www.stockporthomes.org

Summary Document

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Introduction

The Partnership Agreement (also known as the Customer Involvement Compact), sets out the ways that customers can get involved in influencing and shaping the delivery of the services they receive from Stockport Homes.

It explains what you can expect from us when you get involved; our standards for providing you with information, holding meetings and making sure we are open and inclusive to all sectors of our community.

The Partnership Agreement guarantees Stockport Homes’ overall commitment to customer involvement and sets out the standards we will meet.

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By customers we mean all of our tenants, applicants for housing, leaseholders and anyone who uses the services provided by Stockport Homes.

What is the Partnership Agreement?

The Partnership Agreement is an agreement between Stockport Council as your Landlord, Stockport Homes as the managing agent and customers, which sets out how you can be involved in decisions affecting your home and community.

The Partnership Agreement can help you decide how you want to be involved in influencing and shaping the decisions taken by Stockport Homes in a way that meets your needs and priorities.

We recognise that you are individuals with diverse needs and aspirations and you will want to participate in different ways and to different degrees. We need to make sure everyone has the opportunity to participate at a level that is both comfortable and convenient for them.

We review the Partnership Agreement on a regular basis to reflect the changes and priorities that emerge from increased customer involvement and ensure that we are involving customers at all levels within all services. Achieving this leads to meaningful involvement, improved services, better and increased choice for you and higher levels of customer satisfaction.

The aim of the Partnership Agreement is to develop a shared vision for the Borough, create sustainable communities, make improvements to services and agree how it will be done.

We have consulted widely with customers to agree new local standards for involvement.

2 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010 3

Meeting and exceeding the National Standards for Tenant Involvement and Empowerment

The Government has set out a number of ways, or National Standards, for how it thinks you should be involved in the work of your landlord.

Our local standards complement the National Standards whilst strengthening and tailoring them to our customer’s priorities to develop choices for involvement, as agreed between Stockport Homes and customers involved in developing the Partnership Agreement. Our local standards go beyond what is expected by specifically stating what customers can expect from us.

Our local standards ensure:

• Customers will be given a range of opportunities that enable them to get involved and influence services at whatever level they wish.

• Those traditionally not involved will be enabled to take part, such as young people, customers with disabilities and customers from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds.

• Customers can be actively involved in the decisions

made about their homes by becoming involved at a strategic level (usually by becoming a Board Member).

• Customers will be given any help, information and

training they need to enable them to have the skills and confidence to actively get involved.

• A wider range of customers and community groups will

be recognised by Stockport Homes to encourage wider community involvement.

• The Partnership Agreement will not rely on customers to

be proactive.

The Partnership Agreement sets out how Stockport Homes will meet the requirements of the National Standards for Tenant Involvement and Empowerment through the delivery of local standards developed in consultation with our customers.

4 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010 5

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How can customers influence the services we deliver?

There are a wide variety of ways for you to get involved to ensure that you can engage at a level that is right for you. You may want to be kept informed of what is happening within Stockport Homes, or you may want to get involved further through directly influencing, shaping and improving our services.

The diagram opposite and the table on pages 8 and 9 show the ways customers can get involved at Stockport Homes.

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8 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010 9

How can customers influence the services we deliver?

Strategic Decision MakingCustomers are involved in setting and reviewing the strategic direction of Stockport Homes.

• Stockport Homes’ Board• Board Sub-Groups• Customer Feedback Appeals Panel

• Estate Improvement Budget• Community Fund Budget

InfluencingCustomers challenge Stockport Homes, make recommendations for improvements and shape the direction of services and budget spend:

• Customer Scrutiny Panel• Customer Action Groups • Area Forums• Estate Walkabouts• Block Contacts• Youth inclusion projects• Quality Panel (customer inspectors)• H3 – Helping the Homeless into Housing

Group• Temporary Accommodation residents’ meetings and brunch clubs• Re-settlement Focus on You meetings• Sheltered Housing Working Group and Forum• Leaseholder Forum• Procure Plus• Annual Customer Events

InformationCustomers receive clear information about the management decisions Stockport Homes make, how the organisation is performing and how they can get involved further:

• Stockport at home newsletter (all customers)• Going Places newsletter (Housing Need

and Support Services)• Sheltered Housing newsletter• East Area and West Area newsletters• Stockport Homes’ website• Leaflets, flyers and posters• Press releases and advertisements• Minutes of meetings• ‘You said, we did’ boards• Welcome packs• Customer Handbook• Skills for Life (customer training programme)

ConsultationCustomers are asked for their views on how Stockport Homes can shape services, facilities and neighbourhoods to meet their needs:

• Postal and telephone surveys, and consultation exercises• Customer Feedback Scheme• Customer Readers’ Group• Customer Editorial Team• Customer Email Consultation Group• Focus Groups• Open days and drop in events• Customer Choice events• Fun days and community events• Hot topic meetings• Website Consultation Group• Tenant and Resident Groups (informal

and formal)

In order for Stockport Homes to improve the services we offer to you, we need to know what you think. There are many ways to help make this happen and our ‘Menu of Involvement’ provides further details on the options available. You can choose to be involved as little or as much as you like depending on your own interests and the time you have to spare.

Stockport Homes’ ‘Claiming Expenses’ leaflet.

Stockport Homes has adopted a low-income friendly policy to ensure that customer involvement does not discourage anyone from getting involved because of cash flow and income. We will cover out of pocket expenses for travel and other reasonable costs to enable you to attend meetings, events, focus groups, conferences and training courses. Any activity we organise is held in an accessible venue and we use a variety of locations around Stockport.

We can cover:

• Travel costs;• Child and adult care costs; and• Food and refreshment costs.

Full details can be found in our ‘Claiming Expenses’ leaflet.

A copy of the full Partnership Agreement is available from the Housing Information Centre, East and West Area Housing Offices, at the Customer Resource Centre, on our website at www.stockporthomes.org or on request from the Customer Involvement Team on 0161 474 2862, by email to customer.involvement@stockporthomes.org or by text to 07891 949 399.

How can customers influence the services we deliver?

10 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010 11

12 Stockport Homes’ Partnership Agreement 2010

Accessing our Services

This leaflet gives you a summary of the Partnership Agreement. If you would like a version of this in large print, Braille, on audio tape or CD, please contact the Social Inclusion Team on 0161 474 2860 or email inclusion@stockporthomes.org

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