Principal purpose of the role
* To ensure tenant involvement and empowerment are at the heart of decisions, service provision and delivery in all aspects of the housing service.
* To ensure the Council fulfills and adheres to legislative and regulatory tenant involvement and engagement requirements
* To develop, champion and deliver the Council's Tenant Involvement Strategy.
* To keep abreast of good practice and new initiatives to support continuous improvement in tenant engagement and involvement.
* To ensure the services are carried out in accordance with Council policy, current legislation and with a strong commitment to customer care.
* To plan, coordinate and deliver a diverse calendar of tenant engagement events that strengthen community involvement, improve communication, and support service improvement.
Main duties and accountabilities
* Support the work of the Tenants Panel and other engaged resident groups, developing their capacity, developing and implementing an annual service/work plan with them and be their principal point of contact. This includes coordinating any associated training sessions, workshops, and events.
* Develop and implement a Tenant Involvement Strategy in partnership with tenants, Councillors, staff and other agencies which has reference to the Council's Corporate Priorities, the Housing Service Plans and the Regulator of Social Housing Consumer Standards.
* Develop, procure and manage a range of internal and external tenant satisfaction surveys.
* Work with tenants, officers and Councillors to develop Local Standards, monitoring, reviewing and reporting performance to tenants and Councillors.
* Understand the Regulator of Social Housing regulatory requirements in relation to tenant involvement and empowerment, providing support to service managers, influencing their service delivery decisions and supporting the housing service to adhere to consumer standards.
* Develop and support tenant participation in service delivery, to meet the needs of tenants, through a range of outcome-driven, best practice, proactive and innovative approaches that are evaluated for success, including providing training to build capacity.
* Plan, manage and deliver a programme of tenant engagement events throughout the year, including estate days, community consultation events, recognition awards, workshops and drop-in sessions—ensuring wide and inclusive participation.
* Develop and implement, with housing staff, opportunities for tenant participation in strategic work of the housing service, such as housing staff recruitment, procurement of housing services, service reviews, budgets and business planning.
* Keep up to date with regulatory requirements and best practice in tenant participation and disseminate to the Council's staff and Councillors by a variety of means (e.g. staff briefings, training workshops, reports etc.)
* Maintain tenant and leaseholder representation on the Editorial Board for the production of
Waverley Homes and People
, the Council's newsletter for tenants and leaseholders, website and mass tenant communications.
* Liaise with the Community Development team in developing local neighbourhood agreements and ensure it complements other engagement activities.
* Support the Housing Management team in the development of local residents associations, ensuring they have the skills and capacity to support these groups and other new local initiatives.
* Coordinate the housing service's participation activities, maintaining a database of participation work, carrying out an annual impact assessment evaluating the cost and outcomes from participation activities and provide reports as required.
* Lead on all event logistics, including venue booking, promotion, accessibility planning, stakeholder coordination, and evaluation.
* Collaborate with tenants and staff to co-design creative and inclusive event content that aligns with service priorities and enhances community engagement.
* Produce reports for and attend Tenant Panel, the Landlord Services Advisory Executive Working Group and other Council Committee meetings as required.
* Attend, plan, and support participation events in the community.
General
* Develop an understanding of the costs of resident engagement, ensuring residents are receiving best value for money by continually seeking ways to improve efficiency and outcomes.
* Produce activity and performance reports on a quarterly basis and statistical information as required.
* Manage budgets.
* Utilise IT systems and new technology to maintain accurate records of all activities and transactions, making best use of electronic systems to improve work processes and efficiencies.
* Maintain and develop housing website pages in relation to tenant participation, and advise service managers on improvements to other housing pages.
Business Continuity
* Play a pivotal role in business continuity planning and should the need arise assist in ensuring business recovery of key service provision in a 24 hour window.
Health and Safety
* Comply with all Health and safety legislation for your area of work, ensuring that risks are identified, managed and monitored as required.
Dimensions of the role
* Empower and support the Tenants Panel.
* Manage the Tenant Participation budget.
* Contract manage and/or design and deliver tenant satisfaction surveys.
* To attend, plan and coordinate approximately 10 evening meetings and four weekend events per annum.
* To manage relationships with approximately 5,000 tenants, 400 leaseholders, and 50 Elected Members.
* Plan and deliver a varied programme of 10–15 tenant engagement events annually.
Areas of Accountability/Problem Solving – Decision Making / Scope for Impact
* The Council's Housing Service performance is assessed by tenants and the Regulator of Social Housing and this post plays a key role in the Council performing well against this assessment.
* It has a major impact on how the housing service delivers its services through engaging tenants in choices and decisions and impacts on tenant satisfaction levels.
Planning/Organising/Controlling
* Empowering tenants to engage with services.
* Tenant Involvement Strategy.
* Tenant satisfaction surveys.
* Tenant communications.
* Tenant events – planning, coordinating, delivering, and evaluating tenant-facing events throughout the year.
* Principal contact and support for all engaged and interested tenants.
* Support housing teams with co-design and engagement in all services.