Customer Committee achievements 2024/25
The Customer Committee is a sub committee of the Board of Management at NCHA. Its purpose is to oversee the performance of NCHA specifically in relation to customer experience. The Customer Committee is made up of three customers, three Board members and is chaired by an Independent Chair, Raj Kumar, who is not a member of staff, customer or Board Member. Raj is an expert in resident involvement and works across a number of organisations including NCHA to support their governance and resident involvement work.
The Customer Committee minutes are reviewed at Board meetings and the Chair of NCHA Board provides a summary of each Board meeting to Customer Committee members to ensure two way communication between each group.
Full details of the Committee membership can be found here.
The Committee is part of the formal governance structure at NCHA and is a commitment to transparent performance management whilst putting our customers at the heart of the business.
Our achievements in 2024/25
The Committee met four times in 2024/25. We made a number of important decisions including the approval of the:
- Customer Involvement budget
- Customer Involvement Policy
- Allocations Policy
- Relet Standard
- The approach to collecting our Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)
- Annual Report to customers
- Recommendations and associated action plan from the Scrutiny Report into Damp, Mould and Condensation
- TPAS (tenant participation advisory service) accreditation and action plan
We reviewed the annual complaints and compensation performance including the self assessment against the Housing Ombudsman Code and made recommendations on the Compensation Policy for NCHA’s Board. We also reviewed all Housing Ombudsman findings of maladministration in our service delivery and reviewed the lessons learnt and actions coming from these.
We reviewed NCHA’s progress against our ‘Homes for Cathy’ homelessness commitments and Better Social Housing Review actions.
We received a really good update report on the how NCHA were responding to dissatisfaction in the management of defects when new homes are handed over from developers. We were pleased to see investment in this area and in the impact it was having on both reducing complaints and improving the experience for new customers.
We also reviewed the outcome of a pilot project to visit tenants who are over 75 in their homes and complete a ‘Happy at Home’ visit to ensure that repairs are being dealt with, the home can be kept warm and to signpost tenants on to any additional help they might need, including aids and adaptations within the home. The pilot was really successful and Customer Committee asked NCHA to roll out the programme on a permanent basis which was agreed.
In terms of performance management we also saw quarterly reports on key performance data telling us what was working well and what needed improvement in key areas such as complaint handling satisfaction and overall communication with internal teams and contractors.
Finally, we were delighted to support NCHA to achieve accreditation with TPAS and thanked colleagues for their hard work in delivering the improvements needed to customer engagement and involvement.
All in all a busy and productive year for the Customer Committee.
