Council Housing Resident Involvement Strategy 2024-2027

This strategy sets out how Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council (WHBC) will engage with its tenants and leaseholders to find out, listen to and act on their views in the development, delivery and evaluation of our housing services.

‘Homes to be proud’ of is one of the five priorities in WHBC’s Community Plan for 2024-27: “Putting Communities at our Heart.”

We recognise this can be better achieved by working together with our tenants and leaseholders as they are well placed to tell us what works well in our housing services and what could work better.

There is currently a core group of dedicated tenants and leaseholders that form the Residents Panel and act as a ‘critical friend’ to the council. They help us to achieve the objectives in this strategy by looking at performance data, strategies and policies, as well as collecting feedback from residents about our housing services. The Panel use this information to raise matters with us and make recommendations around service improvements.

We are committed to providing a wider variety of ways to be involved, ensuring all tenants and leaseholders who want to take part can do so at a commitment level they feel comfortable with.

The overall aim of the strategy is to increase involvement, using what tenants and leaseholders tell us, as well as their local knowledge, to shape and improve our housing services and so increase confidence and satisfaction around our performance.

For the purposes of this strategy, the term residents refers to all those living in council-owned properties or accessing the council’s housing service. This includes tenants, leaseholders, all family members of tenants living in the property and those in temporary accommodation.

 “At Welwyn Hatfield, we are committed to putting our residents at the heart of what we do. This Resident Involvement Strategy seeks to encourage a culture throughout our housing service that shows we listen to tenants and leaseholders, learn from their experiences and act upon their feedback. I hope after reading our strategy, you will be inspired to get involved in some way.”

- Executive Member for Housing, Cllr Lynn Chesterman OBE.