The Big Conversation survey results are in!

At the end of last year, we contacted residents to take part in our Big Conversation so we could find out from you what you think about our involvement opportunities, how you would like to be involved and how you would like us to communicate with you. Thank you to everyone who took the time to take part as we can use your feedback to help us adapt our communications and make topics for involvement activities relevant to you. Also, congratulations to the lucky winner of the £100 amazon voucher who we randomly selected from the people who entered the prize draw.

Headline results

1,283 residents responded to the Big Conversation by completing and returning the survey to us. We wanted to ensure we reached as many residents as possible so not only did we send the survey in the post for you to return to us in a prepaid envelope, you also had the option to complete the survey online. We also published the online survey on our website and across our social media channels.

Influencing business decisions that affect you

89.2% of you who responded to the survey feel it’s important for you to be able to influence business decisions but many of you are less interested in getting involved yourselves. And 68.3% feel we are doing enough to ensure you are involved in decisions that affect you (as seen in graph).

Involvement activities and getting involved

Approximately 54% of you have heard of at least one way to get involved. In 2017 48% of residents responded ‘they did not know about the resident involvement activities’ compared to 32% of you in this survey. As an example, in 2017 6% of residents said they were aware of Local Resident Panels as an involvement opportunity. Now 37% of residents said they are aware of the panels. We have done a lot of work over the past three years to promote our involvement opportunities and it’s great to see this is working. We won’t stop there though as we know there is still more to do!

We asked residents who had never taken part in an involvement opportunity before, what their main reason is for not getting involved. The graph below shows the free text responses we received.  

By far the most common reason for not getting involved is ill health. The next most common reasons given include trouble speaking English, and feeling that getting involved will not make a difference. We want to make sure the voice of all residents is heard. We will do more to make sure residents know that we can and will adapt any of our involvement services to suit individual needs.

The other reason given for not getting involved is some of you don’t see the point as you don’t see change happening because of your feedback. We need to do more to make sure you can see we are acting on your feedback. We need to get better at letting all residents know about the changes we have made because of their feedback.

Building trust with residents

When we asked you if we are doing enough to build trust, 70.5% of you said yes. While we were happy with the number of responses we received, we know that many of you didn’t respond to this survey and this percentage may not reflect how many of you feel.

We received useful feedback from the residents who say we are not doing enough to build trust with them. The graph below outlines their responses which covers lack of communications, transparency and respect to them as well as issues with repairs, speed of service and not following through with what we say we will do:  

In terms of transparency most of you (74%) feel that we are being transparent enough. This links to the trust question and, while this reflects how those of you who responded to the survey feel, it may not be how everyone feels. 

We asked those of you who think we are not transparent enough what more we can do and some of the ideas you gave us include more transparency around business decision making, repairs, building safety, rent / service charge, progress updates on repairs and services as well as engagement on issues affecting your neighbourhood and community, and digital exclusion and accessibility:

Communicating with you

We know it’s important that we understand how you find out and access information from us so we can keep you informed about involvement opportunities and services updates. When we asked you about this, you responded that the most popular way you find out information from us is through letters in the post (58.1%), followed by the resident e-newsletter (34.1%), text messages (30.9%), leaflets in your building or our offices (18.8%) and our website (13.4%). In addition, messages on our 0300 373 3700 number, estate newsletters and your local noticeboard. Social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), estate newsletters and email updates were not rated as highly, with less than 10% each, as ways to find out information from us.

Next steps

Your feedback has been useful to us as it gives us a clearer understanding about what we should continue doing and what areas we need to work on. We will use it to learn so we can improve the services we provide to you. We’ll continue to encourage residents to get involved in our activities and promote ways you can provide your input about what we do, such as through our virtual themed events and scheme meetings. We’ve just released the schedule for the year which you can find on our website in the get involved section: www.networkhomes.org.uk/localevents

Also, where possible, we’ll try to use several ways to keep you updated about our services. Please regularly keep an eye on our website, sign up to receive the resident newsletter straight to your email inbox and if you use social media, you can follow us on Facebook @networkhomesuk, Twitter @networkhomes and Instagram NetworkHomes.