Working with our customers: engagement update January-March 2024

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 January to March 2024…

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 186 engaged customers.
• 22 CVP meetings and other engagement activities held this quarter.
• CVP members have reviewed our Customer Experience, Safeguarding Repairs and Void policies.
• 19 customers participated in the latest Tenancy and Neighbourhood Working Group meeting.

Customer Experience working group

As part of our work to improve the standard of service you receive when ringing the contact centre and when raising a complaint, we have recruited volunteers from our CVP to work with service managers to review complaint outcomes and analyse complaints data. This is with a view to the group making recommendations on how we can improve how complaints are recorded, reported, and learned from. They also provide feedback on call quality and call-handler performance to improve the customer journey.

• 11 CVP members participated this quarter.
• Additionally, customers reviewed FCHOs compliance against the Housing Ombudsman’s new complaint handling code.

Performance Challenge

• 9 customers took part in the first Performance Challenge meeting held this year.
• This time the group focused on Respect Our Communities Award (ROCA) funding.

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.

• 18 customers took part in the February Neighbourhood Champion inspections.

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/contributions scheme which offers funding to community and voluntary groups in Oldham.

• Grants and contributions made January-March 2024 totalled £11,830 across nine different projects.

Read a detailed view of our grants and contributions information. 

This web page has been improved following a recent customer review into FCHO’s grant making processes. Additional information has been provided on FCHO’s grants and contributions to give customers improved visibility of the community activities supported.

Funding & Partnership Development

• FCHO has supported local community partners to secure £258,700 of community funding into Oldham across seven different projects. 
• These projects have a wide range and themes and beneficiaries, from funding for community planting projects through to funding support for young people’s activity provision.

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.

• We are working with our constituted partners and companies with CIC (Community Interest Companies) status to roll out programs such as digital literacy, autism support and virtual walks. 
• We have supported community groups to develop sessional activities across the centres and provided the relevant training. Where needed, we have provided the resources for these sessions.
• We are working with The National Trust on the roll out of the Sky Garden competition which will be delivered in two of our neighbourhoods. We are in the process of holding engagement workshops and are working closely with our centre leads in driving interest and participation. The competition will take place over the summer.
• We are working with our Neighbourhoods team to hold surgeries at our community centres for customers to drop in and discuss any enquiries and issues with us. 
• We are supporting new groups of volunteers to access training to enable them to run sessional activities from our community centres. 
• We are supporting and assisting the Eden St project at our Barker St Community Centre. The OL1 Oldham group has secured funding from GM Green Spaces to develop a piece of FCHO-owned into a beautiful green space for local people to enjoy, with plants, shrubs, trees and an allotment area.