Benefits of getting involved
How to get involved - video guide
There are many ways you can get involved to help us improve our service to you.
A good example of how tenants can make things better is the Tenant Scrutiny team. They've helped us by suggesting ways to improve our services. For example, they've worked with the Property Services team to make it easier for tenants to report and keep track of repairs in shared areas. They also suggested changes that helped us handle complaints faster.
Tenants are best placed to make local improvements in their communities, and successes have included setting up and supporting foodbanks, organising litter picks, supporting local art walks, planting trees, and landscaping communal gardens, supporting learning disability projects, organising community events like fayres and BBQs, and establishing community growing areas.
If you'd like to know more about the ways you can participate, simply email tenant.involvement@lewes-eastbourne.gov.uk for more information.
Our 'Tenant Involvement Strategy 2023 - 2027' shows many ways you can help, whether you have a little time or a lot. It explains how we truly listen to tenants and how your feedback helps us improve our housing services.
Tenant involvement strategy 2023-2027 (PDF, 1 MB)
After responsibility for the housing service was moved back to the management of Eastbourne Borough Council, a group called Listening to Eastbourne Tenants (LET) was set up to represent the views of all Eastbourne tenants and work with officers to drive service and performance improvements. LET meet quarterly and hold their Annual General Meeting AGM) every year in October as an open meeting that all tenants to attend.
Eastbourne Residents Voice represents the views of all Eastbourne residents. The group currently meets quarterly, and meetings are now open to all tenants and leaseholders which has encouraged new people to become involved and have their say.
You can also join meetings online using Microsoft Teams, which makes it much easier for more people to take part. Eastbourne Residents Voice also oversee a community improvements fund of £36,000 which can be used to fund projects that benefit local communities and areas.
The group was established fairly recently, so we are working with members to look at how we can build engagement with Eastbourne residents and help tenants influence Homes First policies and improve services and performance.
The Tenants of Lewes District (TOLD) represent the views of tenants across the whole Lewes District area. The TOLD Committee which is made up of 12 tenants and elected at an Annual General Meeting (AGM) in November, meets quarterly to discuss topical housing issues and Homes First performance. Open meetings, including the AGM, are held twice a year with guest speakers.
The TOLD committee also manages a community improvements budget of £15,000 which tenants can apply to for project funding that benefits their community.
We have a scrutiny team made up of Lewes District and Eastbourne tenants to help us review and improve our housing service on an ongoing basis. Tenant led scrutiny reviews are overseen by TOLD/LET who recruit tenants trained to carry out in-depth service reviews on a chosen service area. After each review, the Tenant Scrutiny team produce a report with evidence-based recommendations that is presented to the Homes First Senior Leadership Team (SLT) who agree improvement plans which are monitored by TOLD and LET at their meetings.
Over the last four years the Tenant Scrutiny team have reviewed complaints, rents recovery management, void (empty property) work, and how damp and mould issues are dealt with.
The work of the Tenant Scrutiny team demonstrates that when tenants do get involved, they really can make a difference.
We have developed a 'moment in time' feedback approach to capture what a tenants think about a service they've received. Asking for feedback when an experience is fresh in the mind gives us great insight and enables us to improve and develop our services. We are currently running transactional surveys for our complaints service, major works, new lettings, and repairs.
We are working with a research provider called Acuity to help deliver the surveys. Like us, Acuity fully complies with the Data Protection Act 2018 UK and General Data Protection Regulation or "GDPR". If you want to know more about how your data is managed, view our privacy notice.
We have piloted an approach to involve residents in checking the quality of our communal cleaning service in retirement housing and hope to explore how we can extend this approach to other schemes.
We sometimes run informal one-off discussion groups online or face to face to help us to look deeper into the customer experience in relation to key areas, such as our repairs service.
This is a joint forum made up of representatives from retirement housing schemes in Eastbourne and Lewes. The group meets quarterly, and new members are elected each year from individual schemes at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in April. An action plan is then agreed with officers and a newsletter produced for residents. The group also oversees a budget for community improvements.
The Virtual 300 is a way you can get involved and have your say without leaving home. We regularly email members to ask what they think about new policies, service improvement ideas and even competition entries. You can get involved as much or as little as you like, and we encourage participation with regular prize draws.
How to get involved
We offer practical support to all residents who wish to get involved by providing computer equipment where necessary, tailored IT support and help getting online.
We also provide training courses for involved residents, and over the last 18 months we have delivered four sessions which were design in response to tenant feedback on what was needed to engage in an empowered way.
- The Housing Revenue account and how it works
- Performance management - understanding the numbers
- Holding your Landlord to Account
- Strategic thinking
We also signpost to training sessions available in the sector with other organisations that include:
Guidance on issues including repairs and maintenance, anti-social behaviour, dealing with your landlord, and much more.
Free training designed to help you engage more effectively with your landlord and access better services.
Free webinars which tackle issues relevant to social housing.
Training videos that you can watch at any time and in any place.
We are members of the Tenant Participation and Advisory Service (TPAS) which allows us to sign up tenants for free. TPAS brings tenants, landlords and contractors together through a wide range of services, independent and impartial advice, support, consultancy, and training.
To help make it easier for tenants to participate, we also help with out-of-pocket cost such as travel expenses.
If you'd like to know more about any of the ways you can get involved, simply email tenant.involvement@lewes-eastbourne.gov.uk so we can send you more information or arrange a call to talk through the opportunities.
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