As of 1st April 2023, the Regulator of Social Housing’s new Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) requirements came into effect. The TSMs are intended to help tenants hold their landlords to account in areas that are important to them. There are 22 mandatory TSMs, 12 of which are  based on perception surveys with a sample of tenants.

For 2023-24, we commissioned an independent company called Acuity to complete perception surveys with Barnet Homes and Opendoor Homes tenants. The surveys asked questions about the 12 TSMs, and we added an additional question about the ease of dealing with us as we know that this is important to tenants. At the end of the survey, an open-ended question was asked to allow tenants to give reasons for their scores and suggest improvements. Leaseholder perception surveys were also completed across the year by our in-house Customer Care Officer.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to complete a survey with Acuity or our Customer Care Officer – we are really grateful for your feedback which we are using to improve services.

Indicator Barnet Homes tenants Opendoor Homes tenants Barnet Homes leaseholders
Overall satisfaction with landlord as a social housing provider 59.1% 69% 45.9%
Proportion of respondents who have received a repair in the last 12 months who report that they are satisfied with the overall repairs service 59.5% 61% 45.3%
Proportion of respondents who have received a repair in the last 12 months who report that they are satisfied with time taken to complete most recent repair 54.8% 55% 41.2%
Satisfaction that the home is well maintained 57.3% 72% N/A
Satisfaction that the home is safe 66.3% 75% 51.5%
Satisfaction that the landlord listens to your views and acts upon them 51.3% 53% 31.9%
Satisfaction that the landlord keeps you informed about things that matter to you 72.5% 74% 62.6%
Agreement that the landlord treats you fairly and with respect 69.6% 77% 53.6%
Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling complaints 29.8% 28% N/A
Satisfaction that the landlord keeps communal areas clean and well maintained 58.3% 61% 41.1%
Satisfaction that the landlord makes a positive
contribution to neighbourhoods		 63.5% 79% N/A
Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour 59.6% 61% N/A
Proportion of respondents who report that they are satisfied that their landlord is easy to deal with 56.4% 69% 37.8%
Satisfaction with value for money of service charges N/A N/A 28.7%

What has the survey feedback told us?

The table below shows the areas that are most important to residents and the specific concerns of residents in each area that we need to address.

Area Specific resident concerns from survey responses
How well maintained your home is & Overall satisfaction with the repairs
service
  • Time taken to complete repairs
  • • Outstanding/ forgotten repairs
  • • Missed or rearranged appointments
  • • Lack of action once repair reported
How well we listen to your views & act on them
  • Calls not being returned as promised
  • Not feeling listened to as have a long wait for a response
How easy we are to deal with
  • Difficult to get through on the phone lines
  • • Long wait time on the phone lines
  • • Lack of response to calls or emails

What improvements are we making?

Repairs remains a key driver of satisfaction with particular concerns being the time taken to complete repairs and outstanding repairs. A Repairs Improvement Plan has been developed and
will be monitored by the Resident Board.

To improve the repairs service for customers, our current focus is on:

  • Recruiting more Operatives to ensure we are resourced
  • Improving how we manage repair appointment changes if we need to make them so that residents are always contacted to agree the new appointment time
  • Changing how we manage repairs that are not fixed on the first visit to minimise delays for residents having their repair fully fixed.

To make it easier for residents to get what they need from us, our current focus is on:

  • Implementing fixes to the current telephony system to prevent resident calls from not connecting or being cut off
  • Recruiting additional Customer Service Officers to assist with the increased volume of customer calls during high demand periods
  • Introducing a call back service for customers with new repair requests who abandoned their call whilst waiting to not get through to Customer Contact
  • Monitoring customer requests that are passed from Customer Contact to other services to help ensure they are actioned on time.