Panel proposes new approach to resident involvement in Southwark
7 January 2019
A report has today been published summarising the findings of Southwark’s Resident Involvement Review Co-Design Panel.
The panel, chaired by an independent expert, brought together a range of tenants and leaseholders to consider how residents can be more effectively involved in decisions about housing in the borough. It was set up in response to a review of resident engagement in 2017, which had input from over 1,000 residents and identified a number of areas for improvement in the current 30 year old structure. These included the need to regularly engage a wider and more diverse range of tenants and leaseholders, a desire for digital engagement tools to be offered alongside traditional meetings, and a need to increase awareness of the current structures and funds available.
The co-design panel report:
- proposes a more flexible and inclusive structure that promotes both local community development and meaningful resident scrutiny of housing services.
- recommends greater funding and more IT and training support for Tenant and Resident Associations (TRAs), as well as opportunities for residents to have their say where there is no TRA;
- and envisages a new form of area level engagement that combines an online resident community with quarterly meetings, and proposes more ways for more residents to be involved in shaping and scrutinising borough-wide housing services.
The full report can be accessed here.
Residents are invited to comment on the findings in a new consultation which launches today and will run until Thursday 31 January. The consultation can be accessed here.
Cllr Stephanie Cryan, Cabinet Member for Housing Management and Modernisation, said: “I am very grateful to the panel for the time and commitment they have put into this review. Any change can be difficult, but our 2017 review told us that our existing arrangements weren’t working for everyone, and that we really need to bring our resident engagement into the 21st Century; something the panel has grasped and made some clear recommendations about. We now need to ask residents across the borough what they think of these proposals, so I hope tenants and leaseholders will take the time to respond. Working together to get this right will mean that everyone has a voice in the future of housing in Southwark.”
Page last updated: 07 January 2019
