Still time for residents to have their say on draft Resident Engagement Strategy
There is still time for residents to have their say on proposals to improve the way Hackney Council’s Housing Services talks to, listens to and involves them in developing its services.
People living in Hackney Council homes have until Sunday 4 September to comment on the Council’s draft Resident Engagement Strategy - with anyone completing the consultation being in with the chance of winning £100 in vouchers.
As well as being designed to ensure residents are at the heart of everything the service does, the strategy seeks to give them more opportunities to get involved and influence the quality of life in their local areas.
The draft strategy has been developed based on the feedback to an initial consultation involving a wide range of residents and staff last year.
The result of this made it very clear that how the service communicates with residents needed to change and improve. It also showed that more was needed to be done to involve residents in shaping its housing services, offer a broader range of ways for them to give feedback, and to provide better support to residents’ groups.
Five key priorities have been developed to address these issues, each with action points showing how they will be implemented. The five priority areas are
- embedding a Resident First culture across the Housing Service
- supporting residents groups to thrive
- widening the ways residents can engage with the service and promoting more digital engagement
- ensuring residents can influence decision making and drive improvements across the service
- promoting engagement activity that strengthens communities
A major consultation is currently underway to ensure the draft strategy covers all of the issues raised by residents and staff. A number of estate-based events have also been held to give residents the opportunity to talk to Housing Services staff and find out more about the proposals.
This is an important consultation as the results will help ensure we deliver stronger and better ways of communicating with our residents and ensure they can play a key role in helping us improve.
We have listened and taken onboard the views and concerns of our residents and staff in developing this draft strategy and now we need to check that we have covered everything or if there is anything we missed.
Only by us working closely with our residents can we truly enhance the way we talk to and listen to them and make the changes we want and need to make to ensure we are delivering a service with our residents firmly at the centre of everything it does.
More information about the draft strategy, the estate-based events and to take part in the consultation see https://hackney.gov.uk/housing-get-involved