Customer Engagement Strategy 2026 - 2029

Since the Grenfell fire tragedy in 2017 and the tragic death of Awaab Ishak in 2020, there have been calls for a strengthening of the customer voice in social housing and placing a greater focus on the customer and the services they receive. This is to ensure customers have the information and resources they need to have a genuine say in how their homes and services are managed. This has now been enacted in law with the establishment of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 and the Building Safety Act 2023.

The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 significantly strengthens tenant rights and landlord accountability by empowering the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) with new powers, introducing new consumer standards and commanding greater transparency, conduct, and tenant engagement from social landlords to ensure residents are safe and their voices and complaints are heard.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability standard requires social housing landlords to be open, act fairly, and empower tenants. The key principles are:

1. Transparency - Landlords must share clear performance data (TSMs) so tenants can see how they are performing.
2. Influence - Landlords must allow tenants to shape service delivery, with evidence showing how feedback was used.
3. Accountability - Landlords must handle complaints properly, treat residents with respect, and be held responsible for outcomes.
4. Fairness - Ensuring equitable services that meet the diverse needs of all residents.

BCH, on behalf of the Council, is the largest social housing provider in the town. We have concentrations of stock on a number of estates, as well as other more dispersed properties across the town. The relatively small footprint covered makes it more achievable to undertake face to face engagement with customers at or near their homes and there are several Housing Revenue Account funded community centres to facilitate this.

The social housing offer in the town includes general needs stock, sheltered housing and some young person’s provision. The engagement needs of customers varies with the provision they are housed in, whether they are in employment etc. We also have leaseholders in our stock and it is important that they have opportunities to be involved.

Although transience is a significant issue at a town level, most Council tenancies are longer-term with many tenants who have been in their properties for many years. BCH has been able to develop a network of involved tenants, some of whom have been with us from our formation in 2007. Some of our involvement work, including resident scrutiny and the co-produced annual report has been recognised nationally. We have been TPAS accredited for a number of years, which provides customers with assurance that we meet a recognised national benchmark on involvement and engagement.

We are not complacent, however. We know that there are parts of our customer base we are not actively engaging with. Recruiting new involved tenants is essential to replace those who move on and to ensure we continue to get fresh perspectives. The Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM’s), whilst generally positive, show some movements that point to where further improvements in involvement and engagement could be made. A SWOT analysis is included as an appendix to this strategy including weaknesses as well as strengths.

Providing Information about BCH services, updates or matters that affect or interest customers, community news and events, safety information, how BCH are performing, how we act on customer views and new initiatives or projects and how rent money is spent. Examples of how we inform customers are:

• BCH website
• Social media
• Newsletters
• Booklets
• E-newsletters and email campaigns
• Area specific leaflets/flyers
• Reports and strategies
• Annual Report
• Publication of policies
• Text messages

Outcomes:

1. To ensure that our customers have the information they need to understand our services and can monitor how we are performing as an organisation.
2. This information ensures customers can access our services and hold informed views about BCH and the services we offer.
3. This provides a gateway for customers who want to share their views of our services and influence how we deliver our service.

Opportunities to give views in relation to service delivery, projects, performance and policy. Examples include:

• Consultation exercises
• Satisfaction surveys
• Customer complaints and compliments
• Focus groups
• Community events and drop-in's

Outcomes:

1. These are activities and opportunities to give views on service delivery, neighbourhood matters, policies and procedures.
2. This enables customers to share their views and insights on our services easily and without a lot of time commitment.
3. These opportunities can be both local (at community events/ estate level) and at a more strategic level through surveys, polls & focus groups.
4. The views shared through these opportunities will feedback to our Complaint Panel, Tower Scrutiny, Senior Management and the BCH Board, to influence service delivery and policies and procedures.

Opportunities to influence decision making and service design and delivery at a local and strategic level. Examples of involvement include:

• Green and Clean Wardens
• Mystery Shoppers
• Reading Panel
• Procurement Representatives
• Neighbourhood Panel
• Complaint Panel
• Walkabouts

Outcomes:

1. These are opportunities to influence decision making and service design at a local & strategic level.
2. These activities are for customers who want to get more involved in influencing decision making and service design.
3. These require a greater time commitment than our insight opportunities but have been developed to blend activity that can be done from home, to support accessibility.
4. These groups will receive insight gathered through our customer satisfaction surveys, complaints and compliments along with opportunities to speak to staff and managers delivering services to help them make recommendations to improve how we deliver our services.

Involvement in the governance structure of BCH, including:

• Tenant Board Member
• TOWER Scrutiny Panel

Outcomes:

1. These are opportunities to be involved in the governance structure of BCH, actively influencing and making decisions on how services are delivered based on feedback from customer insight, involvement, performance and good practice.
2. These options are for customers who are happy to commit time and effort to being directly involved with BCH.

In October 2025, we sent out a survey to all customers with the newsletter to obtain views on the customer newsletter and to ask what content customers wanted to see in future newsletters and communications. This is to help us make sure we’re providing relevant information that’s important to customers. Key areas identified as important were:

• Updates about BCH services
• Community news and events
• How BCH are performing
• Safety information
• How we act on customer views 
• New initiatives or projects
• How rent money is spent

This survey was sent to all 76 involved customers in January 2026 to gather feedback from participants about their involvement activities, satisfaction levels, and motivations for engaging with BCH. A total of 21 involved customers completed the survey. Key areas identified:

• Common motivations for being involved with BCH included a desire to improve community services and contribute positively and commitment to enhancing their living environment.
• Recommendations included more feedback, better accessibility to meetings, regular meetings to engage more tenants, and increased training opportunities.

A Customer Engagement Survey was conducted as part of a door-knocking exercise in February and March 2026, which focused on gaining views on resident involvement and engagement from residents who are not actively or formally involved with BCH. 46 customers engaged to give us their views. Key areas identified:

• A significant majority (70%) of respondents are aware of how to engage with BCH by getting involved or sharing their views.
• 61% of respondents indicated that nothing prevents them from engaging more often, citing a lack of issues or need for involvement. However, some mentioned health issues, childcare needs, or being new to the organisation as barriers to engaging.

The Focus Group had a mixture of involved customers and those who had been spoken to as part of the Door Knocking Consultation exercise. 7 customers attended to provide input into the strategy, including current experience, barriers, what is important and to agree actions & priorities.

What is important - 

• Communication/being kept informed

• Ad-hoc Drop In sessions/ local opportunities

• Review demographics of residents/areas and tailor communication

• Information on the grounds maintenance service, when grass cutting is due to be completed etc

• Local community champions could assist with local level surveys

• Sheltered Housing Officers could be more informed and provide information as part of the service

The barriers - 

• Lack of communication

   

• No reason/wish to get involved

   

• People don’t believe that their voice will make a difference

   

• People may want to complain but don’t want to themselves

   

• Work priorities/meetings at inconvenient times

   

• Caring responsibilities

Agreed priorities - 

• Better communication, including promoting events/services and providing feedback
  
  
• Localised engagement and opportunities, targeted to demographics

• Recruit new members, including leaseholders, to widen experience base
• Implement interim support to the panel identified in the mock inspection
• Ensure scrutiny and panel members are visible with the BCH board

• Refine new Customer Voice report
• Promote engagement opportunities to all customer groups including leaseholders
• Explore new opportunities for customer involvement
• Implement any areas for improvement from TPAS reaccreditation
• Ensure that engagement outcomes and the impact of tenant voice are communicated to evidence customer feedback is heard and acted upon
• Reduce complaints workload to free up resource for promotion of involvement
• Promote local Community Champions where suitable residents can be identified

• Use new CRM system to ensure customer communication preferences are kept up to date.
• To ensure that regular communications are maintained regarding matters that are important to customers and feeding back outcomes at a local and organisational level.

• Offer sessions at Community Centres
• Offer face to face involvement opportunities outside normal working hours on a trial basis
• Ensure opportunities to get feedback from repairs visits and other interactions are optimised
• Link in with existing forums and panels locally to help develop partnerships