Issue - items at meetings - STAR survey of residents

Report of Executive Director of Environment, Development & Housing (copy attached).

  38.1  The Committee considered the report of the Executive Director  Environment, Development and Housing which provided feedback from a satisfaction survey of a sample of council tenants carried out in June 2014.  The survey results provided an up-to-date and statistically significant indication of customer satisfaction on a range of council housing services.  The report was presented by the Head of Income, Involvement & Improvement.  

38.2    Councillor Wilson noted that the report had some blank areas.  She had to work out for herself how many tenants had been selected.  She was not sure if these were tenants or households.  It would have been useful to know the percentage of overall tenant numbers or tenant households as it would provide context to the findings.  Several times the report referred to different groups such as young people, older people, LGBT people but it did not say how many within the group were surveyed.  It would be useful to know the percentages within groups.  There was a reference to a 26% interest in digital media.  However at the beginning of the report it mentioned that 7% of people were interested in using the internet.  It would be useful to look at that issue. 

38.3    Councillor Mears referred to the Community Engagement and Consultation paragraphs.  She considered that the report should have been submitted to the Area Panels before the Housing Committee.  The Chair emphasised that the report would be submitted to the Area Panels and was submitted to the Committee purely for noting.

38.4    Councillor Daniel referred to the Equalities Implications in paragraph 5.3.  This stated that most groups within equalities strands are well presented.  The report should have said which groups were not included. For example, paragraph 3.5.3 mentioned that younger people also expressed less satisfaction with the service.  Poverty could have been mentioned and ward data given.  E services/future planning could have been included in paragraph 5.4 – Sustainability Implications.  Paragraph 5.5 stated that there were no Crime and Disorder Implications.  Anti Social behaviour was not mentioned.  Corporate Implications could have mentioned the Contact Centre.

38.5    Councillor Meadows stated that she was still getting case work about poor satisfaction with work carried out.  There were concerns regarding repairs. 

38.6    Councillor Peltzer Dunn noted that there was a multitude of information in the report.  He felt that some of it was superfluous.  He referred to paragraph 3.3 which detailed the response rate – 24% - 724 respondents.  He felt that this was a disappointing response.  The council were relying on a base of 60% of what it achieved last year.  He felt it was important to have an authoritative response. 

38.7    Councillor Peltzer Dunn considered that many figures looked very good in the satisfaction survey. However of the six indicators 4 showed a decline of satisfaction.  He welcomed the report but felt it naïve to spend money on the survey and than say our figures are actually better than those shown.  This belittled the survey.  He felt it was a sad that one third of tenants felt did not feel the council listened or acted upon their views.  Councillor Peltzer Dunn asked for more details about repairs.  

38.8    James Crier reported that Mears Ltd had moved away from using PDAs (personal data assistants).  Mears had attempted to have postal returns, and then moved to telephone surveys.  This had lead to an increase in the satisfaction rate.  Texts were now being used and people appeared to like live information.  The telephone service had been operating for six weeks.  Mears were already seeing an improvement in the rate of responses and satisfaction.  Mears did engage with people when phoning them.   

38.9    The Executive Director  Environment, Development and Housing stated that the council were keen to have a variety of information.  This included the Star Survey and performance indicators.  All of this information was useful in trying to improve the service. 

38.10  The Head of Income, Involvement & Improvement stressed that the report did highlight an anomaly with the report on performance.  She stressed the importance of ensuring tenant satisfaction was maintained.  With regard to tenant involvement, the score this time was 64%.  This was higher than last time and higher than other organisations.   She acknowledged that the response rate was quite low.  Advice had been taken on this issue and the numbers were considered statistically significant.  

38.11  With regard to the comment about the equalities implication, she acknowledged that there was data that could have been included.  This data was in the detailed report.  The survey went out to 3000 tenants and there was a 24% response rate. 

38.12  RESOLVED - (1) That the report and comments made by the Committee be noted.