Notes and actions from Resident Panel meetings March 2023

We held three meetings with Resident Panel members in March 2023. Our plenary sessions focused on Rochdale inquest, knowledge and Information management and looked at the Resident Panel after two years.

At the sessions we were also joined by guest speaker Tom Durham from The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities who gave an overview of the ‘Making Things Right’ campaign.

This was followed by special interest meeting where 100 members were invited to participate in a smaller group forum to discuss and share their views on awareness raising, establishing how accessible our service is and seeking to identify the barriers and gaps.

Full panel meetings

All panel members were invited to one of two meetings which provided an overview of the DLUHC ‘Make Things Right’ campaign, a summary the actions taken since the Rochdale inquest, a summary of key findings in damp and mould follow-up report, knowledge, and information management and a look at our resident panel one year on.

During this session we held polls to get members views on complaints and accessing our service, the DLUHC campaign activity actions, what other spotlights should we consider and or items residents would like to see discussed at the next Resident Panel meeting.

Have you heard or seen any of the campaign activity?

Yes: 15 %  No: 30

What other spotlights should we consider looking at next?

• Compensation: 8%
• Pest control: 4%
• Service charges: 17%
• Repairs: 16%
• Adaptations: 7%

Special interest discussion forum

One hundred panel members were invited to take part in a further meeting where the groups were asked to discussion and feedback on Awareness, Access, Understanding in the context of : 

• How might we go about raising awareness? 
• What role could the Resident Panel play in working with us in an awareness campaign?
• How can we explain the role the Housing Ombudsman Service plays – and build greater understanding of the process?
• In 2022, the Democratic filter was removed. How has this made a difference?
• Thinking about HOS and accessibility, what stops people using the service?
• Which digital services (websites, social media, Apps) have you used that you thought that was easy, accessible and, why aren’t all digital services like that.

Feedback from the session can be found in helpful links