The main consultative customer body for Riverside is the Riverside Customer Voice Executive (RCVE). The RCVE is consulted on all customer facing policies, as well as significant service developments, such as the move to digital services and the improvement plan for customer services. Currently, three customers from the RCVE are members of Working Groups, which are enabling the organisation to prepare for the changes being proposed in the Social Housing White Paper.

The RCVE also manages scrutiny activities and has recently undertaken two service reviews: the customer journey as part of planned maintenance; and complaints. Both reviews resulted in a series of recommendations for improvement.

RCVE members are responsible for undertaking an assessment of how Riverside is meeting the principles outlined in the National Housing Federation’s Together with Tenants charter. This assessment is feeding into an action plan to improve customer engagement across the organisation.

Riverside Care and Support services offer local and scheme-based opportunities to customers such as becoming a scheme representative or customer inspector. These opportunities support improvements to service delivery and communal areas.  A procedure to further promote involvement, particularly co-production in Care and Support services will be launched later this year. This will enable customers to take an active role in their support plans, service delivery and recruitment of staff.

Consultation with customers on policies and changes to services is supported by the iCommunity, which is an online panel with over 1,000 members. The iCommunity has been sent surveys on a range of issues, including on the areas which make up the principles in the Together with Tenants charter. This will assist the RCVE in its annual assessment of how Riverside is performing against the charter.