Ashford Borough Council tenants urged to have their say in satisfaction survey

Ashford Borough Council is inviting the tenants of its 5,000-plus social housing properties to have their say on its performance and how well it meets their housing needs.

This is Year Two of the requirements from the Regulator of Social Housing for all local authority landlords to carry out an annual assessment of tenant satisfaction. A set of tenant satisfaction measures (TSMs) have been produced to make the performance of landlords more visible to tenants and help them to hold their landlords to account.

There are 22 TSMs, some of which are measured directly by the council, such as safety checks carried out, these are referred to as Management Information, and others which are measured by tenants voicing their views via a survey, referred to as Tenant Perception.

The survey will ask tenants their satisfaction about subjects such as property repairs, maintaining building safety, effective complaints handling, respectful and helpful tenant engagement. This will let tenants see how well the council is doing, as well as ensure that we understand what needs to be improved for our tenants.

The TSM survey work launches on 19 August, ending on 4 October. The survey will be sent via an email link, in the post, or an interview will be conducted via telephone.

This year TLF Research will undertake our leaseholder satisfaction survey during the same time period, and will contact leaseholders by email or post to enable completion of the survey document, which should take no more than five minutes to complete.

The council wants all tenants to feel comfortable in giving us honest answers.

Data collected will be covered by privacy and data protection laws and any tenants that take part can opt to be anonymous with their responses, or provide their details attached to feedback. The survey results will be published and shared with the Regulator for Social Housing in June 2025.

Cllr Noel Ovenden, Council Leader and portfolio holder for housing & homelessness, said: “This is an opportunity for our valued tenants to provide open and honest feedback, allowing us to understand where we do well and how we need to improve. We look forward to hearing what our residents have to say, whether positive or negative.”

For more information visit our dedicated TSM web page.