A new standard in Tenant Satisfaction Measures comes into force on 1 April 2023. Here Intratone looks at how this new standard affects social housing landlords, and what technology is on offer to help meet the requirements of the TSM standard.
From 1 April 2023, social housing landlords will be subject to new levels of tenant accountability. This accountability comes from the UK Regulator of Social Housing’s new system to standardise Tenant Satisfaction Measures or TSMs.
Here Intratone looks at what tenant satisfaction measures mean for social housing landlords and how the Interactive Digital Noticeboard from Intratone can help meet the requirements of the TSMs.
What the Tenant Satisfaction Measures mean for social housing landlords
The UK Government’s ‘Charter for Social Housing Residents’ has been several years in the making, first being published in 2020. The underlying remit of the charter is the improvement of social housing across the UK. One of the core features of the charter is to develop a standardised system of landlord accountability. To achieve this, the charter includes ‘Tenant Satisfaction Measures’ or TSMs. A consultation paper on the TSMs was released on 9 December 2021; the consultation period closed on 3 March 2022.
The consultation attracted 1,098 responses from social housing tenants, councils, housing associations and others in the sector. The outcome of this consultation was finally published on 21 September 2022.
The consultation outcome was consensus, with the paper authors concluding:
“The majority of respondents supported the proposed TSMs and considered that the TSM suite would work in providing rounded information to tenants about their landlord’s performance.”
Now that the consultation period is complete, the next step will be the enforcement of the new TSM requirements. In total, there will be 22 TSMs that social housing landlords must adhere to. The Social Housing Regulator is expected to include the TSM Standard as part of the regulatory consumer standards.
Main areas covered by the TSMs
One of the reasons for the development of standardised TSMs has been the previously ad hoc way social landlords have produced and published performance information. This non-standard way of providing performance data has made landlord performance more difficult for tenants to interpret. The new tenant surveys and landlord data cover five main areas:
- Repairs
- Building safety
- Complaint-handling
- Respectful and helpful tenant engagement
- Responsible neighbourhood management.
