Improving the lives of social housing tenants: results of the Tenant Satisfaction Measures Report

27th August 2024

by Mark Gannon

With the first year of annual reporting on the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) Standard complete, housing associations and local government housing providers now patiently wait to see how they have performed – with all results expected to be published in Autumn 2024. If the results that have been published over the summer by some councils are anything to go by, many housing providers will be facing a wake-up call.

Charnwood Borough Council is one council that has already published its results, indicating poor satisfaction levels; only 58% of respondents are satisfied that their home is well maintained, and as little as 28% of respondents are satisfied with the approach to complaints handling. Industry experts are predicting poor results for many associations and pointing to several factors including the lack of maintenance support, poor communication strategies and complaint responses for such a stark decline in satisfaction levels.

The TSM Standard aims to improve the lives of social housing tenants — making sure they are listened to, able to live in safe homes in good repair and their complaints are well handled. However, according to a Housemark survey, only 58.9% of tenants feel their landlord listens to their views, leaving almost half feeling overlooked. Early indications are proving that many housing providers aren’t providing enough for tenants when it comes to building safety, housing conditions, maintenance and repairs. These early results highlight how crucial the new TSM Standard reporting will be in defining what good tenant services look like, whilst holding landlords accountable if the services are not up to scratch.

Poor results in tenant satisfaction rates

Analysis from Housemark has revealed that overall satisfaction has fallen 15% in five years – from 85.1% in 2018-19 to 69.4% in 2023-24. While the overall satisfaction rates for housing associations were 72.9% and 65.7% for local authorities. Many landlords think that they provide an adequate level of satisfaction and performance to their tenants, however, data from Inside Housing provides a different view. Only 42.8% of tenants agree that their organisation’s customer service levels meet those set out in the new standards. Judging from the early data available, many housing providers are going to have to improve their tenant services if they’re to meet the new standards they’re being measured against.

However, there is an argument to be made that given this is the first year of official reporting, housing providers may be allowed some leeway if they show improvement plans to meet the required satisfaction level. With the prediction of poor results from the first year of reporting, there currently aren’t any clear consequences from the newly elected government on those that don’t meet the required standard.

Rather than punishing those, whether that be through fines or penalties, the UK government should help create and enforce performance improvement plans. The issue many smaller housing providers have is the lack of funds to make significant improvements to cater to tenants. However, rather than penalising the housing providers and taking more money from them through fines/penalties, the UK government can work with them to create improvement plans that will ensure changes are made to meet the required level that the TSM Standard expects.

Tenant satisfaction surveys and feedback

While the focus must remain on the housing providers to meet TSM Standards, the most important voices are often forgotten – tenants and residents. Feedback from the customer (tenant) is a key priority for housing providers, it gives tenants the ability to feel listened to about topics such as housing conditions, maintenance and any other concerns.

However, most of the noise in the industry surrounds the need for housing providers and landlord’s to meet the new standards. Very little is focused on what the tenants want and need – which is the fundamental point of the new TSM reporting. It could be argued that there is a real culture problem within housing associations and that the tenant/resident voice isn’t brought into the conversation enough when it comes to reporting.

If housing providers want to improve on the predicted poor results, then there needs to be a more proactive and engaged approach in their communities. Rather than just waiting for the tenants to share feedback, be proactive and create communication channels that allow residents to share their voices – whether that be web forms, telephone, face-to-face meetings, emails or social media. Collecting feedback can take up a lot of bandwidth, but setting up the relevant channels will allow landlords to easily collect feedback at any given time and then act on it to provide improved services.

How effective are the new TSM reporting standards?

Across the industry, there is a debate as to whether this new set of reporting standards is going to have a big enough impact to push housing providers into action if results are poor or whether it is just a toothless framework telling us what we all already know but with no outcomes for failure. So far, the data available has shown that the majority of housing providers are engaging successfully with the new framework; many are finding it useful, with a sizeable proportion using the results of TSM surveys to shape their services and business strategy for the next year.

Reporting TSM surveys isn’t enough, housing providers need to share their solutions. Sharing knowledge and insights can be hugely beneficial, especially to the smaller housing providers that aren’t necessarily able to gather as much data from their tenants as the larger housing associations can. By sharing solutions to tackle the poor results from TSM surveys, other housing associations can learn and implement similar services that have proven to be successful among tenants in other areas. Creating a more collaborative environment and sharing good practices/solutions will encourage other housing providers within the industry to act.

In today’s digital evolution, the housing industry still falls behind in terms of transforming services – a vast majority of housing associations still use outdated systems and disconnected solutions. Because of this, many tenants find it difficult to report an issue to their housing provider or landlords about housing conditions or building maintenance.

With the development of AI, there is so much automation available to housing associations to use that isn’t being implemented which can greatly benefit both landlords’ and tenants’ experiences. For example, using low-code solutions to create a case management system can integrate different services including repairs, complaints and other issues such as damp and mould, and anti-social behaviour, into one unified view. Using low-code tools, housing providers can harness data from multiple legacy systems to streamline workflows, enabling digital services and the creation of connected, self-serve tenant experiences by having the right data in the right place at the right time.

Utilising AI can allow housing providers to implement preventative measures for tenants rather than reactive solutions. With the right tools in place and by leveraging technologies such as AI, low-code and RPA, housing providers can keep tenant needs firmly in focus, whilst achieving TSM objectives and taking advantage of greater savings and efficiencies.

The TSM reporting measures should be viewed across the industry as the minimum standard that housing providers are delivering to their tenants. Everyone should be looking to excel beyond these standards and with the development of new technologies have the opportunity to ensure that tenant voices are heard and acted upon in a manner that is efficient and cost-effective for landlords.