Regional Member Event in the Midlands
Thursday 2nd of May 2024
On Tuesday this week, 30th April, we held our Midlands regional member event. We were kindly hosted by Platform Housing Group at their offices in Birmingham.
It was a great turnout with 29 attendees from 15 different organisations from across the Midlands.
We had a full agenda covering the latest on Housing Policy and Tpas Membership news.
We had an interesting presentation from our Hosts who gave us an insight into their engagement structure, the different customer groups they work with, how they have co-created various polices with their customers and their community engagement in the various communities they cover across the Midlands.
Platform also shared that their repairs operatives leave leaflets about getting involved in tenants houses during a repair. Good practice like this and their distinctive ‘created with customers’ logo where policies have meaningfully been influenced by customers, and their data driven community engagement approach, out in neighbourhoods working closely with the neighbourhood officers, as well as rolling out asset-based community development (ABCD).
They’ve managed to prove their worth in community engagement so successfully they are now expanding the team – and we are happy to share their careers platform with you.
There was lots of positivity, questions, feedback and sharing of good practice from our members throughout the day. Some of the discussions and comments were:
• There is such a wide range of things expected of an Engagement Officer, how do you fit it all in?
• What data can tenants look at, not everyone knows what data is available?
• A big emphasis on being able to demonstrate to the regulator the difference that engagement is making and how much evidence is needed.
• Sharing the outcomes and evidence with tenants and colleagues – difficult to have the time to do this!
• Culture – need to get the culture right in the organisation – all teams need to understand engagement.
• When inspections are taking place, all staff in the organisation need to know it’s happening and how to respond to questions in the best way.
• Recruitment was a hot topic - how do we get more tenants involved? A top tip was to talk to people about what they are passionate about, and get them involved.
• Evidence, evidence, evidence, and data quality are key!
During our afternoon session we discussed key messages for the regulator. Here are a few that our attendees came up with:
• Can the regulator have a softer approach? Not everything can be evidenced with data – look at the qualitative data not just quantitative.
• Be a critical friend!
• Data – it would be more helpful, if it can be more standardised on what organisations are expected to collect.
• More clarity on what the regulator wants and what you will be judging organisations on.
Once again, we’d like to thank our host Platform Housing Group for making the event a success, and we look forward to more of our regional events over the coming weeks, with dates already planned for:
• Tpas Eastern member event – Tuesday 21st May – 10 am – 2.30 pm
• Tpas South-West member event – Wednesday 22nd May – 10 am – 2.30 pm
Please book your place and take a look on our website.
We look forward to welcoming you.