Together with Tenants is about strengthening the relationship between people who live in housing association homes and their landlords. It aims to do this by setting clear commitments for tenants and residents on what they can and should expect from their landlord, enabling them to hold their housing association to account on the issues that matter to them.
Together with tenants was developed between tenants, the National Housing Federation and early adopter social housing organisations. MSV became an Early Adopter in 2019, involving our customers in the process and ensuring they had their voices heard.
Being a Together with Tenants adopter is a commitment to:
- Establish meaningful resident engagement in decision making.
- Work collaboratively with residents to design mechanisms for oversight.
- Support residents to hold MSV Housing to account.
- Be open to the challenges.
The charter outlines a set of principles that should govern our interactions with customers to ensure their voices are heard, actioned and concerns addressed. The charter aims to create and help sustain an environment where residents feel valued and empowered by their housing provider, and central to decision-making across the organisation.
As an Adopter of the Charter, we are making 6 commitments:
- Relationships: Housing associations will treat all residents with respect in all of their interactions. Relationships between residents and housing associations will be based on openness, honesty and transparency.
- Communication: Residents will receive clear, accessible and timely information from their housing association on the issues that matter to them, including important information about their homes and local community, how the organisation is working to address problems, how the organisation is run, and information about performance on key issues.
- Voice and influence: Housing associations will seek and value the views of residents, and will use this information to inform decisions. Every individual resident will feel listened to by their housing association on the issues that matter to them and can speak without fear.
- Accountability: Collectively, residents will work in partnership with their housing association to independently scrutinise and hold their housing association to account for the decisions that affect the quality of their homes and services.
- Quality: Residents can expect their homes to be good quality, well maintained, safe and well managed.
- When things go wrong: Residents will have simple and accessible routes for raising issues, making complaints and seeking redress. Residents will receive timely advice and support when things go wrong.
Our Customer Voice Strategy outlines how we will ensure Customer Voice is at the heart of everything we do. We worked closely with TPAS to co-design and develop the strategy, with over 200 customers involved in Discovery and Design sessions. You can read our Customer Voice Strategy here. (ADD LINK)
If you would like to help us review our performance against the Together with Tenants commitments and Customer Voice Strategy, email our Customer Voice and Influence Team – involvement@msvhousing.co.uk
