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Your Voice Forum Meetings

Tell us what you think

Your Voice Forum Meetings give you a chance to tell us what you think about a particular policy or issue. You can attend one meeting or every meeting and you will receive feedback after each meeting on what changes have come about because of your feedback.

Your feedback and opinions play a crucial role in the work we do. By sharing your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions with us, you help us improve our services and contribute to shaping the future of MCC Housing Services.

Taking place on the last Wednesday of every month, each Your Voice Forum will be open to all residents to attend and we will explore one policy area or issue per meeting.

The next forum meeting is:

High Rise Building Safety

Wednesday 30 April 5.30pm to 7pm

Facebook Event

 

Your Voice Forum: Minutes of Meeting - 26 March 2025

Your Voice Forum: Minutes of Meeting - 26 March 2025

  • Date of meeting: 26/3/2025
  • Number of residents present: 12
  • Report Author: Andrew Bevan
  • Topic: Resident Engagement
  • Staff present: Claire Tyrell, Mike Hutton & Andrew Bevan

Vulnerability Policy

Definition: Vulnerability includes difficulties with everyday living due to mental or physical health issues, disability, age, or temporary conditions like pregnancy. It also covers residents needing extra support to manage their tenancy.  
  
Identification: Vulnerability can be identified through self-reporting, staff interactions, or external referrals. Signs include antisocial behaviour, neglect of home or garden, failure to respond to correspondence, and inability to maintain tenancy conditions.  
  
Characteristics: Vulnerable groups include older people, disabled individuals, care leavers, lone parents, people with mental illness, autism spectrum disorder, addiction issues, low literacy, and non-English speakers. Exceptional life events like bereavement, crime victimisation, domestic abuse, recent hospital discharge, pregnancy, refugee status, and exceptional hardship are also considered.  
  
Response: Recording and addressing needs, making reasonable adjustments.

Discussion Points

  • Housing Ombudsman: Waiting for the policy.  
  • Policy Scope: Covers issues that are not ASB but are annoyances.  
  • British Gas: One resident mentioned British Gas asks vulnerability questions to assess needs.  
  • Housing System (QL): Alerts show people's vulnerabilities.  
  • Checks on Vulnerabilities: One resident asked if there are checks on whether vulnerabilities have worsened or changed. Claire responded that resources are not available for this.  
  • Bi-annual Visits: Housing Officers will make bi-annual visits to identify vulnerabilities. Equans will also provide feedback alerts during property repairs.  
  • Contact Centre: Discussion on improved waiting times to get through on the phone.  
  • Online Repair Reporting: One resident reported a repair online but hadn't heard back for three weeks.  
  • Introductory Contract: Confirmed it still exists. 
  • Safeguarding Brief: Provided to all staff annually. Equans operatives receive an online Safeguarding course.  
  • Hoarding Cases: Difficult properties to access, requiring trust-building.  
  • Action: Change wording from 'disabled people' to 'person with a disability'.  
  • Suicidal Procedure: One resident asked about the procedure for someone who is suicidal.  
  • Policy Feedback: Group described the policy as holistic and expressed surprise it wasn't already in place but approved of the content. 

Good Neighbourhood Management Policy 

Scope: Includes neighbourhood management to meet Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). Covers neighbour disputes, non-statutory noise issues, parking, children playing, lifestyle differences, abandoned vehicles, garden maintenance, communal areas, environmental antisocial behaviour (ASB), vandalism, graffiti, fly-tipping, and litter. 
 
Maintenance: Grounds maintenance (grass, hedges, weed killing, trees), communal cleaning (high-rise and low-rise blocks), waste management (communal areas/bins, recycling, bulky rubbish).

Next Steps

Review feedback, consult wider, draft policies for comments, and implement approved policies.

Discussion Points

  • Mediation Service: Evolved to recognise trauma. 
  • Service Standards: Mike Hutton is revising them.
  • Trees: Remain a grey area. 
  • Additional Inclusions: Group suggested fly-tipping. Discussion on CCTV to combat this, but the issue often moves elsewhere. 
  • Bins: Not enough bins near fast food places. Manchester City Council doesn't have the capacity to collect more rubbish. 
  • Grass Cutting: Complaint about grass left on paths. Mike Hutton said paths should be cleared. 
  • Communal Gardens: Grass cutting has been brought back in-house.

Actions 

Claire Tyrrell will compile everything into a policy and go out to consultation. One resident expressed willingness to be part of the consultation. 

Your Voice Forum: Minutes of Meeting - 26 February 2025

Your Voice Forum: Minutes of Meeting - 26 February 2025

  • Date of meeting: 26/02/2025
  • Number of residents present: 8
  • Report Author: Andrew Bevan
  • Topic: Resident Engagement
  • Staff present: Andrew Bevan and Emma Quayle

Introduction

Emma spoke about Manchester City Council Housing Services’ (MCCHS) resident engagement and involvement offer and discussed the recent TSM results which show only 41% of tenants felt that we listen to their views and act upon them, 44.85% feel we keep residents informed of the things that matter to them.

Discussion

There followed a whole group discussion about why residents might not feel happy with the current service. The points discussed were as follows:

  1. Many residents still see MCCHS as Northwards Housing and the move into the council was just a name change. Northwards still comes up on Google and when using the website
  2. Equans called one resident and said that they were coming to do a repair from ‘Northwards’ and then told the resident how terrible ‘Northwards’ were as a landlord
  3. ‘There’s no point (getting involved), they don’t listen’ attitude of many residents
  4. Residents cited the lack of Communications advertising improvements to the service; a lot of people still think call wait times are too long. We spoke about the recent improvements.
  5. Confusion between MCCHS and MCC more generally. MCCHS is now getting the blame for failures in other council services
  6. Confusing branding-front of offices has a different colour scheme to website and new proposed app has yet another proposed branding and colour. Although many liked ‘the Hive’ colour scheme.
  7. No knowledge of who the housing officer is and no contact from one. The new Housing Officer operating model was discussed.
  8. Overreliance on communication via the website and social media.
  9. Allocation rules-homeless people with complex needs being housed in flats. In other areas of country, families with children could be housed as well in high rise buildings.

 

Suggestions

  1. Consistent branding across all platforms to ensure that people understand who MCCHS are and what they do 
  2. Arrange a clean-up of the area. Great British Spring Clean and explore funding for gardens and other clean-up activities 
  3. Advertise current wait times for the contact centre on Facebook to show the improvement to the service 
  4. Advertise volunteering opportunities 
  5. More positive case studies promoted 
  6. Once a year reach out with a paper newsletter or leaflets 
  7. New tenancy packs to include information on how residents can get involved 
  8. Concessionary gardening need to be identified at the let 
  9. When we advertise engagement opportunities/events, can we state if they are wheelchair accessible/step free etc.

Actions

  • Emma to find out if there is a limit on the number of concessionary gardens available.
  • Comms team have created Facebook post of weekly CSC performance - to be published every week. https://bit.ly/41KbGNE
  • MCC and Housing Services team members are participating in a large Litter Pick on Rochdale Road on Tuesday 1st April.
  • Residents will be encouraged to sign up for the Great British Spring Clean and arrange their own litter picks - with advertising posts across social media, website and on the resident newsletter.