Welcome to the Sutton Council Consultation and Engagement Hub

• Thinking about your last interaction with us, how satisfied were you that the staff member fully understood your problem and was supportive?
• How satisfied are you with how SHP keeps you informed about the progress of your service request?
• How clearly did we explain how repairs are prioritised?
• Would you find a mobile phone app useful to report and keep track of your repairs report status?
• What is your primary preferred method for receiving non-urgent community news and general updates?
• What are your preferred social media channels?

We have summarised your feedback and comments. Thank you for taking the time to take part in the survey - we received 14 responses.

On empathy and understanding of our staff (question 1), 9 out of the 14 respondents were either "Fairly dissatisfied" (3 responses) or "Very dissatisfied" (4 responses) with staff understanding and support in their last interaction. Two were "Fairly satisfied" and two were "Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied."

Some of the key issues and suggestions were: 

• Poor Communication and Follow-up: Staff lack notes on problems, jobs are marked as finished when they are not, messages are left for staff who never call back, and follow-up calls promised never happen.
• Inconsistent/Rude Service: One person described the staff member as not knowing what they were doing and repeating questions, making the interaction last over 30 minutes. Another mentioned the need for empathy and not being rude.
• Process Failures: Residents are being passed between SHP and the council, and one tradesman was sent to an old address and refused to go to the new one.

Satisfaction about how SHP keeps you informed about the progress of your service request.

The largest single group, 35.71%, were Very Dissatisfied with how SHP keeps them informed about the progress of their service request.

The remaining respondents were split evenly (21.43% each) across Fairly Satisfied, Neither Satisfied nor Dissatisfied, and Fairly Dissatisfied.

Responding to our question (3) about Repairs Prioritisation Explanation, 35.71% of people who responded were Very dissatisfied, and 0% were Very satisfied.

Some of your suggestions were:

• Proactive Communication: Keep residents updated even without a date, through email or text, to show they are not forgotten
• Clear Information: Send a text or email with the date and proposed time from the moment a repair is reported
• Efficiency: Residents are frustrated with long waiting periods, like one job having four dates over a three-month period, suggesting it would be easier to arrange one visit to get everything done
• Inspection: A surveyor should inspect work both prior to and after completion to ensure correct standards

Communications questions

Mobile phone app: 71.43% of respondents said that they would find a mobile phone app useful to report and keep track of their repairs status.

We are currently looking at implementing an SHP mobile phone app and will keep you/residents informed of progress. 

Preferred Non-Urgent Updates: The top three preferred methods for receiving non-urgent community news and general updates were:

1. Text message (35.7%)
2. Digital Homefront newsletter (21.4%)
3. 'from my housing manager' (14.29%)

We are exploring options to look at ‘broadcasting’ news and other alerts straight to resident’s mobile phones, through a messaging system. We’ll keep all residents updated on how we are progressing. Our digital Homefront newsletter will be sent out to subscribers regularly each month.

Preferred Social Media Channels: The most used channels were:

1. Facebook (71.43%)
2. Instagram (50%)
3. X (formerly Twitter) (35.71%)
4. YouTube (28.57%)

SHP posts regularly on our Facebook feed, with inspiring resident stories, events and new initiatives. We are building our Instagram profile and posting there regularly too. We use X for more formal announcements, and will look to how we make better use of our YouTube channel to keep residents updated.

Whilst only one respondent said that they don’t use social media/rely on a mobile phone, we are aware that there will be many more residents who are also in the same situation. SHP promotes free digital skills workshops for residents and will look to make more use of that and more use of posters and word of mouth by housing managers, Independent Living Officers and other staff to promote events and news to residents.

Your feedback was insightful and to the point. We recognise these failures, although not a total representation of the positive aspects of our customer service, and have been making changes to how our contact centre staff are trained. Improving our customer service skills is an ongoing commitment from SHP to give you a better experience when you contact us.

We did: We have been carrying out a review of our Repairs service which will include a series of recommendations to improve our repairs service and how we communicate with you about them. We anticipate knowing the recommendations for changes sometime in March when we will be able to provide residents with clearer information on what we will be doing to improve the service. We know from responses to our mobile phone app question that this is something that largely residents would be supportive of, and which we are investigating now. 

We have just launched a new version of the resident portal which now includes a feature to upload and share documents with us. 

What you can do on the new portal
You will be able to:

• Chat with us online and keep track of all your messages in one place
• Exchange documents with us and can send us your documents online
• Easily set up/manage your SHP direct debits 
• Coming soon: Log and manage repair appointments directly

Thank you again for giving us your views.

We asked for your views on our revised Domestic Abuse Policy.
 

Survey results from the revised Domestic Abuse Policy survey showed that we need to do more work to help residents understand the intricacies of policy, as well as tell them about the support and services that we have for victims/survivors, and perpetrators, to understand more about how we can help and support our residents.

• We have refreshed our domestic abuse signposting poster to display in estate and block noticeboards. It now has a scannable QR code that takes you to the domestic abuse page on the SHP website.

• Refreshed our social media posts with imagery and more direct information signposting residents to our information pages.

• Our Domestic Abuse lead is planning a programme of attending resident events over the coming months, to talk to residents in person about the services and support that we offer

• Creation of a short film/video, explaining our support and services for victims/survivors of domestic that are trauma-informed, and dedicated to empowering every survivor. Keep an eye out on our Facebook feed!

We asked if there was anything missing that they would like to see on the website. These are the comments we received and our responses.

1. One respondent said that they would like to see a list of things identified during an estate inspection and what is happening about them.

2. One resident said that "Homemead Road and Brookmead Road never have a walk about or a road sweeper".

3. One resident said that there should be a full list of staff names and job titles on the website so that if you missed somebody’s name, i.e. on a telephone call, that you could search the website for their name. 

4. Another comment was to put information in British Sign Language. 

5. One resident said finding rent statements. RESPONSE: Rent statements are available on your SHP Portal Account. You can log into this from the homepage of the SHP website. If you don’t have an account already, it is quick and easy to create one, using your own unique password. Please visit www.suttonhousingpartnership.org.uk 

1. RESPONSE action plans from our community walkabout and action days are located on the Sutton Housing Partnership website - search for ‘community walkabout action plans’. The ‘Get Involved’ page on our website has lots of details about community walkabouts, Action Days and other ways to get involved in your local area.

2.  RESPONSE: We checked with our teams who advised that these roads are covered by the London Borough of Sutton street services and waste team. Residents can report dirty streets via the Council website - search for ‘report street cleaning problems’. We also checked and were advised that Homemead, Brookmead and Oakmead are residential roads and not estates so they would not be included in SHP Estate Inspections or Community Walkabouts.

3. RESPONSE: We are unable to publish a full list of staff names on our website. Under data protection regulations (GDPR) we are bound to protect staff and their confidentiality, and so we do not publish names of all staff, except in certain circumstances, i.e a project or event contact who has given their permission to do so.

4. RESPONSE: We are investigating this further with the resident who made the comment.

5. RESPONSE: Rent statements are available on your SHP Portal Account. You can log into this from the homepage of the SHP website (top right of the page). If you don’t have an account already, it is quick and easy to make one creating your own unique password. Please visit www.suttonhousingpartnership.org.uk