used to shape and change the way Landlord Services works. This will show that your opinions, in whatever form you choose to express them, will be taken seriously and improve the service we provide. We will regularly use Housing Matters to highlight the changes that have been made to the service as a result of Tenant Involvement. If you have not received a copy of the questionnaire you can fill it in by going to Tenant involvement survey and printing it off.

Alternatively, please contact either Zulf Awan or Samantha Dalton on 01582 474155 for a questionnaire. Please return completed questionnaires to the address on the bottom of the questionnaire.

If you would like to know what is going on in your area, and how to get involved, go to Residents Association Information

Status Surveys 2008

At South Bedfordshire District Council we are committed to listening to the views of all our residents. We carry out consultations on a number of issues across the district in variety of methods. This year Landlord Services are carrying out a Status survey to find out how satisfied you are with the services we provide.

STATUS is a standardised tenant satisfaction survey designed specifically for use by social landlords. It is a government requirement that stock-owning local authorities should carry out a tenant satisfaction survey using Status every two years. The Department for Communities and Local Government sets out standards so that comparisons can be made over time and between landlords. There is also guidance provided by the Audit Commission on the way the survey is to be conducted.

The survey has three main aims:
· To find out levels of tenant satisfaction with various aspects of the housing service

· To identify areas for service improvements.

· To enable comparison over time with previous surveys and with other social landlords

In order for us to get accurate results, Arena Partnership will be sending some of you a survey. On receiving the survey please complete it as soon as possible and return it in the prepaid envelope. We have employed Arena to carry out the survey in our behalf so that we can ensure anonymity for anyone completing the forms. Arena will collate all the information and produce a report for us so that we can compare our results with the past survey we carried out and against other local authorities. All responses will be treated in the strictest confidence and will only be used for the purposes of measuring tenant satisfaction. It will not be possible for any individual tenant or household to be identified in the findings. The results will be printed in a future edition of Housing Matters.

Please look out for the survey coming to your door and complete and return it as soon as possible.

for more information please call either Zulf Awan or Samantha Dalton on 01582 474155

Updated 15 May 2008