ARCH AWARDS FOR BEST PRACTICE 2009

CATEGORY: TENANT INVOLVEMENT

WINNER: CORNWALL COUNCIL

Cornwall Council won the ARCH Award for Best Practice 2009 in the ‘Tenant Involvement’ category.

The key to Cornwall’s approach is the understanding that tenant involvement needs to take place on number of different levels. The highest level is the Tenants/Resident Forum and all the sub-groups that are an off-shoot from that. The council also recognises the need to engage with people over many months and even years before they will want to form an association.

Caradon Tenants and Residents Forum is made up of two representatives from a recognised Tenants and Residents Association. The authority has around 22 groups and works to increase that number every year. From the Forum, it has elected rep, who sit on the Tenant Liaison Group. This group is made up of five tenants, five councillors and five officers. Policies and procedures, business plans and strategies are examined, as well as anything that needs to go before the Tenants/Residents Forum.

The council arranges benchmarking visits with community development team and tenant reps to bring back examples of good practice. Eighteen months ago, a report was put forward to managers from tenants reps identifying how they what they have learnt from the benchmarking trips would improve service. The suggestions were taken on board and nearly all of the ideas in the report have been implemented.

The Edit Group is made up of the district housing manager and tenants. The council has two newsletters that go out together three times a year. One newsletter is from housing management and the other is from the Tenants/Residents and Community Development Team. These include articles and ideas for young people. One newsletter competition asked children and young people to send a short paragraph about what they think of where they live and proved very sucessful.

Road shows and cream teas are also arranged to make contact in areas where there is no tenant/resident representation. Tenant
Volunteers help take out an exhibition trailer or gazebo and every household is informed in advance of the date and time of the visit. The aim of the road shows are to target general housing and share information about Housing Services, the Forum and Community Development. Housing officers, police and councillors attend. The road shows are a starting point to see what community issues are. Community members are then asked if they would like to form a tenants and residents association. Information is also provided to explain about the repairs service and planned
works.

Housing officers visit supported housing  estates with the road show and take out cream teas in order to make contact with older and venerable tenants. Other ways of engaging with residents include fun days and art and craft events. The authority is looking at working with the health advisors to have bacon butty drop-ins on one of its estates that has lots of venerable tenants. The idea for the Saltash Women's and Information Support Group came from a tenant reps in supported housing who is in her 80s. She wanted older women to share cookery skills with younger women, and the group now meets at the children's centre.

The council aims to work with communities to not only deal with housing issues or local environmental issues, but to look at the needs of young people on estates who live in rural areas. It has been working with a community a Nomansland. They identified an issue with the young people playing football in the main road just of the entrance to the estate. Right in
the middle of the estate is a large village hall, which the young people had never been in. Officers worked with the committee and helped them get funding to refurbish the snooker room. Most of the funding came from the Caradon Tenants and Residents Forum. Now the young people go in
under supervision and play pool and snooker. Free tickets were also provided recently for young people to attend a Plymouth Argyle football match. They will be taken with a housing officer, district housing manager and the police community support officer on the Forums mini bus.

The council is now in the process of developing Community Action Plans to enable tenants/residents to have a real say about the service they receive. Salamanca Street Flats in Torpoint is comprised of two blocks inhbited by leaseholders and tenants. Lots of young families live there. The authority has tried to engage with them in many different ways over the years. Recently, they formed a tenants and leaseholders group. They now have three reps who can attend the Caradon Tenants and Residents forum, which will enable them to engage at a higher level of involvement. Training is offered as well as encouraging the reps to come along to some housing conferences.

Officers will ask about their views and priorities and then ask them to work with them to put the Community Action Plan together. Everyone will receive an Action Plan which will clearly show how the council is consulting with them and who the partners are, such as police and health services.