The inspectors are here!
Tuesday 23rd of July 2024
The theme of the July Tpas meetup for Local Authority and ALMO engagement officers was ‘learning from the early inspections’ and we had a brilliant fishbowl with some super volunteers who shared their experiences.
The big takeaway was that the early inspections are proving to be a positive experience - inspectors are taking a supportive approach to working with officers and tenants.
At the meetup we heard from Ada Terry from Dacorum Borough Council, James Crouch from Chesterfield Borough Council and Joanne Wilson and Victoria Dawson, both from Bolsover District Council.
In their fishbowl conversation they shared their direct experiences of early inspections, and you can see the whole conversation here:
After listening to the fishbowl, participants were pleased to hear that the inspection was a positive experience for staff and tenants. Comments included:
- The co-regulatory/positive feel of the whole process
- How supportive regulators have been
- That there was flexibility with attending sessions
- That the inspection by the regulator is not as official as first perceived
- That there are no surprises
- Similar experiences from the other fishes.
- That they were really interested in EDI data, and what you do with that.
- That they wanted to speak to tenants directly and not just rely on what the managers etc might say
It might be useful to know what people are thinking about doing as a result of the fishbowl and discussions that followed. So, here are some of the things that participants added to the chat when asked what might be top of their to-do lists now:
- Arrange a mock inspection.
- Making CEO and leaders aware they will have to be aware of housing issues, big task when working for a council
- TSM forward plan and evidence collection. Link this to gap analysis in prep for inspection.
- Improve our evidence base, and mapping to the consumer standards & TSMs
- Make sure record keeping is on point
- Including a 'link to evidence' alongside the evidence statement in our Consumer Standards gap analysis
- Have a chat with our involve team and complaints manager about how I can support as a frontline customer services staff member
- To make sure all is in order and that the tenant representatives know they are valued, and their points are needed.
- To speak again to our Tenants’ Voice group about the inspections
- Share the notes from this call with a range of colleagues working on preparation for inspection
About the meetup
The meetup took place on Zoom on 17th July 2024. We had 56 engagement officers taking part (a record!).
As usual, we had a series of interactive activities allowing participants to share experiences and ideas as well as trying out some engagement techniques. This time we started with the fishbowl – four ‘fishes’ informally sharing their experiences for 20 minutes in part one before dealing with questions from the chat for 10 minutes in part two. We then did our regular ‘nine-minute networking’ – two nine-minute rounds of discussing two talking points in groups of 3 or 4, mixed up for the second round. We finished, as always, with ‘open space’ – an opportunity for participants to raise anything at all to the whole group.
Further information
Our next meet up is on 6th November and you can book your place here
We also have an online networking group on our Tpas Connect platform. If you would like to join the group, please email lisa.holt@tpas.org.uk
For Tpas Connect info click here