Kirklees Council has the worst scores for overall tenant satisfaction out of all the major social housing providers in West Yorkshire.
The Regulator of Social Housing has introduced a system where social housing landlords must report on 22 tenant satisfaction measures, to provide an indication of how well they are doing at providing good quality housing and services. Part of this is informed by a survey filled in by a sample number of tenants, and the rest from performance data.
In West Yorkshire, just Kirklees and Leeds City Council are responsible for their own housing stock, with social housing across Bradford, Calderdale and Wakefield provided solely by housing associations.
In terms of overall tenant satisfaction for 2023/24, Kirklees came at the bottom of the pile with 63.2% of respondents satisfied with the service provided by their landlord. Leeds City Council came slightly higher with 65.9%, Incommunities – Bradford’s main social housing provider – got 66.9%, Together Housing – the main provider in Calderdale – 79.2% and Wakefield and District Housing Limited 82.8%.
The worst performing category for Kirklees Council was residents who had made a complaint within the past 12 months and were satisfied with the way it was handled by the council, with this standing at 23.2%. Less than half of the respondents said they were content with how the council handles anti-social behaviour.
However, nearly three quarters of people responding to the survey agreed that the council treats them fairly and with respect. One hundred percent of safety checks to asbestos and lifts had been carried out, as well as 99.9% of gas safety checks. Almost 82% of fire-safety checks had been completed and just 6.5% of water safety checks had been carried out.
Where repairs are concerned, 68.8% of respondents in Kirklees were satisfied with the overall repairs service and 66.3% said they were satisfied with the length of time taken to carry out the repair. Just shy of 55% of people felt the council makes a positive contribution to their neighbourhood and 56.1% said their landlord keeps communal areas clean and well maintained.
Councillor Moses Crook, Cabinet Member for Transport & Housing, said: “The Tenant Satisfaction Measures monitor how well we’re doing at providing housing services, and provide us with valuable insight to help us understand what’s going well, as well as feedback on where we need to make changes to improve our services. We recognise that there are areas in which we need to improve and we are making progress in addressing these as part of our transformation programme.
“Whilst this survey provides a good picture of overall tenant satisfaction it is reflective of a period of time and so we also continue to undertake transactional surveys to gain real-time feedback. We would urge tenants to use every available opportunity to give feedback to us, to help us to continue to make all necessary improvements.
“Tenant safety remains our highest priority, focussing on fire safety, issues around damp, mould and condensation, and water quality, but our improvement journey also includes upgrading business systems which will lead to better service standards. It’s really important to us that tenants see the difference our transformation programme will bring, as we work to improve that satisfaction overall.”
