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- Informal involvement:
- Formal involvement
- Strategic level – influencing decision making
- Residents’ Board Membership (London & Essex Regional Committees)
- Residents’ Consultative Committee
- Getting involved in your local communities and improving services
For residents who have an interest in getting involved at a local level: - Estate Inspections
- Neighbourhood agreements
- Residents’ groups
- Residents’ associations
- Leaseholders’ forums
- Improving services across Swan Housing Group
For residents who would like to be involved in improving services:
Informal involvement:
Customer feedback panel
Become a member of the Customer Feedback Panel and you will be invited to get involved in a range of activities, which could include:
- focus groups
- telephone surveys
- questionnaires
- policy forum
- Other informal ways of getting involved include:
- young people’s forum
- BME residents surgeries
- annual residents’ conference
- leaseholders’ conference
- Asian women’s group
- appointment of contactors
- residents’ away day
- editorial group
- estate inspections
- residents’ forums
- local community groups
- fun days
- road shows
Formal involvement
Strategic level – influencing decision making
For residents with an interest in playing a major role in Swan:
Residents’ Board Membership (London & Essex Regional Committees)
The two Regional Committees are each made up of 8 residents and 4 external representatives.
The Regional Committees are responsible for all Swan properties in their geographical area, i.e. Essex or London and oversee:
- all direct front-line service delivery and the associated budgets
- the implementation of Housing Policies and to recommend any necessary changes to the Parent Board
- scrutinising performance of service delivery
- monitoring development schemes and progress
- providing advice on design for new/refurbishment schemes
- resident involvement and training
The Committees each meet four times per year. Members of the Regional Committees are also provided with training and development opportunities to help them.
Residents’ Consultative Committee
Residents’ Consultative Committees are regional assemblies made up of resident’s representatives who are elected from either their neighbourhood or from local residents’ groups and residents associations.
Members meet regularly with staff to discuss local issues, receive reports and consider any proposed changes to policy.
There are two regional committees (Essex and London) serving the interests of Swan residents. Residents groups will continue to be encouraged to elect from among their members representatives who will serve on their regional Residents’ Consultative Committee.
Getting involved in your local communities and improving services
For residents who have an interest in getting involved at a local level:
Estate Inspections
Regular estate inspections are planned and occur on a bi-monthly basis and involve local residents, resident’s representatives and housing officers.
The dates of the inspections are published here on Web4Residents, in the resident’s newsletter and on community notice boards.
Neighbourhood agreements
We will actively promote and develop Neighbourhood Agreements that will set out the service standards residents can expect in their neighbourhoods and identify priorities for action over the next year.
Residents’ groups
We work to support and develop groups that represent areas, schemes or neighbourhoods in order to effectively improve services affected by neighbourhood issues.
Residents’ associations
We work with and provide financial support to properly elected and constituted
Residents’ Associations who fulfil the requirements of Swan’s ‘Recognition Criteria for Residents’ Associations and are committed to effectively promoting equality and diversity within their communities.
Leaseholders’ forums
We will work with our leaseholders to ensure value for money and continuous improvement in service delivery.
These forums will have a strategic role in influencing service improvement to our leaseholders and will feed into Swan’s decision making structures via the Residents’ Consultative Committees.
Improving services across Swan Housing Group
For residents who would like to be involved in improving services:
Involvement in policy development
We will ensure that residents are fully involved in the development of Swan’s operational policies through local residents’ forums, the Residents’ Consultative Committees and focus groups.
We will monitor changes in policies through the Customer Feed Back Panel, telephone surveys and written questionnaires.
Involvement in service delivery standards
We will ensure that residents are fully involved in the monitoring and development of service delivery standards including:
- customer care standards (telephone answering, response to letters, e-mails and voice mail)
- repairs target times
- standards for letting empty homes
- wording of standard letters and forms
Residents’ suggestion scheme
We welcome ideas from our customers about the way we deliver our services.
The suggestion scheme is your chance to tell us what you think and for us to thank you for your time. We will award £50 Marks & Spence gift vouchers fro the best suggestions.
We will also make sure to let you know whether we are able to act on your suggestion, and if not, why this will not be possible.
Involvement in service reviews
We have a regular programme of service reviews to ensure that we meet the needs of residents, our services are of high quality and they offer value for money.
Residents can be involved in the service reviews and we will seek their views on the final recommendations.
Service user forums
We are ultimately trying to improve on how we deliver our services by involving and empowering our service users. By involving the vulnerable people we support, we can help raise their self esteem, confidence and level of independence through building key skills. Emphasis is put on the quality of the outcomes rather than focusing purely on the number of service users getting involved.
Service User Involvement is as much about evidencing the change brought about by involvement in publications as it is by just involving service users in projects. All work is impact assessed in order to review the positive outcomes through involving our service users.
Residents conference
Each year, all Swan residents are invited to a conference which gives the opportunity to meet staff and partner organisations to discuss and consider the priorities for the services provided.
The event is organised to be held at a large central location and is relaxed and informal with lunch and refreshments provided.
There are also lots of free raffle prizes.
Supporting our residents to get involved
To help residents get involved we will provide residents with both practical and financial resources.
We will provide:
- dedicated resident involvement staff
- a residents’ involvement budget to support involvement
- a training programme to build skills and expertise
- carers costs including child care
- travel allowances
- we also help residents to set up and run meetings, pay for meeting room hire, refreshments and any paper work residents may need copied and sent out
- further support is provided for resident representatives, such as help with IT, subscriptions to relevant publications, allowance for phone calls etc
Further information on the support we provide can be found in the Residents’ Expenses Policy.
Would you like to get involved?
If you are interested in getting involved in what ever way, whether it is coming along to a focus group or joining a residents’ group, you can get more information by contacting the Residents’ Involvement and Communications Team on: 01277 844 242 or email Involvement@swan.org.uk
