Aspiring to become a best practice service provider, the Wrekin Housing Group put their performance under the spotlight by undertaking Housemark’s Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) accreditation. We caught up with Phil Heywood, Neighbourhood Manager at the Wrekin Housing Group to see how they got on.
What areas of your business did Housemark look at and how did they help?
We felt we delivered a good service, but we lacked clear assessment markers compared with other areas of the organisations, such as voids and arrears. We wanted to measure how well we were performing and truly test ourselves.
We wanted assurance and definitive measures in place, as well as recommendations on how to take the ASB service forward. We wanted to delve deeper and have someone look at our service with a fresh pair of eyes. Housemark is one of the few providers who can deliver that via its independent ASB accreditation.
As part of the accreditation process, Housemark conducted a mixture of interviews with staff, tenants and external partners. Their team also carried out a desktop review of our self-assessment and supporting documents and undertook ASB case file reviews.
How have you used this insight and learning within your business?
We’ve been to speak with our tenants about the assessment process and shared with them an action plan for the next two years. Tenants see this as really positive. We’re looking at how we give information out to tenants and ensuring that this process is transparent and meaningful. We’re also offering training opportunities to our tenants so they feel empowered to challenge us regarding our performance
We’re looking at the way we deal with ASB cases, risk assessment, and ways we can build more training into our systems to be more robust. We’re also exploring how we use data to better target our services, understand what our service costs us and what social value we are providing in our communities.
How has this impacted on your employees/tenants/organisation?
One of the top employee benefits is that we’re now looking to develop a whole range of training for all staff on ASB – from the frontline to back office. Our tenants will also benefit as they’ll receive greater involvement with our ASB service. This has opened a door to get more information from our tenants and has helped strengthen our relationship with them. We recently had a tenants’ panel and everyone has been pleased with the work we’re doing around ASB.
“It’s good to know that my landlord takes anti-social behaviour seriously and tenants receive a fair and consistent service. What is also exciting is that we are very involved in how the service will be developed and further improved going forwards, and tenants will be at the heart of this.”
Clive Dann, Chair of the Customer Voice Panel