We want to give you the best service possible, and make sure you love living in your home. But without up-to-date information, and knowing who our tenants and leaseholders really are, we can’t do this.
We spoke to one of our involved tenants, John, about why it’s so important for us to have up-to-date tenant information.
John’s experience
I've been an involved customer for several years and there's an awful lot of information I felt it was none of Midland Heart's business to know. Then I was invited to sit on their Equality, Diversity and Inclusion group during 2020 and had my eyes opened.
The EDI group is constantly looking at how the business treats people and the impacts that decisions have on tenants. It soon became clear that all my missing data was actually harming their decision making.
Updating your information will help us make better decisions
Midland Heart is going to ask you about lots of things you might feel are sensitive data and actually none of their business, but it’s simply to update their records and it's important that you let them know what they're asking for. We cannot reasonably test the impact of any of our decisions without understanding who you are.
Unless you tell us, we don't know if decisions we've made are unintentionally harming minority groups, we cannot make reasonable accommodations for things that you might need, and we aren't able to make changes that are fair and equitable to everyone.
A handful of examples
We want to know if anyone who lives in your home suffers from mental health issues or learning difficulties. Why is this important? If you suffer from PTSD we can double check you have someone with you when we visit to help keep you calm. We can send out operatives that are less likely to trigger a panic attack.
Or if you have a child with a specific routine because of a learning difficulty we can make arrangements to ensure we don’t disrupt your routine when doing a repair or making contact.
We want to know if you're GSRM or LGBTQIA+. Why is it important? We know that these people face a greater potential to be on the receiving end of abuse and antisocial behaviour. We want to make sure that Midland Heart doesn't add to this in any way and that if there is any known ASB in your area, then we can check you're safe and protected.
Why is it important?
It's an unfortunate fact that the easiest way for us to see if a policy is having a negative impact is to take a look at the people moving out of Midland Heart properties.
If we know more about the people who make that choice, we can better understand the people we might be unintentionally making feel unsafe or unwelcome - and adjust our policies to make them fairer for everyone.
I know Midland Heart does a lot of work to ensure that people are treated fairly and with respect, through assessing policies, listening to the tenant voice, working on fairness and respect, aids and adaptations and equality impact assessments.
But, I know that Midland Heart are not perfect and have work to do - and the important thing is, they know this too. Their board and highest-level management genuinely care about doing the work to fix these issues and making sure their tenants have a service that works for them.
We’re currently running a pilot tenant census with a selection of our tenants and leaseholders, to improve the information we hold. We’ll soon be rolling this out to all our tenants, so please keep an eye out for more information on this. In the meantime, you can visit www.midlandheart.org.uk/tenantcensus to find out more.
