Broxbourne Housing Association is committed to encouraging residents to get involved in how services are delivered to them.
We have developed a residents’ involvement strategy and action plan so that we can support residents to be involved in whatever way they like. The full strategy is available here. The action plan can be viewed here.
If you would like to get involved to help improve standards, there are a variety of options available for you:
Broxbourne Housing Association is run by a Board of Management of 12 unpaid volunteers, made up of:
4 residents, directly elected by all residents every three years;
4 community members with particular business, professional or social skills; and
4 Borough Council representatives.
Residents on the Board of Managers have the same voting rights as other Board members and represent a third of the Management Committee. We believe that residents know best what they need their housing service to provide, so it makes sense to ensure that they are well represented on the Board.
Residents Panel
This friendly group is very important to how Broxbourne Housing Association is run. It meets every three months to review our service provision and performance, consider new policies and provide feedback from a user perspective on how we can improve the service we provide.
Resident Compact Meetings
We hold a series of meetings across the borough (in Hoddesdon, Cheshunt and Waltham Cross) twice each year. The meetings are open to all residents and are held in the morning, afternoon and evening to enable residents the feasibility to attend at a time that suits them best. These meetings focus on service improvement and local issues.
Leaseholder Compact Meetings
We recently held our second leaseholders’ meeting. We hold two of these across the borough each year to focus on how our services can better meet the needs of our leaseholders. These are often lively sessions, with discussion ranging from estate improvement works to resident involvement and anti-social behaviour.
Annual Residents’ Conference
BHA Keeping Our Promises
More than 90 people attended the residents conference held at Wolsey Hall in September this year. The theme of the conference this year was ‘keeping our promises’, looking back over the two and a half years since BHA was created and asking residents how we’re doing so far.
Our special guest at the conference this year was Clive Webb from Heart of England, the organisation that advised Broxbourne Council residents on the proposals to create BHA. Heart of England carried out an exercise with attending residents to find out whether they agreed that BHA had been keeping the key promises made. The overall answer for over 80% of residents asked was a very encouraging YES!
What was also very encouraging was that more than 90% of attendees told us that they enjoyed the conference overall and will attend again next year.
We were also given many good ideas for encouraging younger residents to attend next year such as holding the event later in the day or on weekends, providing more information for leaseholders, advertising the event in shops and local papers, including leisure activities and entertainment information and encouraging residents to publicise the conference through word of mouth. .
If you would like further feedback on the Conference, please contact Peter on 01992 453 776
Resident Associations & Groups
Setting up a Residents’ Association could be a way to:
make your collective views known to us on particular issues of concern where you live
to have more say about the way services are delivered to your area
to help improve living conditions and local facilities for residents
to promote a sense of community
We are keen to support residents to get together as a group and be involved in setting priorities for improvements where they live. BHA can provide financial and administrative help if you want to set up an association.
We also work with local groups and other agencies to tackle larger local issues affecting several estates or a certain area of the borough. Click here for information on how to set up an association.
Retirement Housing Meetings
Broxbourne Housing Association provides a service to 10 Retirement Housing Schemes; all of which hold regular meetings for its residents to ensure that our older residents are able to feed their views back about the quality of service they receive, and how it should be delivered to them.
Focus Groups
This is when a small group of residents get together to discuss a specific topic. It usually lasts about two hours and can be facilitated by staff or an independent person. Focus groups allow us to explore a topic in lots of detail. We hold focus groups when we review policies and procedures and have consulted with residents to agree the topics that they wish to discuss.
Electronic Compact
We have established a group of 60 residents whose preferred means of involvement is via the internet. We involve this group in planning our 2007 annual conference and plan a series of consultation and involvement initiatives, the next of which is in relation to consultation on grounds maintenance standards on our estates. If you are interested, you can sign up for online discussions about resident issues by
and sending us your details.
Resident Inspector Scheme
We are always on the look out for enthusiastic volunteers to keep an eye on their local areas. To be a resident inspector, you do not need to come to meetings; you just keep a check on what’s going on and report any problems to us. These could be repairs that need doing, graffiti to be removed, rubbish that’s been dumped or grass that needs cutting.
Community Audit Programme
‘We will be holding a programme of community audits on our larger estates over the next few months – and you could be part of them.
A community audit is where residents come together with our representatives to look at the general area and tell us about the issues which are causing problems for you and your neighbours. We can then jointly agree a plan of action to improve your environment and the community.
We want to provide you with the best possible service; this includes producing a newsletter that tells you what you want to know. Broxbourne Housing Association issues a quarterly resident newsletter to keep you up to date with the work we’re doing for you and the community (click here for the latest edition)
Editorial Panel
This is a panel, which meets to discuss and advise on the content and design of the residents’ newsletters, leaflets, reports and our website to ensure that they remain readable, relevant and up to date with residents needs. If you are interested in taking part in the Editorial Panel please let us know.
Satisfaction Surveys
We carry out satisfaction surveys across different service areas; these include major works, responsive repairs, lettings and anti-social behaviour services. The results tell us how well we deliver services and help us to identify areas for improvement. This feedback also helps us to ensure that Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) residents, disabled residents and other potentially disadvantaged groups are at least as satisfied with our services as residents generally. We also compare our satisfaction levels with similar landlords to measure how well we are performing.
Complaints, compliments and suggestions
We welcome all types of customer feedback including complaints. Residents can give us feedback by phone, e-mail, in person and in writing. We have a formal complaints policy which means that we will respond to all complaints within set time scales.
More Information
If you would like to join or set up a residents' association in your area, or would other wise like to get involved in how Broxbourne Housing Association is run please contact the Resident Involvement Manager, Peter Walkinshaw on 01992 453776 or email
.
We are also part of a resident involvement group covering Hertfordshire known as tpherts. To visit their website please click here.
