Charter for Social Housing Tenants 2020
This 7 Point Charter sets out what social housing residents can expect from Newark and Sherwood DC as a landlord:
- To be safe in your home. The government will work with industry and landlords to ensure every home is safe and secure
- To know how your landlord is performing including on repairs, complaints and safety, and how it spends its money, so you can hold it to account
- To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly, with access to a strong Ombudsman who will give you swift and fair redress when needed
- To be treated with respect, backed by a strong consumer regulator and improved consumer standards for tenants
- To have your voice heard by your landlord, for example through regular meetings, scrutiny panels or being on its Board. The government will provide help, if you want it, to give you the tools to ensure your landlord listens
- To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in, with your landlord keeping your home in good repair
- To be supported to take your first step to ownership, so it is a ladder to other opportunities, should your circumstances allow
This charter will not be introduced over night and there are a number of steps before the charter can be fully implemented, including the need for government legislation.
What are we doing?
We have already completed our self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman Service effective complaints handling code. As a result, we are making improvements to simplify and improve how you can report and how we manage, respond and learn from your complaints and feedback.
We are reviewing our services against the seven areas of the Charter as part of a review of our landlord services, following the return to the direct control of the Council. In addition, we are consulting on our tenant engagement framework and reviewing and updating our strategies.
There are already many opportunities for those who want to get more involved with our housing services. We want to ensure that all tenants (and residents) can engage at the level and for the time that suits. To find out more please visit our tenant engagement page.
We will be publishing our action plan to show how we will address any gaps in our services and where we will strengthen our approach to themes set out in the Charter.
Wider activity
There is a new regulator to oversee Building Safety and an expansion of the existing Regulator for Social Housing to enable inspection of services to be undertaken.
The existing Consumer Standards that we are required to comply with (link to RSH website) will also be reviewed to account for updated expectations for landlords.
We will continue to update this website with our action plan progress.