We’re always looking for ways to improve the delivery of our services to our residents and our Scrutiny Steering Group (SSG) have just presented our latest report, looking at the performance of PCH contractors in residents’ homes.
Our SSG is a small group of residents which ensures that PCH regularly undertakes scrutiny, making sure that we involve lots of residents in scrutiny, give access to our staff and information, and that we act on the report findings.
Resident scrutiny is an important a way of giving residents a greater influence to get involved in the decisions we make about our homes and neighbourhoods, and to examine our performance as a landlord.
Tenants choose a different subject each year and this year they decided to concentrate on PCH contractors and their interactions with residents.
A task and finish group of residents then looked at areas of performance and improvement by:
- Asking residents for their experiences
- Interviewing PCH staff who deliver the service
- Surveying other PCH staff
- Writing a report with some clear recommendations for improvement and highlighting areas of good practice
The SSG presented the report to PCH’s Customer Focus Committee in August. Key findings include:
- Most residents are satisfied with the communication and quality of work from our contractors, and they know who to contact when having contract work carried out in their home
- Complaints are welcomed and seen as an opportunity to put things right
- Building good relationships with contractors starts early, and some larger contract works include a dedicated Tenant Liaison Officer which helps with communication between the contractor and the resident
- PCH could improve resident involvement before, during and after contract work takes place in residents’ homes
- PCH could be clearer about PCH’s values and expectations with our contractors
- PCH should hold poorly performing contractors to account
So, what happens next?
The report is now with the Senior Management Team at PCH so that each of the recommended improvements can be worked on, with regular updates being given to SSG and PCH Board as we make progress.
Last year’s scrutiny looked at ‘Getting hold of the right person at PCH’ and the recommendations that made up that report have already resulted in some changes across the organisation:
- We’ve put in place updated target response times in some areas, which means that residents get a quicker response to their enquiry
- Increased the ways residents can contact us – for example through our social media channels, our LiveChat function on the website and by providing language and British Sign Language translations
- Made better use of community events to keep residents informed now that Covid restrictions have ended
We’d like to thank everyone who helped with scrutiny this year. More than 200 tenants got involved and many PCH staff provided information and comments as well as attending meetings.
