Scottish Government

Identifying the Priorities of Tenants of Social Landlords

This paper presents the key findings from research carried out with tenants of social landlords to inform the proposed introduction of a Scottish Social Housing Charter, and modernisations to the regulatory framework of social housing in Scotland. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the study aimed to explore both popular and more informed opinions about the operation of social landlords and the regulatory system by capturing the views of both mainstream tenants and representatives of Registered Tenant Organisations ( RTOs). The research included five elements: a literature review of current evidence base on tenants' satisfaction with services delivered by social landlords; a telephone survey of 500 mainstream tenants; a postal survey of all RTOs (of which we received 193 returns); 5 focus groups with mainstream tenants; and 1 focus group with members of RTOs.

Main Findings

• The key service priorities identified by tenants centred on immediate and everyday services that directly affect the quality of their lives on a daily basis. Tenants rated the provision of good quality accommodation as the most important service - 23% of tenants rating this as the most important service relative to all other services - followed by a good day-to-day repairs service (14%), dealing with anti-social behaviour (12%), and ensuring buildings and entrances are secure (11%).
• The views of RTOs were broadly in line with mainstream tenants. However, RTOs were more likely than tenants to prioritise services that impacted on the wellbeing of the wider estate or neighbourhood. Further, RTOs were more likely than tenants to rate taking tenants' views into account and involving tenants in decision making as important.
• While the research demonstrates that overall satisfaction with landlord services is fairly high across the sector, there is a marked difference between services provided by Registered Social Landlords ( RSLs) and local authorities - the former being significantly more highly rated than the latter. For the most part, those services that tenants and RTOs rated as being foremost priorities also received high satisfaction ratings.
• Tenants had mixed views on the desirability to know more about how their rents and services compare to other social landlords. Moreover, among those who would like to know more, awareness of where to obtain information on landlord performance was limited.
• A minority of tenants and RTOs (38% and 20% respectively) favoured a move to a regime where tenants could opt for additional services attracting additional charges. Focus group evidence revealed that tenants were unwilling to pay more while perceived weaknesses with current services remained.
• Awareness of inspection and regulation was low among tenants, with less than a quarter (24%) aware that housing and other services provided by their landlord are inspected. Further, among those who were aware, only 1% identified the Scottish Housing Regulator ( SHR) as the organisation who carries out the inspection.
• Despite limited awareness, nearly all tenants and RTOs (95% and 99% respectively) believed it important that their landlord's work is regulated and monitored by an independent organisation. Over a third of tenants (34%) and nearly three quarters (72%) of RTOs felt it was essential.
• Nearly all (97%) RTOs believed that the Scottish Housing Regulator should monitor and regulate all landlords in the social rented sector, including local authorities and RSLs.

About the study

Fieldwork for the study took place between January and April 2009.

The central aim of this research was to identify tenants' priorities for social housing provided by both RSLs and local authorities. In addition, the research aimed to capture tenants' understanding and opinion of 'value' in terms of the services delivered by their landlords compared to other landlords, as well as their views on the jurisdiction of, and powers required by, the modernised SHR.

The specific objectives of the research were to:

• undertake an evidence review of tenant satisfaction and priorities in relation to the services they receive to provide the context and key themes for the survey element of the work and identify examples of best practice in Scotland;
• identify and rank the range and type of tenant priorities in terms of services received from their social landlord;
• identify what tenants consider to be examples of good and bad practice in terms of social housing provision and related services;
• identify whether tenants are currently able to compare the service quality and value for money of local social landlords and whether this is something they would like to be able to do more in the future;
• examine the extent to which tenants would be willing to pay a higher rent for additional or improved services; and
• identify tenants' views and priorities in terms of the role the regulation of social landlords should play in protecting tenants' interests.

The research included five components which aimed to explore both popular and more informed opinions about the operation of social landlords and the regulatory system by consulting both mainstream tenants and representatives of RTOs:

• a literature review of the current evidence base on tenants' satisfaction with services delivered by social landlords;
• a telephone survey of a representative sample of 500 social housing tenants;
• a postal survey of all RTOs in Scotland (of which we received 193 returns), who answered on behalf of their tenant members;
• qualitative research among mainstream tenants; and
• qualitative research among members of RTOs, who were representing tenants in their area.

Further details of the survey methodology are available in the full survey report.

Background and context

'Firm Foundations', the Scottish Government's discussion document on the future of housing in Scotland identified some key issues for the social housing sector. In particular it highlighted how, unlike consumers in 'ordinary markets', tenants in social housing cannot easily wield influence over service providers by 'taking their custom elsewhere'.

To address this, 'Firm Foundations' proposed two key initiatives: Firstly, strengthening the role of tenants so that they can become more empowered customers of their landlord - the ongoing development of the RTO network is highlighted as a crucial step forward in this respect. Secondly, modernising the regulatory framework so that it exists to promote the needs and interests of tenants of social landlords.

The Scottish Government included proposals for modernising the regulatory framework in the consultation paper on the draft Housing (Scotland) Bill that it published on 27 April 2009. The proposals have two main elements: introducing a Scottish Social Housing Charter that would define the outcomes and value that social landlords should be delivering for their tenants; and modernising the SHR by giving it statutory independence with the objective of promoting the interests of tenants and prospective tenants and a range of modernised duties and powers to ensure that it achieved that objective.

Tenants' priorities and satisfaction with services

The key service priorities identified by tenants centred on immediate and 'everyday' services that directly affect the quality of their lives on a daily basis. By far the biggest priority in this respect was the provision of good quality accommodation, with 23% of tenants rating this as the most important service relative to all other services. The second most important service was a good day-to-day repairs service (14% of tenants rated this as the most important service relative to all other services), followed by dealing with anti-social behaviour (12%), ensuring buildings and entrances are secure (11%), major modernisation and improvement work (9%) and dealing with nuisance neighbours (7%).

The views of RTOs were broadly in line with mainstream tenants ¹; like tenants, their highest priority was provision of good quality accommodation, with 79% of RTOs rating this as essential. However, RTOs were more likely than tenants to prioritise services that impacted on the wellbeing of the wider estate or neighbourhood, including dealing with anti-social behaviour (77%), dealing with nuisance neighbours (73%) and keeping buildings and entrances secure (69%). Further, as might be expected given their function to represent the views of tenants, relative to other services, RTOs were more likely than tenants to rate taking tenants' views into account (70%) and involving tenants in decision making (68%) as important.

hile the research demonstrates that overall satisfaction with landlord services is fairly high across the sector, there is a marked difference between housing associations and local authorities - the former being significantly more highly rated than the latter. The survey data collected in the course of the research shows associations scoring above authorities on every one of 12 distinct service areas included in the surveys.

In addition, among young tenants, aged 35 years or under, the proportion satisfied with tenant involvement in decision-making was less than half the comparable figure for older tenants, aged over 55. The same was true in relation to perceptions of the 'fairness' of allocations policies; with social landlords likely to be housing an increasingly youthful population in coming years, these are especially notable findings

When interpreting these results on satisfaction with services, it is important to bear in mind that it is not just the quality of the service that determines levels of satisfaction and, therefore, high satisfaction scores do not always indicate high quality services. Perceptions will also be influenced by: whether or not a person has had direct experience of using a service, and thus will be more likely to be able to make informed judgements; and expectation levels which are, in the most part, driven by demographics, with different types of people more likely than others to say they are satisfied with services ².

For the most part, those services that tenants and RTOs perceived as being foremost priorities also received high satisfaction ratings, while those services that received lower satisfaction ratings were perceived to be less important. However, this was less true of RTO responses. In particular, while attaching particularly high importance to addressing antisocial behaviour, RTOs tended to see landlords as weak performers here.

Making judgements on service quality

Tenants had limited knowledge of how the standard of service provided and the rent charged by their landlord compares to other landlords. Although RTOs were more likely to be knowledgeable on such comparisons, the level of knowledge was still patchy in different RTOs.

Further, there was no consensus among tenants about whether they would like to know more about the rent and services of other social landlords. Moreover, among those who would like to know more, awareness of where to obtain information on landlord performance was limited.

Three quarters (74%) of tenants who pay rent and nearly two-thirds (60%) of RTOs rated the accommodation and services provided by their landlord as representing good value for money.

The two major considerations in determining perceptions on value for money were views on the standard of accommodation provided by landlords and rent levels. While tenants were most likely to mention the standard of accommodation as the factor primarily influencing their view on value for money, RTOs were more likely to mention rent levels.

A minority of tenants (38%) and RTOs (20%) favoured a move to a regime where tenants could opt for additional services attracting additional charges. Focus group evidence revealed that tenants were unwilling to pay more while perceived weaknesses with current services remained to be addressed.

Awareness and perceptions of the Scottish Housing Regulator

Awareness of inspection and regulation was low among tenants, with less than a quarter (24%) aware that the housing and other services provided by their landlord are inspected. Further, among those who were aware, only 1% identified the SHR as the organisation that carries out the inspection.

As might be expected, awareness of regulation and inspection among RTOs was greater, with two fifths (41%) aware of occasions in the last three years when housing provided in their area had been inspected. In addition, the majority of this group had some degree of involvement in the inspection process.

Despite limited awareness, nearly all tenants (95%) and RTOs (99%) believed it was important that their landlord's work is regulated and monitored by an independent organisation. Over a third (34%) of tenants and nearly three quarters (72%) of RTOs felt it was essential.

Nearly all RTOs (97%) believed that the SHR should monitor and regulate all landlords in the social rented sector, including local authorities and RSLs.

Despite being positive about the potential of the SHR to improve landlord services and create parity across different landlords, both tenants and RTOs had reservations about its work.

While tenants' concerns related to the need to ensure inspections were representative of a landlord's service - for example, by adopting a 'hands on' approach and inspecting a random sample of properties, and consulting tenants directly - RTOs were critical of the move towards carrying out 'proportionate' inspections. In particular, they were concerned that light touch inspections might be inadequate to ensure the maintenance of high standards.

In order for the SHR to function properly, both tenants and RTOs believed that it should be afforded sufficient powers to enforce change. While financial sanctions were perceived by both tenants and RTOs as counter-productive, there was a lack of consensus on the best means of penalising poorly performing landlords. Suggested actions included publicising findings or 'naming and shaming', implementing changes in management and enforcing housing stock transfers.

Conclusions and implications

By and large, social landlords are seen positively especially in terms of their repairs and maintenance services and delivery of value for money. At the same time, however, the survey evidence emphasizes the importance attributed to landlords' role in tackling anti-social behaviour and - particularly among RTOs - strong reservations about current performance in this area. This echoes recent research findings from England in relation to social landlord activity on 'looking after the neighbourhood' and 'dealing with crime and vandalism'. All of this suggests that, just as in England, Scottish tenant priorities would see 'neighbourhood management' activities assuming a high priority for service improvement.

A number of the research findings have direct relevance to ongoing discussions on the reform of social housing regulation. Particularly notable is the large majority of RTOs seeing it as 'essential' that their landlord continues to be overseen by an independent regulator and the 82% of tenants seeing this as 'essential' or 'very important'. Alongside this is the virtually unanimous view among RTOs that oversight of both local authorities and housing associations should remain the responsibility of the Scottish Housing Regulator. Especially within the context of fresh evidence demonstrating lower overall satisfaction rates among council tenants (see above) these findings seem to run counter to the recent suggestion that the SHR might withdraw 'from any role in respect of local authorities'.

In terms of regulatory practice, the research highlights tenant scepticism about the effectiveness of the current inspection model in uncovering service shortcomings. While mystery shopping receives explicit backing, it would appear that instigation of short notice inspection could also evoke tenant support. At the same time, the research confirms a very low level of awareness of regulation among ordinary tenants. This perhaps suggests a need for more active publicity about the SHR, its role and methods (e.g. 'reality checking'). Given that the existing framework is currently under review it is of course recognised that such an exercise would be presently inappropriate. Any such campaign mounted in the future would need to address what appear to be quite widespread RTO concerns that recent developments in regulatory practice could amount to a dilution of the service.

This document, along with "Identifying the Priorities of Tenants of Social Landlords" the full research report of the project, and further information about social and policy research commissioned and published on behalf of the Scottish Government, can be viewed on the internet at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch. If you have any further queries about social research, or would like further copies of this research findings summary document, please contact us at socialresearch@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or on 0131-244 7560.