Have Your Say & Make a Difference - Information for Tenants

Tenant Engagement - Our Offer

Our Opportunities

Rugby Borough Council aims to:

• Give tenants meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise our strategies, policies and services.

•  Assist tenants who wish to implement tenant led activities to influence and scrutinise our strategies, policies and services.

Join our Tenants Panel – Help us take a close and careful look at our communications, policies and procedures.

The Tenants Panel meet 4 times per year at the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. Please get in contact to express your interest and become a Panel member!

Take our annual Tenants Satisfaction Survey - Available October – January every year.

Consumer Standards Groups – New for 2025, are you interested in one of the following areas?

• Safety and Quality – Do RBC provide homes that are safe, and provide an effective repairs and maintenance service? Tell us what you think.

• Transparency, Influence and Accountability – Does RBC treat tenants with fairness and respect so they can access services, raise concerns, when necessary, influence decision making and hold their landlord to account, this includes meeting diverse needs, hearing tenants’ views and how we handle complaints? Tell us what you think.

• Neighbourhood and Communities – Does RBC engage with other relevant parties so that tenants can live in safe and well-maintained neighbourhoods and feel safe in their homes and includes dealing with anti-social behaviour? Tell us what you think.

• Tenancy – Does RBC allocate and let homes fairly? Do we manage our tenancies well? Tell us what you think…

The groups will meet in person four times a year.

Get involved in monitoring the services you receive - If you have a communal garden or indoor communal space help us monitor your gardening service and/or cleaning service. We supply a checklist for you to note your comments about the services and we feed back to our contactors and to you.

Join our Estate Inspections – We inspect our estates twice a year, once a year for Independent Living Schemes, join us and let’s keep our estates tidy and free of anti-social behaviour.

Join us for one of our interactive Tenant Workshops and Focus Groups - In these sessions we will work together to make improvements to specific area of focus through tenant feedback and input.

The current sessions include:

• Rugby Borough Council Website Regeneration Tenants Workshop
• Annual Tenants Survey Focus Groups
• ‘Tackling Antisocial Behaviour in Your Neighbourhood’ Focus Groups

Join in and learn more about your Fire Risk Assessment - If your scheme has an annual Fire Risk Assessment you can be involved in this, work with our expert fire risk assessors to ensure the best arrangements are in place in your scheme.

We Support:

• Informal Drop-In sessions & Coffee Mornings/Afternoon Teas
• Seasonal events & activities
• Consultations about any changes to services.
• Clubs and activities that tenants would like to deliver

These activities give us the opportunity to work together so you can influence and scrutinise our strategies, policies and services.  

Showing our appreciation – we value your time and feedback. We offer a £10 shopping gift card to tenants who attend certain engagement sessions which take place outside of their scheme or neighbourhood.

When you get involved and share your views with us, we will provide feedback to let you know how your contribution has influenced our decision making and delivery of services.

Contact Us – Have your Say and Ask About Getting Involved

Email: rbc.tenants@rugby.gov.uk

Call: 01788 533 533

Inbox us on Facebook: Rugby Borough Council tenants' news | Facebook

Information about Landlord Services - Our Offer

Our Information

Rugby Borough Council aims to provide tenants with accessible information about:

• Available landlord services, how to access those services and the standard of service tenants can expect.
   
• Standards of safety and quality tenants can expect homes and communal areas to meet.
   
• Rent and service charges payable by tenants.
   
• Responsibilities of Rugby Borough Council and the tenant for maintaining homes, communal areas, shared spaces and neighbourhoods.
   

We provide information about our services in the following ways:

Our Facebook Page: Rugby Borough Council tenants' news | Facebook

Our Quarterly Tenants Newsletter: Tenant newsletter - Rugby Borough Council – Performance information and information about accessing services.

Join our Editorial Board - Budding journalists are invited to join the Editorial Board for our Tenants Magazine, meetings will take place 4 times a year. Contact us to express your interest.

Our Website: Council housing - Rugby Borough Council

Our Rent Statements – Received by tenants twice per year

The Tenants Handbook -  The responsibilities of Ruby Borough Council and our tenants for maintaining homes are set out in our Tenant’s Handbook Your tenancy - Rugby Borough Council

Our Tenancy Agreement Your tenancy - Rugby Borough Council

Rugby Borough Council aims to inform tenants about their rights and our legal obligations, particularly in relation to:

• The requirement to provide a home that meets the Decent Homes Standard.
   
• Rugby Borough Council’s obligation to comply with health and safety legislation.

Tenants’ rights including:

• The right to a home that is fit for human habitation.
   
• The right to receive notice of a proposed visit to carry out repairs or maintenance or to view the condition and state of repair of the property.
   
• The rights of disabled tenants to reasonable adjustments.
  

We publish 4 editions of our Tenants Newsletter each year.

From 2025 each edition will have a theme:

Winter – Your Tenancy

Spring – Neighbourhood and Communities

Summer – Safety & Quality

Autumn – Transparency, Influence and Accountability

This will enable us to communicate regularly to tenants about their rights and our obligations and responsibilities.

Performance Information – Our Offer

Our Performance Information

Rugby Borough Council meets the Regulator of Social Housing requirements in relation to the Tenant Satisfaction Measures.

Annual Tenants Survey -  Rugby Borough Council has an annual tenants survey, it is a postal survey, sent to all our tenants, it takes place October – January and the results of the survey and other performance information collected for the Tenant Satisfaction Measures are provided to the Regulator of Social Housing in June and published annually to our tenants in the Autumn Edition of our tenant’s newsletter.

Rugby Borough Council Website - On our website, we set out information about how we have met the Regulators requirements set out in the Tenant Satisfaction Measures Click here to see Tenant Satisfaction Measures 2023/24 

Annual Report - We publish an Annual Report to tenants each year that demonstrates how we spend our rental income and publish performance information on our website.

Click here to see Performance Report

When tenants influence our service delivery, we provide “You Said, We Did” feedback.

Complaints – Our Offer

What we are doing

Rugby Borough Council has a Customer Feedback Policy. It covers:

• How to make a complaint.
   
• Our Complaints Policy and complaints handling process.
   
• What tenants can do if they are dissatisfied with the outcome of a complaint or how it was handled.

We undertake an annual self assessment of our policy and practices on complaints against the Complaint Handling Code of the Housing Ombudsman Service. This self-assessment is published on our website.

From 2023/24 we publish an annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report setting out the type of complaints we have received and how we have learnt from them to improve our services.

Our Customer Feedback Policy is published on our website.

 Click here to see Customer Feedback Policy

Click here to see Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code Assessment

Lessons Learnt Clinic - RBC has a quarterly “Lessons Learnt Clinic” which has recommended:

• Staff training for investigators and responders – June 2024
• Review of our suite of standard letters – May 2024

Telephone Surveys - We have a telephone survey with people who have complained after their case is closed in order to understand how we could improve their experience, and we have identified:

• Investigations and responders should reach out to the tenant complaining to understand their circumstances fully. There should be a personal touch.
• Investigators and responders should be clear about how they are, what their role is and how they can be contacted through the process.