Phil Morgan leads resident involvement drive in Hammersmith & Fulham

Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Housing

Former Tenant Services Authority director Phil Morgan is leading a drive to improve resident involvement in the London borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.

The council is seeking to improve tenant and leaseholder involvement across the borough after the management of its housing stock returned to council control earlier this year.

More than 17,000 homes returned to the control in April after H&F Homes was replaced with a single housing and regeneration department.

In order to boost resident involvement, Mr Morgan (pictured) has carried out an independent review on how the council currently engages with tenants and leaseholders.

In his two senior roles as Chief Executive of Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) and Executive Director of Tenant Services at the Tenant Services Authority (TSA), Mr Morgan has been taked with ensuring resident involvement is at the heart of social housing.

Mr Morgan has already held roadshows with tenants, leaseholders, tenants and residents associations and other stakeholders and has made a number of recommendations that residents are being asked to comment on. He has made some suggestions that the Council has already acted upon in order to make sure residents’ voices are heard. As a result, the Council has invited residents to establish a Repairs Working Group and a Local Residents Panel.

The Repairs Working Group would see residents review current arrangements, interview contractors on their performance and involve residents in the recruitment of future contractors. The Local Residents Panel would review complaints and monitor services.

Councillor Andrew Johnson, cabinet member for housing, said: "When the council brought the housing service back in-house we made a commitment that we would continue to build on the improvements that have already been made in the housing service. This continues to remain our highest priority.

Our aim is to ensure that we have a truly responsive, efficient housing service that delivers value for money and places tenants and leaseholders at the heart of everything we do. Although we do engage with our tenants and leaseholders through the TRAs and area forums we want more residents to be involved in more ways with a greater impact on service improvement.”

The consultation on Phil Morgan’s suggestions for improving residents involvement closes on December 5. Phil Morgan will then collate the responses and prepare a draft report. Consultation documents will be sent to all people that attended the Residents Involvement roadshows and the 1,000 residents that have expressed an interest in becoming more involved.

In particular, the council is keen to:

• Increase the number and diversity of residents involved;
• Widen the ways in which residents can be involved;
• Ensure resident involvement delivers continuous improvement, value for money and services shaped by our residents;
• Ensure residents have the information they need to monitor and make Housing Services accountable.