We measure our performance against the new Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs), introduced by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) in April 2023 as part of the Consumer Standards.
The TSMs are designed to make sure social landlords are being open with tenants and treating them with fairness and respect so that they can access services, raise complaints, influence decision making and hold their landlord to account.
The year April 2023 to March 2024 is the first set of TSMs that we’ve published.
The TSMs are made up of two sets of information:
- 12 tenant perception measures – based on surveys with customers about their satisfaction with key services, such as repairs and keeping customers informed about things that matter to them. We’ve reported the tenant perception measures by showing the results for social rent (which is called Low Cost Rental Accommodation, or LCRA, by the RSH) and shared ownership (which the RSH refers to as Low Cost Home Ownership or LCHO).
- 10 management information metrics on complaints, anti-social behaviour, repairs and building safety – so that the RSH can assess how we comply with the Consumer Standards.
We already report on our performance through quarterly and annual reports, but the TSMs give customers another opportunity to see how well we are doing - and to help us understand what we can do better.
You can find our annual reports on our website, on the Investors page, and customer annual reports on our legacy websites:
Sovereign Housing Association customer annual report
Network Homes customer annual report
Over the next few months we will also be publishing more detail about the TSMs and what we are doing on all these key service areas, in our 2023/24 customer annual reports, newsletters and social media channels.
Please note: Sovereign Housing Association and Network Homes merged partway through the year 2023 to 2024. Our TSMs are jointly for SNG as a whole, bringing together the results from both legacy organisations. The results therefore combine two slightly different methods, which you can read more about in the 'Summary of our approach' section below.
Tenant Satisfaction Measures 2023/24
These Low Cost Rental Accommodation (LCRA) results include surveys to customers in general needs rented homes and housing for older people, for example.
| Measure | Description | Score |
|---|---|---|
| TP01 | Overall satisfaction | 66.6% |
| TP02 | Satisfaction with repairs | 65.0% |
| TP03 | Satisfaction with time taken to complete most recent repair | 59.1% |
| TP04 | Satisfaction that the home is well maintained | 66.6% |
| TP05 | Satisfaction that the home is safe | 75.0% |
| TP06 | Satisfaction that SNG listens to tenant views and acts upon them | 55.2% |
| TP07 | Satisfaction that SNG keeps tenants informed about things that matter to them | 70.8% |
| TP08 | Agreement that SNG treats tenants fairly and with respect | 74.8% |
| TP09 | Satisfaction with SNG’s approach to handling complaints | 30.6% |
| TP10 | Satisfaction that SNG keeps communal areas clean and well maintained | 60.2% |
| TP11 | Satisfaction that SNG makes a positive contribution to neighbourhoods | 58.1% |
| TP12 | Satisfaction with SNG's approach to handling anti-social behaviour | 54.9% |
Low Cost Home Ownership (LCHO) results include surveys to customers in shared ownership homes, for example.
| Measure | Description | Score |
|---|---|---|
| TP01 | Overall satisfaction | 36.9% |
| TP05 | Satisfaction that the home is safe | 64.6% |
| TP06 | Satisfaction that SNG listens to tenant views and acts upon them | 26.6% |
| TP07 | Satisfaction that SNG keeps tenants informed about things that matter to them | 53.8% |
| TP08 | Agreement that SNG treats tenants fairly and with respect | 52.1% |
| TP09 | Satisfaction with SNG’s approach to handling complaints | 12.3% |
| TP10 | Satisfaction that SNG keeps communal areas clean and well maintained | 36.6% |
| TP11 | Satisfaction that SNG makes a positive contribution to neighbourhoods | 25.3% |
| TP12 | Satisfaction with SNG’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour | 26.0% |
We submit our TSM results to the Regulator of Social Housing and they publish them so that customers can see how we are performing compared to other housing associations.
After we sent our results for 2023/24, we uncovered an inaccuracy in how we measured CH02 – Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales.
An error in our IT system meant that 360 customers received their complaint response one day later than they should have done under the Complaint Handling Code. We have fixed the issue for this year. This means that the performance published below is the updated position, but it might be different from figures that are published by the Regulator of Social Housing.
| Complaints (1) | Description | Score |
|---|---|---|
| CH01 (1) Stage 1 LCRA | Complaints relative to the size of the landlord | 103.3 |
| CH01 (2) Stage 1 LCHO | Complaints relative to the size of the landlord | 56.3 |
| CH01 (3) Stage 2 LCRA | Complaints relative to the size of the landlord | 15.4 |
| CH01 (4) Stage 2 LCHO | Complaints relative to the size of the landlord | 12.3 |
| Complaints (2) | - | - |
| CH02 (1) Stage 1 LRCA | Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales | 58.3% |
| CH02 (2) Stage 1 LCHO | Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales | 54.1% |
| CH02 (3) Stage 2 LCRA | Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales | 42.4% |
| CH02 (4) Stage 2 LCHO | Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales | 39.8% |
| Anti-Social Behaviour | - | - |
| NM01 (1) | Anti-social behaviour cases relative to the size of the landlord | 15.6 |
| NM01 (2) | Anti-social behaviour cases relative to the size of the landlord (involving hate incidents) | 0.1 |
| Repairs | - | - |
| RP01 | Homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard | 0.5% |
| RP02 (1) | Repairs completed within target timescale (non-emergency) | 61.5% |
| RP02 (2) | Repairs completed within target timescale (emergency) | 71.4% |
| Building Safety | - | - |
| BS01 | Gas safety checks | 99.8% |
| BS02 | Fire safety checks | 98.3% |
| BS03 | Asbestos safety checks | 98.8% |
| BS04 | Water safety checks | 90.7% |
| BS05 | Lift safety checks | 91.7% |
Summary of our survey approach
In October 2023, Sovereign Housing and Network Homes merged to form SNG. Network Homes had already completed the TSM perception surveys (TPO1- TP12) before the merger and Sovereign had an annual programme of monthly surveys.
This means the survey timings differed for 2023/24 but a dedicated project enabled us to combine the survey results and management information, in line with the RSH’s reporting requirements for us to submit a joint SNG response.
Where there are differences in approach, definition or policy, we explain these below.
The former Network survey (questions TP01-TP12) was completed in an integrated survey programme from August to October 2023 by independent research company, IFF Research.
Former Sovereign completed monthly surveys over the 12 months from April 2023 to March 2024 via independent research company, Acuity.
Surveys were carried out by telephone as this is the preferred method of communication for the majority of customers and we hold accurate data, so we could achieve a representative sample in a cost-effective way.
Former Sovereign also conducted 54 email surveys where customers were not contactable by phone. Former Network trialled a mix of survey methodologies in advance and were confident of achieving samples to comply with the TSM accuracy requirements.
No incentives were offered with either survey and they were carried out to comply with the RSM’s technical and survey requirements.
Network Homes
Representative quotas were set for the age group, tenure type and area of customer - based on the demographics of the overall population: area quotas were set for both LCRA and LCHO, age and tenure type quotas were only set for LCRA because of the smaller number of LCHO customers.
LCHO customers were over-sampled in relation to the general population to achieve a higher level of accuracy for those specific results (21% v 10% population), as required under the TSM technical guidance.
Sovereign Housing
Random stratified samples using tenure, age and locality were selected to reflect the overall population. Customers who indicated that they did not want to be surveyed, were excluded from the population data.
30 surveys were outside the strict TSM definition (29 NHS properties and 1 Market Rent) but remain in the results as it was not possible to identify and remove all the records due to customers’ anonymity requests. We’ve amended the survey selection criteria to prevent this in future.
The number of respondents for LCRA (sample size) was 3974 and exceeds the accuracy requirements at +/- 1.51%
As at 1 April 2023, former Sovereign and former Network had a combined LCHO base of less than 10,000 homes (9,860) and the sample size of 944 exceeds the accuracy requirements at 3.03%.
Supported Housing
Supported Housing customers were not included in the survey sample (1,459 customers). These include those who have been homeless, rough sleepers, those receiving support for learning disabilities/dementia/mental health reasons, people recovering from substance abuse, and other groups.
A key benefit of conducting the TSM survey is to identify where we can improve the services we provide for customers, but there are several reasons why we don’t consider a perception survey is the best or most appropriate way to uncover the needs of these groups. For example, the questions are not always easy to understand, contacting these customers can cause them stress, and the survey is quite generic so some questions may not be relevant to their situation and so of limited value to them.
We are currently reviewing the services we offer these customers, including working with the specialist team to understand the best way we can gather feedback so that we can support them in the best way possible. We will use this to shape our service offerings to them.
Complaints
Former Sovereign did not record the timeframe for acknowledging complaints during the period, but this has now been rectified. The overall figure is therefore based on ‘acknowledgement in time’ for former Network and ‘response in time’ for former Sovereign complaints.