Tenant scrutiny: involving young people

Caroline Field

November 2011

Tenant scrutiny?

Tenant scrutiny is intended to give tenants influence over the priorities and performance of their landlord and give tenants the power to effect change

We had to question:

•Do we do this in Riverside already?

•Do we do enough of it?

•Is it working right everywhere in Riverside?

•How do we change what we are doing?

Riverside

• A national housing association with over 50,000 properties

• Founded 1928, and grown by improvement and development, stock transfer and merger

• Turnover £249million

• We provide care and support services to over 6000 people

• We work in 169 local authorities

• We are a Co-Regulatory Champion

Co-Regulation events

Four events at which tenants explain their co-regulatory working, looking at -•Local regeneration programme – Lee Valley

•Young people - Cambridge

•Older people - Anfield

•Supported services in general needs housing - Bromley

Scrutiny in Riverside: taking a national perspective to involve all

• We have a busy tenant structure, which creates opportunities for people to be engaged in the way they chose─ Not just meetings─ Not just older people

• We can’t just run it from Liverpool when we have homes in 160 Local Authorities

• We have to operate at scheme level where we have specialist schemes

Scrutiny in Riverside 2011Scrutiny in Riverside 2011

Maintenance Scrutiny Group

1 member

Maintenance Scrutiny Group

1 member

Customer Service Scrutiny Group

1 member

Customer Service Scrutiny Group

1 member

Equality and Diversity Scrutiny Group

1 member

Equality and Diversity Scrutiny Group

1 member

Service Improvement Review Groups

3 members

TASQ team1 member

Tenant Inspectors1 member

Divisional Services Scrutiny Groups

10 membersArea Scrutiny Panels or Neighbourhood Forums

Riverside Group Board

Federation

Housing Services

Committee

Divisional Boards

Divisional Services

Scrutiny Groups(10)

Tenant Inspectors Group

TASQ group

Maintenance Scrutiny Group

Equality and Diversity Scrutiny

Group

Service Improvement

Review Groups (3 per year)

Scrutiny in Riverside 2011

Area Scrutiny Panels or Neighbourhood

Groups Customer Service Scrutiny Group

Governance TenantsScrutiny

Business Groups

Issues Groups

Divisional Tenants & Residents Groups

Local TARAS

Making sure young people are heard

• Working locally

• Working on projects

• Giving something in return

• Finding their voice

Some younger people’s projects in Riverside

• Pennine Junior Wardens

• Peppercorn Lodge

• Foyers: Liverpool and Cambridge

• Visions of Life – dvd

Pennine Junior Wardens

• Working with local Community Wardens

• Supported by local school

• Older Junior Wardens now mentors

Peppercorn Lodge, Ipswich Helping Young Parents through Empowerment

• Peppercorn Lodge provides support for eleven young homeless families

• developed a partnership of empowered young parents, supportive housing staff and local agencies

• our team worked with the young parents to produce a video about the issues they face,

• it helps agencies understand the obstacles young mums and dads face and educates their approach to them

Foyers

As well as providing supported accommodation, our Foyers aim to enable disadvantaged 16-25 year-old young people to achieve self-reliance and independence

• A Foyer is not just a place to live, it is a place that helps young people to achieve the goals they have in life.

• This could range from looking at education, training andemployment options to how they are going to live independently in the future.

• Our Foyers have a panel of young people who meet with the scheme managers to discuss services

Visions of Life

• Getting young people and

older people to together

• Multi media training for

young and old

• Improving community

cohesion

• Improving digital inclusion

Managing locally, learning centrally

Scrutiny must be owned locally

• Riverside may receive expert and structured constructive criticism directly from tenants who will have their own evidence on which to base their views

• Local boards may receive a direct challenge from the tenants if they think it necessary:

We need to share the learning points

Tenant scrutiny in support of change

We need to better understand from tenants what it is they want to see change about our services

Tenant scrutiny should give us much more of this