How you can be involved
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Focus Groups
A focus group will be set up to discuss a specific topic or new idea with a small group of tenants to seek their views and comments and to inform how we develop a new service or area of work. The group will generally only meet once and the meeting aims to be friendly and informal to encourage discussion.
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Mystery shoppers
Mystery shoppers help us test the services the Council provide to our tenants.
You can test the service by telephone, e-mail, letter or personal visit.
Whatever suits you! If you’re interested in becoming a Mystery Shopper, we will train you to develop your market research skills and show you how to record your experiences. Its quite simple once you get the hang of it and can be good fun.
You can be a Mystery Shopper from the comfort of your own home although there will be an initial training and briefing session at a centre in either Denmead, Wickham, Bishops Waltham Alresford or Winchester. The training usually takes about 2-3 hours either one evening or at a weekend.
Please call the Tenant Involvement Team on 0800 716 987 or email tenantinvolvement@winchester.gov.uk
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Online Surveys
Online surveys aim to engage with as wide a reaching representation of tenants across the Winchester district as possible. This gives all tenants the opportunity to put their views across, share ideas and help to shape the services that WCC housing residents receive, without the requirement to be part of a physical group. You can take part in online surveys as well as being part of any of the other methods outlined here.
As a thank you for taking part in an online survey you will be offered the chance of winning a £50 Shopping voucher.
Just tick ‘Yes’ to the question when asked if you would like to be entered into the prize draws’.
If the survey is open to all WCC tenants you will also be entered into the annual draw and be in with a chance of winning a prize to the value of a maximum of £200 to choose one or mix and match from the following; (Please note: if a survey is closed to only specific households groups – returns to this type of survey will not be included in the annual draw)
- Family ticket Paulton’s Park
- Netflix subscription
- Dinner vouchers for local restaurant
- Love2Shop Shopping vouchers
Or
- Donation to Spare Change for real change
Or
- Residents of a sheltered scheme a bespoke social event for them and their fellow residents – tea party, film afternoon, arts and crafts session, cake decorating. (Please note - this will be dependant on the scope of the event and the capacity of the team to facilitate.)
The latest WCC surveys can be found on the Consultation pages of the WCC website, or by following this link.
The Terms and Conditions of the prize draw can be found here; T's & C's (docx, 32kb)
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TACT (Tenants and Council Together)
TACT is the formal district-wide tenant and leaseholder forum which is made up of tenants from around the district. Members are elected to a committee every year at an Annual General Meeting and the group is governed by a constitution. TACT meets at least six times a year and works in partnership with the Council to improve housing services for all tenants. All tenants and leaseholders are welcome to attend these meetings. They aim to be informative and to encourage discussion amongst residents, giving you the opportunity to voice your opinions.
TACT has formal representation on council committees and meetings that discuss, approve and scrutinise housing related issues. TACT presents the interests and views of all tenants at these meetings.
Minutes of TACT meetings can be found on the TACT pages of the website.
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Tenant Led Service Delivery & Scrutiny
We have two approaches to tenant led Scrutiny; firstly we have two Service Delivery Groups (SDGs) made up of tenants and leaseholders. When a need arises tenants and leaseholders form Scrutiny Groups.
Our Service Delivery Groups are:
- Repairs and Maintenance SDG
- Housing Management SDG
These groups monitor the progress, performance and targets of the various areas of the Council and raise tenant issues when necessary. They are led by a tenant Chair and include a Lead Officer and admin support from a Tenant Involvement Officer.
If members feel an area needs further attention or there is a specific issue, they will form a Scrutiny Group from the SDG membership. A Scrutiny Group allows a small group of tenants to undertake a specific and detailed examination of a particular service area to see if the service is performing to the benefit of tenants i.e. “is the service doing what tenants want?”.
The Scrutiny Group, usually lasting between 3-6 months, will examine performance of the service over a period of time, look at any complaints received about the service and also look at how other housing providers go about providing the same service to see if we can learn anything new.
This is one of our highest forms of involvement and spaces are limited. Training is provided to tenants who join. Membership of a SDG is usually best for tenants who are already involved in some way so membership of a Focus group or TACT beforehand is a good idea.
If you have any questions, or would like to pass on any case studies to a group, please call the Tenant Involvement Team on 0800 716 987 or email tenantinvolvement@winchester.gov.uk
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Tenant Participation Compact and Steering group
The Tenant Participation Compact, originally signed in September 2000, covers the overall approach to tenant involvement in the Winchester District and lays down expected standards and levels of service for working together.
Back in 2019/20 Tenant Involvement started a review of the Tenant Participation Compact. Unfortunately, due to the unexpected Covid19 priorities the completion of this work was delayed. However, further consultation has since taken place with the tenant group involved in the review and a final version of the document has now been agreed.
It was important to recognise that a lot changed in the time from the review beginning to completion. One of the key changes (aside from Covid) that took place was the publication of the charter for social housing residents: social housing white paper in November 2020. As a result of this, one of the service developments agreed with tenants was the formation of a ‘Tenant Steering Group’. This group will review and monitor how ‘we’ (Tenants, WCC and Councillors) are adhering to the Roles and Responsibilities as set out in the Compact document, and meeting the requirements from the White Paper.
Tenant Compact 2020 - 2021 (pdf, 503kb)
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Tenants Satisfaction Survey
Your views are really important to Winchester City Council. The survey is tenants chance to tell us what they think of the homes and services the council provides as their landlord.
We use this survey to find out what service improvements are important to tenants and compare our performance against other organisations. We are also interested to hear whether tenants think we have made any improvements since the last survey and which areas need attention in the future.
The Housing Service talk through the results with TACT and councillors and agree actions to tackle those areas highlighted as being in need of improvement. Progress is reported back in future editions of the tenants’ newsletter on actions being taken to improve satisfaction with these service areas.
For more information and reports of this most recent and previous surveys can be found on the main Tenant Satisfaction Pages of the website.
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Winchester Readers Panel
The Panel look at all written material produced by Council Housing Services to make sure it is easy to read, can be understood and does not contain any unnecessary jargon.
The Panel comes together only occasionally, usually contact is made only by email or post so it is ideal for someone who has only limited time and does not want to attend meetings.
Please call the Tenant Involvement Team on 0800 716 987 or email tenantinvolvement@winchester.gov.uk
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Tenants and Residents Associations
Tenants and residents associations, represent their local community and work to improve their area, by consulting and involving local residents. Tenant representatives will:
- Give their views to the Council on housing issues
- Campaign for improvements on estates
- Organise public meetings and estate walkabouts
- Listen to individual concerns
- Produce newsletters with information on local issues
These associations are democratic and represent a specific area or estate. They abide by a set of aims and rules (a constitution) and have a committee that is elected each year at an Annual General Meeting.
The council supports tenants and residents associations with running costs, admin activities, including producing newsletters, training and transport costs to meetings. If you are interested in setting up an association contact the Tenant Involvement team.
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Tenant Community Champions
If you are interested in organising a local community event to involve and benefit tenants, we may be able to support you. Please get in touch to discuss your plans.
We are aware that there are tenants and leaseholders who are active in their community; we’d like to hear from you so we get to know you and see how we can work together.