Scrutiny Week

The first week of October (2nd-6th) is National Scrutiny Week and to celebrate, we’ll be sharing some of the brilliant work that our Scrutiny Panel does to support our customers.

In 2022-23, 14 scrutiny panel members volunteered more than 400 hours of their time to provide insight, expertise and analysis of our services, making 32 formal recommendations for improving our services.

The panel use customer feedback and a wide range of data to scrutinise Stonewater services and help to improve them for all customers. Their last two scrutiny reviews have looked at Stonewater’s contact and customer service, and our anti-social behaviour service. The panel have been able to use their unique skills and experience to help us understand service areas from a customer point of view.

The panel's review of contact and communications found five key areas for improvement, including creating clearer targets for reducing call wait times, making use of technology to improve the customer experience, following up with customers and reducing instances of missed appointments.

The group surveyed more than a thousand customers during this review, their largest ever customer engagement project, using the data and insight to make their recommendations.

The panel’s review of anti-social behaviour looked closely at areas such as communication, evaluating Stonewater’s guidance for the support we offer, the use of technology in helping to resolve issues and how we handle complex issues.

Over the twelve-week review, the panel found several areas for improvement, and the group made 14 recommendations for improving our approach to ASB.

The panel have also helped review some of our most important policies, such as neighbourhood management policy; the pest management policy; the community volunteering policy; the vulnerable person policy; and the damp, mould and condensation policy. They’ve also looked at new fire safety information, fed back on MyHome, and helped us to shape our communications to customers on the annual rent and service charge review and the Complaint Handling Code.

You can catch all of our Scrutiny Week coverage on our Facebook page during the week, or if you’d like to learn a bit more about the panel, visit our website.