It has been obvious over the last 12 months that, although online meetings and webinars are a great way to reach mass audiences, talking to people in person gives them the opportunity to ask in-depth questions and become much more engaged in conversations around tenant engagement.

The purpose of these visits was to capture best practice in tenant participation across different housing and community groups. And of course identify some fantastic projects happening in the region which will make amazing nominations for this year’s National Good Practice Awards which closes on 6th May, with winners presented at the TPAS Scotland Annual Conference at the Golden Jubilee Hotel, Clydebank on 21st June.

Many of the tenant participation challenges highlighted during the conversations were centred around;

• Engaging with those in rural and hard to reach areas
• Encouraging representation from young people, and those with protected characteristics in tenant participation, and
• Empowering those who do take part to stay engaged with their landlord.
• Partnership Working

A collaboration was agreed between Highland Council, Albyn Housing Society, Cairn Housing Association and Caledonian Housing Association to work on delivery of centralised community events, where they had homes across the same areas, to discuss common challenges and common goals. This is a great opportunity to bring new people together to generate new connections.

Feedback from principal tenant and customer engagement officer at Highland Council, Suzy Boardman, said: “We would like to see more face-to-face events like this – maybe once or twice a year. It was great to meet peers and look at more options for partnership working and to see that TPAS are a listening organisation who want to provide services to meet the needs of its members.”

Eveline Armour, development and delivery manager at TPAS Scotland, said: “It is so important for us as a member-led organisation to capture the insights of people working in tenant participation and understand the key challenges tenants and landlords are facing. This helps inform, not just TPAS, but also the key stakeholders we work with across the housing sector.

“Our members are looking for help with exploring new opportunities to participate, new, innovative recruitment campaigns to get more tenants involved, more strategies around hybrid participation and ideas to encourage tenants to join Boards and committees. By coming together to share ideas and work on these things collectively, we can help find the right solutions.”

The first tour was so successful that follow on events are being planned by TPAS Scotland across the central belt of Scotland in July and one in the South of Scotland later in the year. And taking on board the feedback from the Highland visits, tenant members will be included to future tours. Email enquiries@tpasscotland.org.uk if you would like to get involved.