Video transcript: how APs engage with their residents

Hi, my name is Stacey Thwaites and today I’d like to speak to you about some of the ways Gentoo Group is engaging with our 2000 customers who are living in our 25 high-rise residential buildings across Sunderland.

So we’ve started by profiling each of our 25 buildings. In the true spirit of the Building Safety Act, we know that we can’t generalise key safety messages, and we need to look at customers as individuals.

So, by calculating average age in towers, looking at ethnicities, vulnerabilities and contact preferences, we can deliver vital safety messages but in a way that’s suitable for that building and that customer.

Once we understood the types of customers that were living in our buildings, we knew that we needed to develop our building safety customer engagement strategy.

The strategy has been a real piece of collaboration – so working with customers, we have developed this strategy.

We then took it out for consultation using the profiling. So we sent it to customers digitally via email and text message.

We sent it out, like a hard copy for those who were digitally excluded. We also put communal copies in residence rooms, etc. And we were really delighted 153 customers took the opportunity to speak to us and provide feedback on the strategy and recommend their improvements.

So here at Gentoo, there’s lots of different ways that our customers can be involved in and help us shape our services.

But one of the ways we do this is through a dedicated ‘building safety customer group’, which is for customers and leaseholders who live in our high-rise buildings.

This year we’ve really stepped that group up. And we’ve undertaken lots of practical activities with them, to help them increase their understanding and confidence about reporting things to us in their respective buildings.

An example of this was when we utilised our contractor’s fire door training facility, and we took them along and we allowed them to see and test fire doors first hand and also undertake some fire stopping. So they could really understand the safety features that are in their buildings.

One of the biggest projects Gentoo has worked on this year is undertaking structural investigations of our 25 high-rise buildings. So with that, that involves some very noisy work, a lot of disturbance for customers. So what we did ahead of launching that is we consulted with them. So we laid out to customers exactly what that work was going to involve from the day of it started with our contractors – the longevity of the work and what we were likely to find at the end of that.

As part of that consultation, they were given the opportunity to raise concerns and ask questions. And before anything started, we went back to them and we addressed those concerns. It was really effective because it allowed us to get the buy in before work started on a project that had the potential to be very disruptive.

We continue to engage with customers throughout this project. On a monthly basis now we’re opening up a void property, where the works are taking place, and we’re allowing customers from across the tower to come in and see the work first hand.

With the support of our contractors, we’ve also made lots of reasonable adjustments for customers to help minimise the impact this work is having on them in their day to day living. So by listening to customers, allowing them have a really strong voice throughout this project, we have managed to provide alternative working spaces for customers who work from home where drilling is being disruptive.

We’ve had customers come to us who work patterns and night shifts, so we’ve agreed that noisy works will start in their building later on in the day. Where we’ve made those reasonable adjustments with the support of our contractors, has been vital to ensuring the success of this project, but also knowing that customers are listened to and heard throughout the project.

We’re also working as a business to share best practice and knowledge across the sector. So we created a networking group earlier last year to talk to other housing associations, other local authorities working in building safety about how they are supporting their customers, engaging with them. That group now has 50 members from 30 different local authorities and housing associations, and is continuing to grow. Thank you.