How To.. get an honest opinion

Bromford housing group introduced a system last year that enabled housing officers to grade estates as bronze (needing urgent improvement), silver or gold, helping to identify specific “environmental” problems for the first time. “The problems may not all be Bromford’s responsibility,” says business development manager Paul Taylor, “but it is up to us to find out who is responsible and encourage them to do something about it.”

But because housing officers were rating their own estates, their grades were subjective and some estates came off worse than similar-looking ones with fewer problems. To tackle this, the association introduced a “self-rating” questionnaire to be used by staff or tenants unfamiliar with an estate. It was a straightforward form that used simple, consistent grades to clarify what the worst environmental issues were.

To set up a similar system, first work out what environmental problems you need to look at. Bromford’s housing officers decided to categorise the issues into 15 signs of trouble adapted from the Audit Commission’s best value performance indicator on environmental sustainability. These included litter, broken fencing, weeds, damage to street signs, chewing gum and garden maintenance.

You’ll need to be clear about what the signs of neglect are, so that testers judge to the same standards. Bromford gave brief summaries of bad examples: graffiti/ vandalism was characterised by “evidence of graffiti and vandalism to properties, boundaries, footpaths, roads, street lights and street furniture”, for example.

Make your form easy to fill in. For each category, Bromford gave three options:

A – no evidence; B – some evidence; or C – lots of evidence. The process of going round an estate and filling in the questionnaire took about 30 minutes. The overall rating for an estate was based on whether answers were mainly As, Bs or Cs.

Before you roll out your system, run a trial. Bromford’s month-long pilot last April showed that testers needed questions to be written in plain English, so explanations of more terms were added to the guidance. The trial also proved the questions were specific enough to ensure testers applied common standards: different people sent to the same estates gave similar grades.

The system was able to be used by staff or tenants. Bromford’s first assessments were done by volunteer staff. Taylor says people in departments such as finance or IT were keen to get out and see the association’s stock. “The ratings are actually quite fun to do and make you look at things you wouldn’t normally look at,” he says.

Tenant testers should be no more subjective than staff as long as they are not judging estates in their own area.

After completing their first round of self-ratings in September, Bromford paid to enable a few tenants to visit unfamiliar estates. Their ratings matched those of association staff. Bromford now plans to turn self-rating over completely to tenants next year.

Once you’ve got your ratings, contact the department that is responsible for the worst problems and pressure them to do something. Taylor says that when Bromford first started grading estates it found many problems identified, such as weeding, were relatively easy to solve. After a year, 33% of estates that had been graded bronze were promoted to silver. “It’s about us being able to bring our weight to bear on the authorities responsible,” says Taylor.

And you may be pleasantly surprised by the results. Bromford’s first self-rating indicated the council’s estates were not as grotty as housing officers had believed: 8% were rated bronze under the new scheme, compared with 25% when housing officers had rated them without the questionnaires.