Reality Checking
Wednesday 8th of February 2017
Emily-Rae Maxwell, the Policy and Participation Team Leader at Dacorum Borough Council shares another diary entry in their journey in using the new Tpas Tenant Engagement Standards and going through the Tpas accreditation process.
Before Christmas we completed the first stage of the Tpas engagement standard. We submitted our self-assessment along with 112 pieces of supporting evidence (again sorry about that, we got a little carried away) and it is now time for stage two, reality checks.
Emma-Jane from Tpas will be spending two days with us delving into what tenant involvement means here in Dacorum. She will be speaking to staff, partners, involved tenants, non-involved tenants, members and just about any one else we can squeeze in.
She will then attend a quarterly Tenant and Leaseholder Committee meeting.
This past year has already seen some huge achievements some of which even surprised us.
Our supported housing tenants are becoming more digitally confident by the day; tenant inspectors are now developing a programme of activities with our partners Osborne Property Service Limited; the Tenant and Leaseholder Committee continue to offer innovative ideas and solutions and already we have carried out 22 pieces of consultation.
I want everyone that has been involved in this journey towards the accreditation, to come away confident that tenant involvement is valued and leads to positive change.
I know our digital agenda, use of customer profiling, demonstration of value for money and involvement of tenants in performance monitoring will be our main drivers for 2017/18.
This accreditation is another milestone in Dacorum’s evolution of tenant involvement.
Using the recommendations from Tpas, we will develop a plan for continuous improvement, ultimately ensuring our tenants are an integral part of service transformation.
If you are attending the Tpas Engaging Communities Conference in March we will be running a workshop where we hope to share our results!
Our plan is to go through each of the themes from the accreditation and the Tpas standards and show our approach to gathering evidence.
There will also be the opportunity to as a group explore some of the collective challenges we face and how we as social housing providers need to adapt to keep our tenants engaged.
Find out more about accrediation
Download the Tpas national standards