Tenant engagement and participation

We're passionate about our tenants, your homes and our communities.

We're keen to hear what you have to say about your home, where you live, and how our housing services affect you.

As a housing tenant, we want to make it as easy as possible for you to have a say and directly influence our services.

This can be a simple as any day-to-day interaction you have with us, such as reporting a repair, or highlighting an issue in your community,to becoming an actively involved tenant, working with us on improving our service.

If you have an idea, thought or suggestion, or just want to make sure you're contributing to your neighbourhood, please join in with our conversations, projects and surveys.

You can also get in touch through the Housing Hub by calling 023 8028 5222 or emailing housing.supporthub@nfdc.gov.uk.

You can also speak to any of our housing teams when we're out and about.

How to get involved

We want to make getting involved easy, regardless of your circumstances or background. It starts with the simplest of activities, from raising a repair in your home, talking to, or messaging our Housing Hub, or talking with one of our officers or operatives when we're out and about, giving feedback and helping inform our services.

We also offer a range or ways for you to look at how we're performing and hold us to account. You'll find information on this webpage and various links to help.

If you'd like to be more proactively involved, this starts with giving us your feedback whenever you' need to, or if we ask you to complete a survey or consultation.

If you're really interested in looking more closely at our services, and have some time to give as a volunteer, we have a number of ways that you can become involved, through meetings, consultations, scrutiny exercises and more. If you'd like to talk about any of these options, please give us a call or drop us an email, 02380 285119, TenantEngagement@nfdc.gov.uk

Meet the team events

Meet the tenant engagement team at one of our communities hubs.

We'll be there to have a friendly chat about your housing services and offer support and guidance where needed

Enjoy a hot drink provided by the hubs allowing you to catch up and meet other residents from your area

The hubs are at the same time as the weekly food larders.

• Calshot, 24 April, 22 May, 19 June
• New Milton, 23 April, 21 May, 18 June
• Pennington, 10 April, 15 May, 12 June
• Totton, 9 April, 14 May, 11 June

We will no longer attend the Fordingbridge Community Hub but will be attending the 4 community hubs on the dates mentioned above. If for any unforeseen circumstances that may stop us from attending the hub we will make contact and let the hub organisers know. If your query or enquiry can't wait until we are visiting the Hubs please give us a call or drop us an email, 02380 285498, TenantEngagament@nfdc.gov.uk

Tenant Involvement Group (TIG)

Our Tenant Involvement Group (TIG) are a group of passionate and committed tenant volunteers, who meet on a monthly basis, review our services, and help hold us to account on behalf of all our tenants. Members of the TIG have regular opportunities to speak to service managers, look at the latest performance information, and put forward ideas and suggestions for improving our housing services.

We understand that not every tenant can be part of such a group - but want to make sure that all tenants can keep up to date with what's being discussed and reviewed. As a result, we'll upload minutes of the TIG meetings here, and keep them updated on a 6 monthly basis.

Tenant Involvement Group (TIG) minutes

TIG Minutes 6 March 2025 (PDF, 171 KB)

TIG Minutes 6 February 2025 (PDF, 158 KB)

TIG Minutes 16 January 2025 (PDF, 211 KB)

TIG Minutes 5 December 2024 (PDF, 148 KB)

TIG Minutes 7 November 2024 (PDF, 180 KB)

TIG minutes 3 October 2024 (PDF, 184 KB)

If you have any questions, suggestions, or would like to know more about our TIG and how to get involved, please speak to the Tenant Engagement Team or email TenantEngagement@nfdc.gov.uk.

Housing and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel - ensuring we're getting it right!

Scrutiny (looking at our services, reviewing performance and recommended improvements) is a key part of making sure we're doing the right thing for our residents, tenants, and the council. For housing, and matters affecting our tenants, we have the Housing and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel.

This panel comprises of councillors from across the district, who are helped in their scrutiny role by officers of the council, alongside a tenant representative, and is responsible for the overview and scrutiny of the following council services:

Housing resident services, housing maintenance and compliance, housing options, rents, support, and private sector housing, housing strategy, and development.

They meet every 3 months, and by clicking here Monthly meetings calendar you can:

• find out when the meetings are and review the agenda for the next meeting
• listen to and watch meetings live or afterwards on YouTube
• read previous minutes

This is another opportunity for tenants to make sure we're doing the right thing and being able to see how we're performing, the decisions that are being made that affect our tenants, their homes and their communities. So, if you have an opportunity to do so, please check this out - and let the tenant engagement team know if you have any thoughts or ideas.

Tenant satisfaction measures

As part of the regulatory requirements, we need to collect our performance against a number of tenant satisfaction measures.

These include 10 measures of service delivery performance, alongside 12 measures that collect the views of our tenants.

Acuity Research and Practice will be undertaking the surveys to gather the views of our tenants. 

Find out more about the Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey 2024/25.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey 2023/24

We're really pleased with the results, and very proud of the good work you've told us we do.

View the tenant satisfaction measures

Hometalk magazine

Hometalk magazine is produced for our tenants and leaseholders to provide them with updates on council housing and to publish information they may find useful.

The magazine's content, design and layout is reviewed and approved by tenants and council officers and managers.

View editions of Hometalk magazine

Go Vocal

Go Vocal is the online platform we use for digital participation. You can find out about what we're currently working on and how you can get involved.

Registration is easy, and once you're set up, you'll be able to participate in any number of projects, consultations, and ways to help shape our housing services.

Get involved on our Go Vocal website

National tenant participation

We're keen to make sure you have all the resources you need when holding us to account. You may find the following links helpful, but please get in touch if you want to know more about our involvement activities and how you can get involved.

TPAS 

Tenant engagement experts, promoting, supporting and championing tenant involvement and empowerment in social housing across England. Tpas,Tenant engagement experts

Four Million Homes 

The governments free tenant training programme: Four Million Homes - Knowledge and action for change in social housing

Make Things Right

We are supporting the government's 'Make things right' campaign, which aims to ensure those living with issues in their social housing know their rights, know how to complain, and feel empowered that their voice will be heard:Social housing issue? Know how to complain (socialhousingcomplaints.campaign.gov.uk)

Tenant engagement strategy

We are proud to work collaboratively with our tenants to provide a safe and comfortable home within the communities we serve.

However, we want to do more.

We need to know more about our tenants and their needs. We want to ensure our tenants can easily tell us what they think of the services they receive. We want our tenants to know they will be listened to, and their views taken account of.

To help deliver these aims we have produced a new tenant engagement strategy outlining our key commitments to tenants.

This new strategy has been co-produced with our Tenant Involvement Group and housing staff.

The tenant engagement strategy has now been formally adopted. Take a look at our plans for the next four years.

Tenant Engagement Strategy (PDF, 1 MB)

We're continuing to work through our action plan and will have a number of exciting opportunities, events and information that will be shared over the coming months.

If you'd like to be involved in shaping our services, please let us know. You can contact us by any of the following methods, and one of the team will always be happy to have a chat.

Telephone 02380 285222 and ask to speak to the tenant engagement team, email: TenantEngagement@nfdc.gov.uk, or come and speak to any of us when you see us out and about.

You can speak to the tenant engagement team, or your local neighbourhood and tenancy management officer or administrator.

If you just want to see how we're performing, we're working on a number of ways for you to hold us to account.

Check out your next edition of Hometalk magazine, our website, our social media channels, or here for the latest updates.

Thanks again to all of our tenants.