SalfordOnline

Residents' feedback is helping to develop housing services in central Salford, an independent report has found.

Salix Homes, which manages council homes in the area, has been praised for the way it involves local people in its services.

The inspection from the Tenants Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) found the organisation's resident involvement to be an 'area of excellence'.

As a result Salix Homes has been awarded a three year quality mark from TPAS and will act as a champion in customer involvement leading the way for other housing companies.

The report says Salix Homes gives residents 'the opportunity to review, influence and direct the organisation' through new processes and residents's groups it has introduced like the Customer Senate.

Residents can also scrutinise services by becoming members of the Salix Homes Board or committee groups.

Further good practice was highlighted for Salix Homes' WIN Days programme where staff take time out of the office to work on community projects.

The inspection was carried out in November and the award presented by TPAS at the June Salix Homes carnival.

The carnival was filmed by TPAS for its annual conference to show landlords up and down the country how well Salix Homes works with its residents.

Alison Hill, Salix Homes' director of improvement of customer service said: "Residents who use our services are crucial to their success and I'd like to thank everyone who has given us feedback.

"We've done a lot of work to ensure local people are involved in everything we do which includes setting up residents' groups to look at our services and tell us where we can do things differently.

"The accreditation from TPAS is a marker for how well we're working with our customers and we're excited about being able to demonstrate this to other housing companies."

More information on TPAS at www.tpas.org.uk

Source: Salix Homes.