Get involved

This page provides information about how you as a tenant of Reading Borough Council, including those managed by Affinity Housing, can get involved in decisions regarding your home and the local community.

Our Tenant Engagement Strategy offers a range of opportunities for everyone to get involved. Our strategies priorities and vision has been coproduced with our involved tenants, and is as follows:

“Tenants are at the heart of everything we do; all tenants know their views are welcomed, respected and acted upon, and our properties and estates are places our tenants are proud to call home” 

Our Tenant Engagement Strategy outlines various ways you can connect with Reading Borough Council and your community in a manner that suits your commitment level and interests, helping you make the most of your tenant experience delivering against our key priorities:

• Priority 1 – Information and Communication  
  How we keep each other updated on what is happening, what is changing and providing a wide range of channels to get in touch. 
• Priority 2 – Tenant Feedback 
  How we collect, record and utilise our tenant’s feedback to improve the services we provide. 
• Priority 3 – Recruitment and support for engaged tenants  
  How we keep you informed of the different ways you can have your say, how we can support you to do so. 
• Priority 4 – Meaningful engagement structures  
  The different ways tenants can engage with the service, participate, give feedback, raise concerns, and influence services, decisions and policies.
• Priority 5 – Complaints  
  How we process your complaints, the standards we work to and how we use what you tell us to improve the services for all tenants. 

Engagement for everyone

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity through all our tenant engagement opportunities. We strive to ensure that engagement is open and accessible to all tenants and residents who wish to work with us.

To support your involvement, we can provide:

• Translations
• Interpretation services
• Accessible venues
• Digital tools and resources

If there’s something making it difficult for you to engage with us, please reach out—we’re here to help.

Levels of engagement

Our opportunities for Involvement are set out below, in various levels, based on how involved you would like to be:

• Inform
  Information & Resources: sign up for our Register of Interest to stay informed with newsletters, training opportunities, surveys, and updates on tenant engagement events.
• Involve
  Local Engagement: work with other tenants and residents in your community to improve your local area.
• Consult
  Central Engagement: help shape our services by participating in two-way communication between Reading Borough Council and tenants.
• Collaborate
  Strategic Engagement: contribute to high-level decisions by sharing feedback and attending Board Meetings, Committees, and events.

We would love to have you on board…

We need your time and ideas to help us continually improve RBC’s services and communities. Those who engage with us will be provided with training, resources and support when required.

Ways to get involved

There are lots of opportunities for you to get involved. Let us know what you would like to get involved in:

Complete a survey

Inform – Low time commitment

We carry out surveys throughout the year. One survey is the Annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey, which is a requirement for all social housing landlords. It enables us to understand what tenants think of our services and lets tenants compare our performance with other landlords. An independent company carries out this survey, so your answers are confidential (unless you state otherwise). We also carry out other surveys via text, post, phone and email to get tenant views on our services.

Love your block

Inform – Low time commitment
Love your block is a tenant-led bi-annual newsletter. All tenants who live in a block that receive cleaning services will receive this, to include useful information and any updates to the service. This offers an opportunity for tenants to become involved in the block cleaning panel.

The sounding board

Inform – Low time commitment

The sounding board contains a list of everyone who wants to get involved, how they would like to be involved and any areas of interest. For example, a specific interest in the neighbourhood, the repairs service or becoming a member of one of our panels. When an opportunity to give your views comes up, we match the opportunity with your preferences. If there is a match, we will let you know and you decide if you would like to be involved or not.

Mystery shopper

Involved – Medium time commitment

Posing as a customer, you will help us understand the experience of our customers when they first contact us. You will be given full training to help you know what you should ask on the phone or in an email, or what you should do on the website or in person. There will then be a short form for you to complete to report on your experience.

Block champion

Involved – Medium time commitment

Block champions keep an eye on their apartment blocks and report any issues such as litter, repairs and concerns around the standard of cleaning or building safety. As a champion, you will be issued with a handbook and reporting sheets so you can record any problems to report.

Estate walkabouts

Involved – Low time commitment
Estate walks happen regularly across the Borough and are advertised to encourage tenants and residents to join in. They’re a great way to check and improve standards in our neighbourhoods. The walks give tenants a chance to share what’s happening in their area and suggest improvements. For many, it’s also the first step to getting more involved.

Community centre drop ins

Involved – Low time commitment

These are held in local community centre buildings. Tenants can come along and have their questions answered by a member of the housing team. Staff attend from various departments, for example: housing management, money advice, antisocial behaviour team, and the safer communities team.

High rise forum

Involved – Low time commitment

The High Rise Forum will be open to tenants living in high-rise properties and offers a chance to address your specific needs and concerns. High-rise living comes with unique challenges, and it’s important for us to listen to those who experience it firsthand. The forum will also serve to keep tenants informed about any planned works or improvements and provides an opportunity for the group to share ideas and discuss solutions together.

Building cleaning panel member

Consult – High time commitment

The Building Cleaning Panel is a group of tenants who meet with housing management and the building cleaning service to monitor the standard of cleaning in communal areas across our blocks of flats. Panel members look at data and performance information and check and challenge the standards of the cleaning service. Members could also carry out mystery shopping block inspections to look at the standard of cleaning across the blocks.

Tenant Improvement & Decent Neighbourhood Fund (TIF) Panel

Consult – High time commitment

The TIF is a pot of money available for tenants and officers to identify small scale environmental projects to benefit their local area. The TIF panel is a group of trained tenants who review and approve project bids to ensure they are suitable, properly funded and based on thorough tenant consultation. Supported by Housing Management, the tenants make the final decisions on funding projects each year. The panel meets at the start of the financial year to choose projects and then holds regular online meetings to monitor their progress and review impact reports after completion.

Tenant Quality Mark

Consult – Medium time commitment

This includes looking over leaflets, letters, online publications and other material to make sure it is easy to understand and get our message across clearly. Once it has been reviewed and approved by the panel, the document/content will receive a ‘Tenant Quality Mark’ stamp. You can review documents from your own home and in your own time.

Tenant Voice’s – panel member

Collaborate – High time commitment

Housing has a long history of involving tenants in the decisions it makes regarding their homes and local community. The pandemic made us rethink our ways of working and more services moved online in response to lockdown. Now is a good time to look at how we engage with our tenants, how we respond to what they tell us and identify the ways that tenants wish to give their views. This is a new panel that will oversee the drafting of tenant engagement strategy, conduct research, identify appropriate actions and monitor the progress.

Tenant And Council Together Panel (Tact)

Collaborate – High time commitment

Tenant and Council Together (TACT) is our tenant scrutiny panel. It consists of a group of trained tenants who identify areas of the Housing Service where they would like to carry out a deeper performance assessment on. This involves looking at data, interviewing senior and front-line members of staff and tenants and producing a report with recommendations for improvements which is submitted to senior housing managers. Following the introduction of the Tenant Satisfaction Measures and through out the creation of this strategy, there have been 2 key areas tenants want to focus on, Repairs & Maintenance and Complaints and on both of which scrutiny will be welcomed.

Tenant involvement: attractive and accessible to all

We want you to get involved in a way that works best for you, based on your time, circumstances and practical needs, such as childcare, travel, disabilities, or internet access.

To ensure no one is left out, we’ll offer flexible ways to get involved and ask how we can remove any barriers you face. Financial challenges won’t be a blocker—we’ll reimburse reasonable expenses and share details on how we can support individuals and groups financially.

We understand that tenants have busy lives, and it may be difficult to commit the time to join panel meetings in person so these will be set up to allow tenants who wish participate remotely by joining the meeting online. This offer will be made available for all the tenant activities including TACT or Tenant Voices.

The Tenant Engagement Team can also help groups apply for grants and funding to support their community work. Additionally, we will seek ways to create social-value funding, including contributions from contractors and staff volunteer days to back community-led projects.

Training and support for involved tenants

We understand that having the right knowledge is key to playing an active role. Along with providing information on the Housing Services performance, we will create and share a training programme for those who want to get more involved.

We also recognise that many of you have valuable skills and expertise that can benefit the Housing Service and other tenants. We will make efforts to tap into these skills and encourage sharing them with others.

Currently, we offer a variety of training options, the majority of which are online, through Four Million Homes which cover several different areas which are specific to the housing service. The Tenant Engagement Team also deliver a number of bespoke training sessions specific to the engagement methods such as how to conduct block inspections, mystery shopping and we will be revamping the service-lead 12-week Tenant Academy Course.

For more details and if you’d like to get involved, contact the tenant engagement team on 01189372730 or email tenant.participation@reading.gov.uk.