Dudley's housing report signals failures in communication

Councillors discussed an improvement plan into housing provision across the Dudley borough at a housing and public realm scrutiny committee meeting.

The local council commissioned an experienced housing consultant, Duncan Forbes, to carry out a review of the directorate of housing and communities in October 2021.

The review found Dudley Council performing “below” the performance of landlords in other similar local authorities – especially with communicating information to tenants.

The findings follow a survey of 3,349 tenants in 2018, which found communication to be poor.

The report states: “There is a lot of anecdotal feedback from tenants that we aren’t good at communicating with them and not good at listening to their views, so the results are consistent with the day to day messages we get from tenants.”

The report also mentioned that while services provided are “delivered to a good or excellent standard”, significant improvements in two-way communication with staff and tenants, and handling customers issues, were necessary.

Such was the findings by Mr Forbes, they recommended a need for a “significant change in culture”, which the council admitted will “take many months and some years to implement fully”.

But Dudley Council stated that “no timescales” were needed for any projects, noting their new cultural approach they want to promote involves a “collaborative approach” with staff and members.

It comes after the government published a White Paper on social housing in November 2020. The aims of the paper include social housing tenants are safe, are listened to, live in good quality homes, and to “put things right when things go wrong”.

The Regulator of Social Housing, which now regulates local authority housing provision, now requires local authorities to be “transparent” about their performance and decision-making – so that tenants and the regulator can hold their council to account.

Councillor Laura Taylor-Childs, cabinet member for housing and community safety, said: “We recognise there have been frustrations from tenants and we are committed to improve levels of satisfaction with the housing service.

“We have acted, and in October last year we undertook a huge piece of work reviewing every aspect of the service we provide.

“The review recognised that we are providing many services to a good or excellent standard, but, as we expected, also identified a number of high level improvements we need to make to help our tenants.

“They include improving the way we communicate with tenants and bettering our systems for handling and responding to customer service enquiries.

“We are working in partnership with residents and tenants’ associations to improve services in these key areas, oversee progress and ensure a positive impact on tenants.

“Work has started in earnest this month on implementing the recommendations for improvements, and we are committed to providing the best possible service for our tenants and residents.”