Case Study - Bromford Housing Group

Case Study - Bromford Housing Group - Empowering people

Consultation is backbone of successful LEQ measure

Bromford Housing Group has used effective consultation to develop a local environmental quality (LEQ) measurement system that encourages people to take part in the decision-making processes on their estates and be empowered to tackle environmental crime.

The Group consults with tenants, service providers and their own employees – going to great lengths to make it as easy as possible for stakeholders within communities to have an input. The most difficult part has been to co-ordinate the sheer scale of so many customers and colleagues. However, feedback has been so good that the team knows this has been the right way to go.

The process started in 2004 as managers and colleagues from across the Group completed an environmental assessment based on ENCAMS LEQ system. The process took about three months from initial thoughts up to implementation of the environmental indicator. In 2005 and 2006 the Group involved customers both in designing the new LEQ assessment form and then assessing their estates.

Paul Taylor, Head of Neighbourhood Investment said:

“Instead of self-assessing we have handed the project out to our customers. We believed it was far more important to understand what our customers think of their estates, and encourage them to take more responsibility for where they live.”

The Viewpoint customer sounding board, made up of representatives from many of Bromford’s estates, meets regularly with the Group’s management team and is regularly consulted about estate issues and regeneration projects.

Based on an old system

Bromford Housing Group already used a ‘medal’ system for measuring more than 500 of its estates based on seven key indicators – turnover, void loss, arrears, repairs, deprivation, anti-social behaviour and environmental quality. This well established system gave frontline teams the information they needed at the touch of a button.

However, they wanted to make the environment rating more robust. So, with the help of ENCAMS, they developed a bespoke LEQ system covering a range of environmental topics.

Paul found that, when combined with the performance indicators on the medal scheme, the Bromford Group achieved a system that could measure the overall performance of their estates – helping them achieve their vision of supporting communities that people will want to live in.

“We have a found a real enthusiasm for the process from our customers – they are better engaged with us a result – we know more of them and can improve our services generally as a result – not just the environment”, said Paul.

Bronze, Silver or Gold

Residents also assess environmental quality in their areas, and their level of satisfaction determines whether Bromford estates are classed as Bronze, Silver or Gold estates.

An important feature of the Bromford approach is that improvements are not only being achieved on estates undergoing rebuilding, but in older, more established communities too.

Consultation is now a natural part of Bromford’s style of estate management, ensuring high rates of tenancy retention, happy residents and cleaner, safer, greener communities.

Developing the new system

The new LEQ system took three months to develop, including a road-test with colleagues before involving actual residents. Importantly, colleagues from non-resident-facing teams like Finance and IT were involved in the LEQ assessments too – something which helped them increase their understanding of the environmental challenges facing estates and wider communities.

The next stage was to involve residents from Viewpoint, an 800-strong customer sounding board. Bromford involves all its customers - ie residents - in a direct feedback forum called Viewpoint. It is open to any residents - residents can join the board by contacting Customer Relations - who get together at regular 'breakfast meetings' that also include the management team.

Interested Viewpoint members spent two weeks with the Director of Housing Services and other senior managers, visiting the estates that teams had measured to see if customers agreed with the environmental assessments.

The final phase

The final phase is to ask residents to measure the estates themselves.

“Customers are now doing the ‘work’ that colleagues used to have to do. There is more self-help happening, e.g. in customers removing bulk refuse rather than us”, said Paul.

For the future, Bromford Housing Group wants to help residents start up small businesses that improve the local environment and economy and is interested in setting up training and benchmarking with customers of other housing associations.

The scheme has been communicated via regular items and bulletins in their customer magazines and newsletters and estate events bringing the ideas to people’s doorsteps.

For more information, please contact Paul Taylor on 01902 393719 or at paul.taylor@bromford.co.uk