Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)

The Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) have been introduced by the Regulator of Social Housing in England to assess how well landlords are doing in providing good quality homes and services.

There are 22 measures. 12 of these measures come directly from one of our customer feedback surveys, 10 come from information we hold in our systems on our operational activity.

These measures have been designed to drive up standards and improve the quality of social housing by ensuring housing providers are accountable for the services delivered to customers.

The measures focus on five key themes:

  • Keeping properties in good repair;
  • Maintaining building safety;
  • Respectful and helpful engagement;
  • Effective handling of complaints;
  • Responsible neighbourhood management

What do our results tell us?

We have been monitoring our performance on similar measures for a number of years, which helps us to understand what matters most to our customers and influences what goes into our improvement plans. With TSMs now being a regulatory requirement for all social landlords, we will now be able to compare our performance to others. During the second year of TSMs collection we will also be able to share further details around how trends in performance change year on year. You can find these results here, together with a summary of our improvement priorities

Our ongoing survey

Riverside runs an ongoing perception survey every month to understand how customers feel about the services we provide. Within this survey we capture your responses on the Tenant Satisfaction Measures alongside some additional measures that we think are also important.

Before the TSMs framework was introduced, we were already conducting regular customer feedback surveys to hear how we’re performing from our customers’ perspective.

The first year of formal TSMs data collection started 1st April 2023, and our last published results report on the full year (April 2023 – March 2024).

This ongoing survey is carried out by our research partner, IFF Research. They are very experienced in running these surveys on behalf of landlords. They contact customers by phone or by email to ask the questions below. Customers will be chosen at random to take part in the survey.

Not all Riverside customers are included within the TSMs – Leaseholders are not part of the TSMs and as this is the English Regulator, our Scottish customers are also not included here.

This feedback is used to drive our improvement plans, influence decision making and enable our customers to check in on our performance.

Your opinions matter to us. We dedicate time to reviewing your comments to understand how you feel and what we need to do differently. Where customers respond with dissatisfaction we aim to follow up directly so we can put things right.

Our approach to collecting feedback for our TSM performance

How we’re performing on TSMs

The results below show our mid-year performance for the financial year 2024/25. These results show our combined Group performance for England (including former One Housing Group customers) but excludes Riverside Scotland with separate regulations governing performance reporting in Scotland.

Notes: The large figure in each section shows our overall performance number. Below them are figures for Low Cost Rental Accommodation (LCRA) and Low cost Home Ownership (LCHO) properties. To be clear on the scope of those properties LCRA includes results for all social housing, supported housing and retirement living properties. LCHO includes results for all Home Ownership properties, except leasehold.

Overall satisfaction with the service provided by us

63.2%

LCRA – 65.9%
LCHO – 31.9%

Keeping properties in good repair

Satisfied with repairs we carry out on your property

68.8%

Based on LCRA only

Satisfied with the time taken to complete your repair

66.5%

Based on LCRA only

Satisfied the home we provide is well maintained

65.1%

Based on LCRA only

Homes that meet the decent homes standard

99.3%

Based on LCRA only

% of emergency repairs completed
within target timescales

82.0%

Based on LCRA only

% of non-emergency repairs completed
within target timescales

75.6%

Based on LCRA only

Maintaining building safety

Satisfied your home is safe

72.1%

LCRA – 73.7%
LCHO – 52.0%

Gas safety checks – up-to-date

99.5%

LCRA – 99.5%
LCHO – 98.7%

Fire safety checks – up-to-date

99.0%

LCRA – 99.1%
LCHO – 97.2%

Asbestos safety checks – up-to-date

99.5%

LCRA – 99.5%
LCHO – 100.0%

Water safety checks – up-to-date

99.9%

LCRA – 99.9%
LCHO – 100%

Lift safety checks – up-to-date

84.2%

LCRA – 85.1%
LCHO – 76.7%

Respectful and helpful engagement

Satisfied we listen to your views and act on them

55.4%

LCRA – 57.1%
LCHO – 22.2%

Satisfied we keep you informed about things that matter to you

64.0%

LCRA – 66.0%
LCHO – 40.1%

Agreement we treat customers fairly & with respect

70.0%

LCRA – 72.4%
LCHO – 41.1%

Effective handling of complaints

Satisfied with our approach to handling complaints

31.8%

LCRA – 33.8%
LCHO – 12.9%

Number of complaints received relative to the size of us as a Landlord* – Stage 1

41.9

LCRA – 41
LCHO – 52.8

Number of complaints received relative to the size of us as a Landlord* – Stage 2

9.9

LCRA – 9.3
LCHO – 17.7

Complaints responded to within Complaints handling code timescales – Stage 1

65.5%

LCRA – 67.1%
LCHO – 50.9%

Complaints responded to within Complaints handling code timescales – Stage 2

47.1%

LCRA – 47.1%
LCHO – 47.2%

*calculated as the number of complaints or ASB cases per 1,000 homes. 

Responsible neighbourhood management

Satisfied we keep communal areas clean and well maintained

57.5%

LCRA – 60.0%
LCHO – 35.3%

Satisfied we make positive contributions to neighbourhoods

54.1%

LCRA – 56.1%
LCHO – 27.6%

Satisfied with our handling of anti social behaviour

51.9%

LCRA – 53.7%
LCHO – 26.6%

Number of ASB cases relative to size of our company*

26.1

LCRA – 27.4
LCHO – 11.8

Number of ASB cases that involve hate incidents*

0.3

LCRA – 0.3
LCHO – 0.0

*calculated as the number of complaints or ASB cases per 1,000 homes. 

Improving our scores

We’re always looking at ways we can improve our performance.

So, as well as publishing our performance information and Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM) scores, we also have a plan for how we’ll improve them. You can read a summary of that plan, which sets out the measures we’re taking to increase our scores in each TSM category below.

Keeping properties in good repair

  • We have begun a five-year programme of stock condition surveys to help plan future investment in our homes.
  • We’re doing more to make sure our operatives have the tools and materials they need to do the job and have given them access to customer repair history on mobile devices to help them get more repairs resolved straight away.
  • Having to chase up on repairs is a frequent frustration. We’re looking at common reasons for why this happens to try and prevent the need for customers to do that.

Maintaining building safety

  • We have introduced new Property Managers for low rise buildings and Building Safety Managers for high rise buildings, who are responsible for completing estate inspections of the shared spaces to ensure they are clean, safe and well maintained.
  • We have introduced more regular contract performance reviews with communal gas contractors to more closely manage their performance and support improvement as well as a MOT-style annual gas servicing cycle.
  • We have created a new team to coordinate emergency incidents where buildings have no heating or hot water.
  • We have created a new team to manage our Fire Risk Assessments and Fire Door Inspections, delivering better value for money for customers and making us less reliant on contractors.
  • We are completing a full, independent stock condition survey of all lifts, to allow a more accurate and targeted investment programme.

Respectful and helpful engagement

  • We will increase the proportion of queries which are resolved at the first point of contact across all channels by testing the use of new mobile devices with Housing Officers. This will enable them to easily access the systems they need to update records and do their job whilst they are on the go without the need to return to an office base.
  • We will review the process and drivers for customer call backs and build knowledge in systems to help us to get more queries resolved the first time customers get in touch with us. Where this can’t be achieved, we’re also looking to do better at ensuring queries get to the right team at the right time to get the right result for the customer.
  • We are currently working with a large group of customers to completely redesign the ways in which that can have their voices heard, get involved if they wish, and help to shape the delivery of our services to ensure that we are addressing their priorities. WE are aiming to launch this new customer engagement framework in April 2025.
  • We will feedback on how customers have impacted on service delivery through a range of methods, including an annual report.
  • We will improve the experience for new customers by implementing recommendations from an exercise where we worked with new customers who had gone through the allocation and letting process to learn what had worked well for them and what we could have done better. Several improvements have been made from the feedback received which has improved both communication and speed in getting new customers set up in their new home.
  • We will be more accountable about our performance by publishing Tenant Satisfaction Measures in line with an approach agreed with customers as well as continuing to report quarterly performance updates on our website. We will also publish our annual complaints performance report and improvement plan.
  • We will deliver improvements to the way that we manage rent and service charges, improving the transparency and accuracy of charges by introducing clearer service charges income & expenditure statements.
  • We will maximise opportunities for customers to input into the contractors we choose and contracts we enter into by increasing engagement opportunities.

Effective handling of complaints

  • We will learn from our complaints and ensure that we make the necessary changes to avoid repeating the same failings again and again.
  • We will look more closely at the information we have on why customers are dissatisfied and increase our focus on tackling those issues.
  • We will invest in customer experience training for front line colleagues that focuses on our core values, creating a culture of collective responsibility by ensuring we listen and act on feedback.
  • We are exploring technologies like smart thermostats that allow us to understand what is happening in customers’ homes virtually. This helps reduce the need for visits to customers’ homes, helps to diagnose common issues and could help fix problems first time.

Responsible neighbourhood management

  • We will review anti-social behaviour (ASB) management policies and procedures and introduce a specialist team dedicated to handling all cases.
  • We will increase focus on the prevention of ASB doing more preventative work, such as tackling block security concerns. We will also work closely with our customers, councils and the police to tackle neighbourhood concerns such as crime.

We also report our performance on a separate set of key metrics each quarter, which were agreed with customers as the metrics which matter most to them. This includes a summary of the actions we are taking to drive improvement. Unlike the TSMs, these scores include feedback from our customers in Scotland and our Leasehold customers too, and as such generate different scores.

See performance for those here