Tenants' Talk

Tenants’ Talk Topic: Procurement

What did we talk about:

Procurement is the process of buying goods and services from suppliers and contractors. We looked at:
•    what is included in the Procurement Act 2023
•    the challenges we face
•    tenders due over the next 12 months
•    how tenants want to be involved
•    how to get the best out of the tender process
•    providing feedback to tenants about the outcome of tenders, who won and why
•    value for money - cheapest is not always best
•    how to get around artificial intelligence (AI) being used to write tenders

Next steps:
•    find out the outcome of analogue to digital procurement
•    identify tenders for services to tenants over the next 12 months
•    improve feedback of outcomes to tenants
•    use the Tenants’ Forum to feed back the results

Tenants’ Talk Topic: Social Value

What we talked about:

•    social value at Progress Housing Group means ‘financial and non-financial, local, emotional, psychological and physical impact that the Group’s activities have on their stakeholders, either directly or indirectly’
•    lots of the core activities at Progress Housing Group are considered social value as they bring added benefits to tenants and communities
•    we will continue to provide an annual summary report through an infographic report, and publish an in-depth 3-year report
•    tenants liked the detail in reports and the video stories that bring it to life
•    we are trying to improve the way we include social value in all our contracts with external contractors and suppliers

Next steps:

•    include colleague satisfaction, retention and the number of tenants employed by Progress Housing Group in the next report
•    continue to promote social value through stories
•    we will continue to develop our procurement process with contractors and suppliers to include more social value

Tenants’ Talk Topic: Customer Voice Shaping Services

What we talked about:

•    the Customer Voice Shaping Services Strategy sets out the Group’s approach to listening to what our customers are telling us, and how we put that into action to make changes and improvements.
•    suggestions or other ways to engage with tenants:
- through activities
- with other agencies
- we want to engage more with young families
•    tenants thought everything was included in the strategy and felt engagement is working, as they can see changes being made

•    what we could do better:
- share stories of success better
- use real people - tenants and colleagues

Next steps:
•    the strategy is still in draft and will be completed over the next few weeks
•    we will send a copy of the draft strategy and action plan to tenants

Tenants’ Talk Topic: Accessible communication

What we talked about:

•    what makes good and bad written communication
•    examples of communication from other organisations to identify what tenants liked and disliked
•    the proposed rent statement letter for Progress Housing Group and RWP 
•    suggestions to improve the layout for both versions of rent statement letter. This letter template will be used to develop all standard letter templates used by the Group and RWP
•    this will be a big project, but this is a very positive first step

Next steps:

•    rent statement letter templates will be amended and shared with tenants for further comment
•    template will be used as format for all Group and RWP letter templates