Working with our customers: engagement update January-April 2023

Engaging with our customers and listening to their views is very important to us. Customer feedback makes a difference to the way we deliver our services, drives improvements for everyone who lives in a First Choice Homes Oldham (FCHO) home and local communities, and helps us as we strive to be an excellent landlord.

On this page you can see all the ways we’ve worked with our customers to make positive changes April-June 2023…

Our Customer Voice Panel (CVP) is made up of customers from across our neighbourhoods and has been set up to give a real voice to those who live in our homes, so they influence our services and bring about improvements.

• CVP membership now stands at 172 engaged customers
• 14 CVP meetings and other engagement activities held this quarter
• 18 customers attended the complaints policy review meeting
• 8 customers participated in the latest customer void inspections
• 116 customers engaged April–June

Consumer Standards

FCHO and all registered providers of social housing must comply with standards from the Regulator of Social Housing.

The standards ensure tenants:

• Get quality accommodation
• Have choice and protection, and
• Can hold their landlords to account.

We have recently submitted our consumer standards self-assessments to the Regulator of Social Housing. In May we held two sessions with customers to review our self-assessments and to gain feedback from customers on our performance.

• 19 customers attended the sessions.
• All feedback was positive, and customers said we demonstrate compliance in all areas.

Performance Challenge

• 14 customers took part in May’s Performance Challenge meeting, this time focusing on the way in which we share our performance data.
• Customers gave feedback around the accessibility and friendliness.
• The session was attended by our Head of Business Transformation, who is currently revising the way we report performance to our customers, in line with the group’s feedback.

Our Neighbourhood Champions carry out quarterly neighbourhood inspections and report back on the condition of their neighbourhood including grounds maintenance, communal area cleaning, litter, and fly tipping.

• 23 customers took part in the June Neighbourhood Champion inspections.
• Customers told us that in specific areas, the grassed area was overgrown. Our Neighbourhood Care team has taken this onboard and will ensure a consistent standard across all teams.

Customer Sustainability Champions

Our Customer Sustainability Champions are helping us on our journey to make our customers’ homes and communities, and our business, more sustainable and fit for the future.

• In May we held a meeting with our Customer Sustainability Champions to discuss wider tenant engagement and communications on sustainability matters.
• 8 customers attended and shared their views on communicating with customers about energy efficiency upgrades at their homes. Their recommendations are shaping our work to make energy efficiency improvements to 350+ homes 2023-2025.

We support community and voluntary groups in Oldham with a number of funding streams.

ROCA (FCHO Funding)

ROCA (Respect Our Community Awards) is our grant scheme which offers funding to community and voluntary groups in Oldham.

• Grants and donations made April- June 2023 totalled £3,815.
• These grants and donations covering community pride in place activities, community research and a young people’s project.
• We are awaiting the outcome of a funding bid for £15k that we have supported one of our community partners to apply for, to help them improve local natural spaces.

Funding & Partnership Development

• Currently we are in the process of applying for, or have applied for, a total £302k of funding from various funders to support community and partner projects. One of these applications is a large, Oldham wide community engagement project.
• We are also excited to be working with a new community group in Sholver with a view to delivering joint positive outcome in the area.
• We are working with Action Together and training a group of FCHO customer advisors to help us improve our grant making activity.

Community Groups/Networks

We are involved in multiple community partnerships and networks and support community groups with activities like grant funding applications outside of ROCA and our Community Awards.

• At the request of our community partners at Ridgefield Street Community Centre and at Nelson Way Community Centre, we are now offering a series of armchair yoga sessions.
• We continue to develop ideas and projects with a network of Oldham community planting groups and with the support of our Neighbourhood Care team. We are developing some very interesting community proposals in Failsworth – more news on that soon.

West Vale is our project set to transform the area where tower blocks Crossbank House and Summervale House once stood. On the vacant site we are building 88 high quality, new homes to help meet local housing need. We are working with local people and organisations for the benefit of the community as the West Vale project progresses.

The Towers: A history of Summervale and Crossbank project, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund

This project is now complete. The Digital Historians’ final place history platform is now live and can be viewed online at towersoldham.uk.

This website will live on as an archive for locals to contribute stories to. In doing so, they can help us build up an even richer resource that preserves the changing face of Coldhurst.

Following the project’s completion, we are now supporting a number of Oldham community partners in Oldham to develop their own community heritage proposals.