What you’ve said, and what we’re doing
In May this year, we invited all tenants to complete the STAR Survey, which we send once every two years. This survey has always been based on Housemark’s questions for resident satisfaction.
In 2022, the Regulator of Social Housing introduced new mandatory Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). We added these TSM questions into this STAR Survey – look out for the ‘TSM’ symbol to find them.
1,900 Southway tenants completed the survey this year. We’re grateful that so many of you have taken the time to give us feedback that we can use to help us to learn and improve.
Satisfaction with Southway overall has dropped since 2021, as have your scores in many of the other areas.
This was really disappointing. But, we also weren’t completely surprised by our result, given the feedback we had already had from you in the earlier Inspired by our Communities consultation.
At times we have struggled when faced with external challenges.
The rising costs of services and materials, and recruitment and resourcing issues, meant it has been difficult to recover our performance back to the levels that we delivered before the pandemic.
At the time that you answered the survey, we were not consistently keeping up with the volume of incoming calls to the Hub, or repairs that were being requested — and your results completely reflect this.
We want to say sorry and assure you that we were also unhappy with some of the service standards that we were offering in May.
They fell short of the standards we strive for. This year, we’ve been putting everything into improving these services to a level you’re happy with.
At the end of the survey, we asked, what are the main things you would like to see improve?
Here were the top comments by service:
Your Neighbourhood priorities are
- Dealing with ASB.
- Parking issues.
- Untidy gardens, and garden maintenance – comments asked for more action taken against issues, and more help for those who couldn’t manage.
- Community events, services, and spaces – a large portion of this feedback was about reopening community cafés at Age Friendly schemes.
Your Customer Service and Communication priorities are
- Answering the phone quicker – this was the comment we saw the most.
- Quicker response times elsewhere – from the Housing team, about your repairs, and in response to referrals.
- Better Digital services - improving our website forms, and the MySouthway tenant portal, in particular the repair booking tool, is very important to you.
- Listen meaningfully – show we’re listening and what we’ve done with your feedback.
Your Property priorities are
- Fencing and gates – particularly support with replacements.
- General improvements, upkeep, and maintenance – you asked for more investment in current housing stock.
- Tackling damp, mould and condensation – comments were about finding the root causes of problems, leading to long-term solutions over quick fixes.
- Heating and energy efficiency – you asked for energy
- efficiency upgrades and more efficient boilers.
Your Repairs and Maintenance priorities are
- Faster response to repair requests.
- Outstanding/overdue jobs – deal with these as soon as possible.
- Better information and communication needed – especially when scheduling or completing repairs.
- Better quality repairs in some areas.
No improvements needed
10% of comments gave us positive feedback or said no improvements were needed. Thank you for this feedback, it lets us know where we’re doing well and should keep investing. Positive feedback talked about:
- Being grateful for the safety and security of living in a social home
- Southway going above and beyond with support offered
- That we’re doing lots for the benefit of the local area
- Appreciation for the respect and politeness of our staff
View the full results summary. ***URL DOES NOT EXIST*** (https://www.southwayhousing.co.uk/STAR-Survey)
How we’re responding to feedback
Your feedback is now being used to shape how we deliver many of our services and will also be at the heart of any future plans for improvements.
Here are some examples of how – you can find out more throughout this newsletter.