After a really thorough assessment, we’ve been awarded an accreditation in Tenant Engagement by the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (Tpas)!
Who are Tpas?
Tpas are England’s leading tenant engagement experts. They promote, support and champion tenant involvement and empowerment in social housing and their membership base is made up of tenants and landlords from across the country, covering 3 million homes.
Find out more about Tpas and how you can become a member by clicking here.
What does this new accreditation mean?
Our accreditation in Tenant Engagement means that Tpas have thoroughly assessed how we engage and involve our tenants, and found that we’re doing enough to meet their standards.
In fact, the pass rate for accreditation is 80% and we scored 97%!
The Tpas report stated “Achieving Tpas landlord accreditation is a strong contributor to the assurance that Midland Heart is seeking in providing excellence in tenant engagement outcomes.
The assessment has been a pleasure to complete, there has been lots of good practice areas identified. More importantly, the culture and passion of staff and tenants we met has been exemplary”.
What did the accreditation require?
Our bid for accreditation was led by our Tenant Scrutiny team, who worked really hard on this important achievement! Tpas met with staff and tenants to discuss our approach to tenant engagement and sat in on Involved Tenant meetings to really understand how they get to have their say on our services.
We also had to submit evidence to show our tenant engagement across seven themes:
- Governance and transparency
- Scrutiny
- Business and strategy
- Complaints
- Information and communication
- Resources for engagement
- Community and wider engagement
What are the next steps?
Although we achieved 97% in our assessment, we also received a number of recommendations from Tpas that they felt could improve our approach to tenant engagement even more.
A few of these recommendations were:
- Providing extra information around how tenants can access the Independent Housing Ombudsman
- Making sure we provide information about My Voice in different ways to reach our diverse tenant base
- Introducing an independent tenant advice service to consult on significant changes to our services
We’ll be working with the relevant teams on all the recommendations made by Tpas to understand how we could implement some of these and the value it would add to our tenant engagement offering.
We hold our Tpas accreditation for 3 years, at which point we’ll need to be re-assessed.
How can I get involved?
It’s really important to us that you have your say on our services, and feel informed and involved in what we do.
Our My Voice programme gives you lots of different ways to get involved! Whether you just have a couple of hours to spare each month or you’d like to get more involved in Scrutiny groups and helping with our induction process for new colleagues, you can choose what suits you best.
One of our tenants said, “I value being involved personally, and making a difference to the community”, while another fed back that “We can challenge them; they listen and act”.
Find out more about My Voice and how you can get involved by clicking here.
