Resident Scrutiny

Formerly known as the Estuary Residents Services Review Panel (ERSRP), Scrutiny is part of co-regulation for residents to give feedback to their landlord, hold them to account and help improve services. Scrutiny is part of Estuary's governance arrangement and so acts as a critical friend. We are tenant owned and tenant-led, enabling the voice of all residents to be heard; our primary objective is to improve services for all Estuary's residents by holding our landlord to account.

Scrutiny involvement will prove a customer led assessment of the services offered to residents. This could involve identifying good practice from other organisations or making recommendations for improvement. You may be required to take an in-depth look at the way services are provided, to identify where improvements are needed and how services should be improved. 

New this year......

We are holding bootcamps. Any resident can attend to give their view on a particular service and to help us come up with recommendations for improvement. Once we have completed a review we will present our findings and recommendations directly to the Services Committee made up of Estuary Senior Management and Board members. The Customer and Community Engagement Team then report back with an action plan so the Federation of Estuary Residents (FER) jointly with Scrutiny are able to monitor progress on the agreed recommendations.

Our first major review was completed at the start of 2014 looking into Estuary's Void Properties Procedure. The review focused on Value for Money surrounding the service, resident satisfaction, the standard of the void refurbishment and the needs of residents being met. Five recommendations were made and all were agreed, these included gifting any fitted flooring or sheds to the new residents if they wanted them, deep cleaning sanitary wear rather than replacing it each time a property became void and, including residents in void inspections by using the 12 Resident Inspectors.

The committee recently completed a review on former tenant arrears which was also well received by the organisation, and look forward to seeing their recommendations implemented.

The Estuary Residents Service Review Panel was recently short listed for the Customer Scrutiny Inspection Awards 2015 for the Most Inspirational Scrutiny Panel - Traditional Housing Association, for their work on the Voids Project.

If you would like to request a copy of this report, please contact the Customer and Community Engagement Team by emailing Involvement@estuary.co.uk or call 0300 304 5000

Who Can Join?

As Scrutiny now sits within the Federation of Estuary Residents, you can register your interest in becoming committee member with a desire to assist in the Scrutiny process by emailing fer@estuary.co.uk. You will then be invited to their next meeting to observe and then be invited to their Annual General Meeting where Estuary Residents will vote for you to become a committee member if you wish.

A knowledge of the services provided to residents would be a good starting point, but is not essential. The ability to identify positive and negative aspects of service delivery, a willingness to talk about solutions and contribute ideas, work as part of a team to achieve goals and to be objective, honest and open is also welcome.

In return, Estuary can offer the following:

• Cover expenses of getting to and from meetings and any childcare or care costs encountered
• Provide necessary training to help you in the role either online or external training
• Increase skills and confidence that could help in your personal and professional life
• Work as part of a team of residents and make new friends
• The satisfaction of making a difference to services that effect all Estuary residents.

If you don't have the time to commit to attending meetings but still want to get involved, you can attend one of our boot camps we hold twice a year.

Or Maybe You Would Like to Give Feedback on One of Our Previous Reports?

If so, then please fill out the online form. Or, if you prefer, please print this form off  and send it to:

Customer Engagement Team,

Estuary Housing Association,

Freepost RSKL-XUTE-EHSB,

Centre Place,

Prospect Close,

Southend-on-Sea,

Essex SS1 2JD.

All requests will be fully considered although we cannot guarantee success. You will be contacted within 16 working days by a panel member to advise whether the request was successful. If your request is not successful, ERSRP will advise you of other ways you may be able to get your issue resolved.