Resident consultation feedback

Introduction

We regularly consult with our residents to help shape and improve our services. We will regularly update this section of our website to share our residents views to surveys and the actions we have taken in response.

As a community landlord, Melin Homes has a legal obligation under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 (RHWA) to consult with its residents regarding any proposals for changes to the way homes are managed or services provided that may affect them. This could include a new maintenance programme, improvement, or a change in policy or practice. However, this does not include any changes in rent or charges for services and facilities.

To ensure an effective consultation process, Melin Homes will engage with its residents and listen to their views before making any final decisions. Clear and concise information will be provided to the residents who are affected by the proposed changes. Melin Homes will offer various ways for residents to provide feedback, such as through questionnaires or focus groups. Melin Homes will then review how to obtain the best feedback and ensure the scope and purpose of the consultation are clear.

Once a decision is made, Melin Homes will inform the residents of the outcome of the proposal. The information will include how the feedback was used to influence the decision-making process.

Consultation Groups

Listen Act Learn

We have a dedicated staff group who focus on residents‘ issues and suggestions, listen to them and act on them whenever possible.

Any resident can send us their ideas or suggestion to help us improve the services we provide. If you would like to be more involved you can join our Melin Voices group who have a dedicated budget which they use to support residents, making a difference to our communities.

Melin Voices Focus Groups

If you would like to be more involved, you can join one of our Voices focus groups:

The Community Group meet monthly with the Communities Team to plan and fund neighbourhood events and award grant funding.

The Customer Service Group scrutinise the services that Melin provide and give recommendations on service improvement, seeking the views of residents and staff. They meet when required to get reports completed.

September 2023 Community Safety Survey

We are currently reviewing how we deal with and respond to Anti -Social Behaviour (ASB), Hate Incidents, and Domestic Abuse.

In September we sent out a survey asking for your feedback, encouraging you to share your views & experiences, to help us identify ways of improving our ASB service, and creating a better customer experience for all our residents.

We asked 12 questions, and the results to how people responded are below.

Q1 - Are there any other communication methods you think we should use to make reporting easier for you?

An average 79% of respondents said no to this question, the 21% who stated yes suggested reporting via Instagram, an App and consideration being given to a 24-hour messaging service or helpline.

We will investigate options for a reporting App/tool and a 24-hour messaging service/helpline.

Melin's current contact methods can be found here; https://www.melinhomes.co.uk/residents/contact-melin

Q2 - Melin WILL NOT act on anonymous complaints unless the concern relates to a criminal offence or that a child or adult may be at risk of harm. Were you aware of this?

An average of 58% of respondents were aware that we would not act on anonymous complaints (subject to the above).

We will increase our comms around anonymous complaints, explaining why we usually won`t act on them.

Q3 - If you had reason to contact Melin to report ASB, Hate or Domestic Abuse incident, how clear were we about what action we can take as your landlord to address your concerns?.

An average of 32% of respondents were clear about what action we could take, 57% had not reported ASB and 11% were not clear about what action we could take to address your concerns.

We will be implementing a process to ensure that when we contact the reporters of ASB, we clarify what action we can take.

Q4 : If you had reason to contact Melin about an ASB, Hate or Domestic Abuse incident, how satisfied were you with the outcome of your case?

Q5: If you were dissatisfied with our response to your reports about ASB, Hate Incidents or Domestic Abuse, what could we have done differently?

{As questions 4+5 are interlinked, the response has been merged}.

An average of 18% of respondents were satisfied with the outcome of their case, 64% had not reported ASB and 18% were dissatisfied with the outcome.

The general reasons for dissatisfaction included:

• Wanting more serious punitive action being taken against the perpetrators of ASB (e.g. eviction or their removal from the property)
• The problems had reoccurred.
• Requiring more help and support.
• Wanting to be kept more informed.

Eviction is usually considered a last resort and will only be considered in cases where other initiatives or legal methods have been tried first, and that there is significant evidence available to support that the behaviour is continuing or has escalated. Taking both reasonable & proportionate action is a legal and policy obligation that community landlords adhere to.

Melin is also committed to zero evictions into homelessness in line with Welsh Government strategy and policy.

We will be asking residents in our upcoming Star Survey; what additional support we could have offered to those who reported ASB. We will also be looking to agree and tailor our feedback frequency with those who report ASB.

Q6 - What ONE thing could improve the anti-social behaviour service that Melin provides?

Responses included:

• More consequences for perpetrators of ASB,
• More support for these affected by ASB & those accused of causing ASB,
• Easier reporting systems,
• More scheme/site visits.

We will investigate options for a reporting App/tool, we will also investigate what options are available for a 24-hour message/helpline service.

Any action Melin takes in relation to ASB will always have to be reasonable and proportionate, this is not only the right thing to do, but it`s also a legal requirement.

Melin's new corporate strategy (2023) includes supporting residents to help them live successfully in their homes, this means we have a new target to visit all schemes annually to speak to residents in their community.

Q7 -What ONE thing could Melin do to support you more with your anti-social behaviour, hate incident or domestic abuse reports?

Responses included:

• More vetting/checking of incoming residents,
• More consequences for perpetrators of ASB,
• Being kept more informed with updates and the progression of a case.

In terms of how and to whom we allocate our properties, Melin Homes works together in partnership with other community landlords and the local authority to house applicants via the Common Housing Register. The local authority is responsible for managing the waiting lists. All applications are subject to assessment by the local authority, in order to ensure compliance with the registration process and to check that the applicant is eligible to be registered.

A 3-stage test is applied to determine an applicants’ eligibility for housing. For further information regarding eligibility for housing please refer to Section 160A of the Housing Act 1996 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/52/section/160A/2016-02-01)

In partnership we would consider whether an applicant is guilty of unacceptable behaviour, this includes rent arrears, eviction, convictions, or anti-social behaviour and whether or not this would deem someone as ineligible for an allocation. We would also consider when the unacceptable behaviour occurred, whether there were any mitigating circumstances and whether there has been a change in behaviour from the time it occurred to the time of application for housing. If a household is found ineligible, they would be invited to evidence a change in behaviour and they may be excluded for a certain period of time before being allowed to reapply for rehousing.

****** Consequences for ASB perpetrators and updates on progression of case answered in question 4/5 above******

Q8 – Ball Games

In general respondents stated that they did not require any additional support and felt that children will be children, they should be allowed to play. However, some respondents suggested warnings should be given, more CCTV cameras installed, signs erected, and more play areas and activities created for children.

We agree, children will be children and there is no action which Melin could take under the occupation contract (unless there was evidence that this was being done deliberately, persistently, and this was causing criminal damage to property).

We will not erect “no ball games signs” as this is not something that can be enforced by Melin Homes.

Our Communities team are happy to work with you in your communities, if you require support from our team for scheme activities please contact us by emailing enquiries@melinhomes.co.uk

Q9 –Have you ever searched the Melin Homes website for information about anti-social behaviour?

On average only 20% of respondents had used our website for information about ASB. 4% wouldn’t use it, 50% would consider using it and 26% have not used it but would consider it.

We will be completing an awareness raising campaign on our website, this will help ensure residents are aware that that they can access multiple sources of information on the site.

We are also in the process of developing an ASB toolkit for the Melin website.

Q10 – Is there any additional information that you would like to see on our website connected to anti-social behaviour?.

You told us that you would like to see more information about drugs, noise, and barking dogs on Melins website. You would also like the contact details for the Police, local councils, and ASB Wardens (where applicable) and you have also requested more information on what is considered ASB.

We will be completing work to ensure all of the above suggestions are included on the Melin website.

Q11 – The Majority of our anti-social behaviour complaints relate to noise; would you find a noise information leaflet useful?

An average of 56% of respondents stated that they would find this useful. We will develop a noise leaflet and provide this to the reporters of noise, and we will also display this leaflet on our website.

Q12 – Melin cannot deal with incidents that occur on the highway, such as erratic driving, noise from loud car exhausts/stereos or inconsiderate parking. Would you like more information on who to report these issues to?

Respondents indicated that they would like more information on who to report these issues to, we will be including this information on our website and will provide this directly to those who report these types of incidents to Melin as they occur.

June 2023 - Community Engagement Survey

We asked people for their views on resident engagement. The survey was conducted over four days from 6th to 9th June. We sent out 3436 surveys and received 795 responses.

We wanted to know what was important to our residents and have used the responses to formulate our new Community Engagement Strategy.

We asked four questions on a scale of 1-5, where 5 is very important and 1 is not very important with the following results…

Q1 How important is it for Melin to be visible on our estates?
69.6% said very important, 41.9% were neutral and 15.5% said not very important.

Q2 How important is it for residents to have a say about how we manage our properties?
85% said very important, 11.3% were neutral and 4.3% said it wasn't very important

Q3 How interested would you be to give us your opinion in order to help us make decisions?
57.9% said very interested, 24.1% were neutral and 18% said they weren't very interested.

Q4 How interested would you be in finding out more about the work of our Board?
42% said they'd be very interested, 25.3% were neutral, and 32.6% said they weren't very interested.

Thank you to everyone who responded.

February 2023 – Rent affordability review

Throughout last year, we sought feedback from our residents about the Rent Affordability Model that Melin uses to set its rates of rent. This is based on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation ‘Living Rents Model’ which states that rent should be no more than 28% of a resident’s’ income. One survey had feedback from over 1,200 residents and 93.9% of you agreed with this approach. We also carried out another survey by text later last year which received 526 responses. 87.2% of residents continued to support this approach to how we set our rents.

We also recently consulted with residents about what services they most value. By a big margin, the service of most importance to residents was repairs. This was followed by Melin Advice and support services. We were also pleased to receive a lot of positive comments about the level of customer service we provide.

We also made sure during our consultation that comments from residents that required a response were followed up by our Customer Contact Team. We are always happy to hear feedback, both positive and negative, and so if you want to share your views at any time, please get in touch.

How is the living rent calculated?

We assess the average income from data provided by the Office of National Statistics. This gives us an estimate of lower earners in the areas where we have properties. This will be done every year to make sure our figures are up to date. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that housing costs are unaffordable if they are over a third of a household’s income. For this reason, we use 28% of the average income for the lower earners to set our rents.

We have adjusted the rents for different property sizes and types by considering the smallest families that would be allocated to our homes.

For example, most of our one-bedroom properties are occupied by single people, so the Living Rent for these properties is based on the income of an individual who is in work.

The Living Rents for our larger homes are higher as more family members will tend to be living in them. We have considered how a family’s income and outgoings change as house size changes.

What if I claim Universal Credit?

If you receive Universal Credit, you will need to notify the DWP through your online portal after 6 April 2021 to tell them if your rent has increased. They may continue to pay the old rent amount until you notify them of the increase. It’s important that you tell them that you don’t have any free weeks and are charged every week of the year.

What if I claim Housing Benefit?

We will notify the Local Authority of any rent increases and you do not have to do anything.

May 2022 – Service charges review

Melin has adopted the Joseph Rowntree Living Rents Model, which states that someone’s rent should never be more than 28% of average net income. Over 93% of our residents agreed that this was the right approach to take.

As part of this consultation, we also said that we would look at how we can keep service charges as low as possible. The Rowntree Living Rents Model says that service charges should be no more than 5% of average net income. Over 88% of our residents agreed that this was the right approach to take.

Some of our properties and schemes benefit from additional services and facilities. These include specialist equipment, adaptations, communal areas and scheme management services. This can make it difficult for Melin to keep service charges below 5% of average net income for residents in these properties. Our residents were split 50/50, with half agreeing with this approach and half disagreeing.

Lastly, we asked you how many residents in a particular scheme should agree to a change in, or the introduction of, a service charge. A majority of respondents said that at least 80% of residents should need to agree.

What we’re doing about it

This consultation has led to a number of positive changes. These include:

• We have produced a new Service Charge Policy that sets out our new approach. It is available to residents on request.

• We have identified the properties that will be included in our Service Charge Affordability Model whilst committing to keep all of our service charges as low as possible. Approximately 75% of all Melin properties are included.

• We have now committed that before introducing a new service or changing an existing one, we will usually seek to get agreement from at least 80% of the residents at a scheme.

• We will reduce the management fee we currently apply to rented properties from 15% to 12.5% from April 2023.

• We will continue to procure and monitor all our Service Contracts to ensure we get the best value for money for all our residents.

April 2022 – Income Recovery Policy review

We surveyed our residents about our Income Recovery Policy, as a result of the feedback we have:

• Identified that not all residents were aware of the services that we offer; in order to rectify this we have changed our initial rent recovery letter (which is the one which is sent out the most) to include information on the services our Money Advisors offer.

• With our marketing team we have developed a cost of living information leaflet and have updated the information on our website.

• We have met with all the local job centres and arranged spotlight sessions with them to promote our work and support.