TSA launches social landlord performance portal for tenants

Ever wondered if you are getting a fair deal from your landlord or how your landlord compares to others in the area?

Well, help is at hand as the national social housing regulator, the Tenant Services Authority (TSA), has released a new free web portal.

Launched today, the portal will enable all tenants, by simply entering their postcode, to compare the performance of housing associations in their area. 
 
The portal will be a valuable source of information for tenants and prospective tenants, local authorities, housing associations, councillors and MPs.
 
The web portal contains six pieces of information tenants have told the TSA they would find useful:

• Number of homes in an area, either homes within the local authority or by local housing association
• Rent levels
• Tenant satisfaction with the overall service
• Tenant satisfaction with opportunities for participating in making decisions about the services provided
• Tenant satisfaction with repairs and maintenance
• A link to the regulatory judgement.

TSA Chief Executive Peter Marsh, said: “We have received lots of feedback from tenants who find it difficult to compare landlord performance. The portal will enable them to hold their landlord to account by giving them information to ask questions about their landlord’s performance and how it compares to others in their area.

"It provides tenants with an easy-to-use, free tool to ask landlords to explain where their performance is out of line with their neighbours’ and what can be learnt for from better performers to improve services for all tenants.
 
“The portal will also be an essential tool to aid stock rationalisation. Councillors and housing association board members can now see how many homes are owned by each landlord in each local authority, which should help providers ask further questions on who is best placed to own and manage homes to deliver the best service to tenants in each locality.”
 
By opening up accountability and transparency, the portal also illustrates the need for improvement for some housing associations.

For example, there continues to be a significant difference between those landlords achieving the highest and lowest satisfaction ratings from their tenants – with up to a 25% difference between those in the top and bottom 10% of performance.
 
Access to the portal is via the TSA website - www.tenantservicesauthority.org. No logins, passwords or subscriptions are needed to access the information.
 
In addition to the information provided through the web portal, the TSA is also publishing today the full 2009 performance indicator (PI) results.