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Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)

The Regulator of Social Housing requires social landlords to carry out annual assessments of tenant satisfaction and publish the results along with key data regarding how their housing services and homes are managed. A set of tenant satisfaction measures (more commonly known as TSMs) have been produced to make the performance of landlords more visible to tenants and help them to hold their landlords to account.

There are 22 TSMs, some of which are measured directly by the council such as safety checks, and others which are measured by tenants voicing their views within a survey.

TSM Survey 2024-25

Ashford Borough Council will be conducting its Tenant Satisfaction Survey over a six week period from 19 August 2024 to 4 October 2024. The survey will be conducted by The Learning Foundation (TLF) who conducted this survey for us last year, with surveys being carried out by phone, web link and post. All tenants are encouraged to participate in the TSM survey.

The Learning Foundation will also be contacting Leaseholders of Ashford Borough Council to complete a leaseholder satisfaction survey across the same timeframe, with options to complete the survey via a web link or by post.

Data will be collected across the survey period and all information collated across feedback from tenants and our management information will be submitted to the Regulator of Social Housing in June 2025. Our results will be published in accordance with guidance from the Regulator, as we did for our first TSM survey, which you can find details of below.

Management information TSMs

Management information covers a variety of areas from how many safety compliance checks we carry out on our properties, as well as how many repairs, complaints and cases of anti-social behaviour are raised with us.

A summary of these management figures can be seen below:

+ Building safety

  • Proportion of homes for which all gas safety checks have been carried out - 100%
  • Proportion of homes for which all required fire risk assessments have been carried out - 100%
  • Proportion of homes for which all required asbestos management surveys or re-inspections have been carried out - 100%
  • Proportion of homes for which all required legionella risk assessments have been carried out - 100%
  • Proportion of homes for which all required communal passenger lift safety checks have been carried out - 100%

+ Anti-social behaviour

  • Number of anti-social behaviour cases, opened per 1,000 homes - 8.6
  • Number of anti-social behaviour cases that involve hate incidents opened per 1,000 homes - 0.2

+ Decent Homes Standard (DHS) and repairs*

  • Proportion of homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard - 3.4%
  • Proportion of non-emergency responsive repairs completed within the landlord's target timescale - 85.6%
  • Proportion of emergency responsive repairs completed within the landlord's target timescale - 79.6%

+ Complaints

  • Number of stage one complaints received per 1,000 homes - 55
  • Number of stage two complaints received per 1,000 homes - 8
  • Proportion of stage one complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code timescales - 73.9%
  • Proportion of stage two complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code timescales - 78.6%

Tenant perception survey TSMs

The TSM survey asks tenants for their perception on subjects such as property repairs, maintaining building safety, effective complaints handling, respectful and helpful tenant engagement, and responsible neighbourhood management. This direct feedback from tenants ensures that we understand what we are doing well and where improvements might need to be made.

Data collected is covered by privacy and data protection laws and any tenants that took part could opt to be anonymous with their responses, or provide their details attached to feedback. 

+ Perception survey results

Firstly, we would like to say a big thank you to all those who took part in our 2023/4 satisfaction survey. Hearing first hand experiences and honest feedback about our homes and services really does help us to look at ways we can improve.

This year's survey was launched on 21 August 2023 and ran for a six-week period and was carried out by our research partner TLF on our behalf. All tenants were given the opportunity to respond either via post, telephone or online via an email link. We received 1,041 responses, representing 20% of all our properties. Weighting of the data was not required to represent our tenant population, as weighting by age group and tenure type made less than 1% difference to the overall satisfaction score. We can be very confident (95%) that the data closely represents how satisfied most tenants would be even if they did not respond to the survey. No incentives were offered to tenants to complete the survey.

Below is an overview of how satisfied our tenants are with Ashford Borough Council (ABC) across the 12 TSMs:

  • 63.2% of tenants are satisfied with the service provided by ABC
  • 64.7% are satisfied with the overall repairs service from ABC (only those that have raised a repair within the past 12 months answered this)
  • 59.0% are satisfied with the time taken to complete their most recent repair
  • 65.8% are satisfied that ABC provides a home that is well maintained
  • 72.0% are satisfied that ABC provides a home that is safe
  • 48.6% are satisfied that ABC listens to their views and acts upon them
  • 59.7% are satisfied that ABC keeps them informed about things that matter to them
  • 67.0% are satisfied with ABC treating them fairly and with respect
  • 27.0% are satisfied with ABC's approach to complaints handling (only those that have raised a complaint in the past 12 months answered this)
  • 61.6% are satisfied with ABC keeping communal areas clean and well maintained (only those that live in a property with communal areas inside/outside answered this)
  • 52.4% are satisfied that ABC makes a positive contribution to their neighbourhood
  • 44.6% are satisfied with ABC's approach to handling anti-social behaviour

For those that would like to see the data in a more visual way our Annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey Results [pdf] 213KB is available to download.

Or download our Annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey Results one page summary document [pdf] 219KB.

A copy of the questions that we asked in the survey can be viewed by downloading our Tenant Satisfaction Survey Questionnaire [pdf] 85KB.

+ Survey action plan

Every survey comment and response have been examined and analysed to formulate an action plan to address issues raised, with the aim of improving satisfaction levels for tenants. We will be focusing on the TSMs where tenants are less satisfied, as well as addressing issues raised with our repairs service that are leading to overall dissatisfaction. Some of our key actions are:

  • Any outstanding repairs and actions required raised in survey responses to be investigated and completed
  • Additional complaints, anti-social behaviour handling, and customer service training for Housing staff
  • Tenant feedback forms introduced to those who have made complaints or reported anti-social behaviour to understand how we are handling cases
  • Publishing our performance statistics from tenant feedback forms and management data for repairs, complaints, and anti-social behaviour
  • Publishing lessons learned from tenant feedback forms and performance management data for repairs, complaints and anti-social behaviour
  • Improve communication between housing service teams and tenants, such as more updates on outstanding repairs/cases, and provide more visibility and ease of contact of staff for tenants

We will track and evidence our work in actioning the plan and will be updating this webpage across the year to let you know how we are doing.

Get in touch

If you would like to get in touch regarding the survey or chat through the results in more detail please call Tenant Engagement on 01233 330573 or email us on tenant.contact@ashford.gov.uk.

Notes regarding TSM data

Please note that all data for the TSMs include tenant feedback and management figures for properties that we own that are managed by Moat Housing through the Stanhope PFI.

*Figures for Decent Homes Standard (DHS) and repairs include full year data for Stanhope PFI properties and Swale Heating responsive repairs. Reporting from 1 December 2023 to 31 March 2024 only for responsive repairs managed by Ashford Borough Council.