A new report - Choosing Choice - launched by Tribal at the CIH Conference in Harrogate concludes that empowering all tenants with more choice will drive the quality and efficiency of social housing services.
The report considers ways in which tenants can gain more choice over the services offered by registered providers and how the Tenant Services Authority (TSA) might support the development of this process.
It suggests that most services are designed to satisfy a small proportion of intensive users, or those tenants who become most involved with their housing provider, and argues that instead - clear choices should be given to all tenants.
The rationale behind this is that working to engage all tenants to offer more housing choices will help local providers to improve the quality and efficiency of their services to meet the real needs of their tenants.
Examples of choice for tenants might be paying a basic rent, but choosing to either pay extra or contribute some community service for extra, optional services like gardening or cleaning, choosing to carry out their own repairs and pay less rent, or paying extra rent which goes into a savings scheme.
From their discussions with both tenants and providers, Tribal developed some clear principles for providers as a basis for developing more choice to improve services.
Tenants want to be given clear options from which they are able to choose; providers need to offer more choices to tenants to drive up standards and encourage the service to be tailored to tenants' individual needs; and providers should develop mechanisms which can identify what tenants want in the prevailing local circumstances.
Angela Lomax, Director of Strategic Services in Tribal's housing practice, said:
"We know that tenants want to be offered more choice and to be able to personalise the service they receive. Our research shows that this is not just a nice-to-have, but a way of shaping services to deliver what is really needed.
"Reforms will be needed to allow providers to offer more choice, but the benefits of a more proactive, tailored service will make this ultimately worthwhile."
