Ingredients:

• Tenants wanting to make a difference
• An organisation open to new ideas

Tenant Auditors look at the services provided by the Trust and make recommendations on how these services can be improved, tailoring them to real customer needs and gaining personal skills along the way.

The Tenant Auditor Project is a high profile and innovative initiative, one of the original projects funded firstly by a Department of Transport, Local Government and Regions (DTLR)  Innovation into Action Grant, and subsequently by a Housing Corporation Community Training and Enabling Grant.

Due to the success of the Tenant Auditor Project, tenant audits have been mainstreamed at the Trust and are an integral element of resident involvement and a core method in improving services.

Tenant auditors are given skills, knowledge and the chance to look at the services they receive and to unearth opportunities for improvement with their own solutions.

Auditors are encouraged to ‘get their hands dirty’ and to do something about a problem. Furthermore, they are encouraged to delve behind the scenes to find out exactly what happens, rather than just accepting what they are told.

Once the auditors have completed their report, they feedback to senior managers so that an agreed action plan can be approved to address their findings.

Results:

• Auditors have given practical ideas and recommendations that have made positive service improvements
• It has attracted tenants previously not involved in Tenant Participation
• Provided broader personal skills for the participants
• Added ‘reality’ to Trust Performance Indicators
• Improved understanding/relationship between staff and tenants
• Winner of an IPPR/The Guardian “Public Involvement Awards 2002”

We have hosted Tenant Auditor workshops for other social landlords, as well as at tenant events and sector conferences

Newly recruited auditors will be given training based on the principles of the Audit Commission’s Key Lines of Enquiry, in the same way as the Audit Commission uses Tenant Inspection Advisors.

Landlords have a duty to all tenants to ensure that the services we provide represent ‘Best Value’. The highly innovative Tenant Auditor Project has, and continues, to enable tenants to make a real difference to the way housing services are provided.

Tenant auditors really do gain new skills that make a difference; some auditors have gone on to enter fulltime employment, some have used their skills and confidence to expand their voluntary work and several have gone on to become Tenants’ Panel and Tenant Board members of the Trust.

For more information contact Chris Shepherd on 01952 217181.