The Regulator’s report gives the findings of a survey of social landlords and focus groups with tenants and Gypsy/Traveller tenants/residents about tenant & Gypsy/Traveller participation. This work was carried out by independent tenant representatives, TPAS Scotland on the Regulator’s behalf.

The landlords who responded to the survey said they use a range of tenant participation methods, and these are tailored to tenants’ needs.

The tenants who took part in the forum also noted that landlords had introduced more flexible and informal ways to enable tenants and tenant groups to participate.

The Regulator’s report also states that both tenants and landlords note that building trust is key for successful tenant participation and some landlords acknowledged the challenges to participation that Gypsy/Travellers face. But Gypsy/Traveller focus group feedback suggested that these challenges were not always recognised or fully addressed. It also states that many of the landlords who responded were not aware of the level of success of their approach to Gypsy/Traveller participation.

Key findings include:

Tenant Participation

• Landlords use a range of participation methods, tailored to their situation and the preferences of their tenants.
• A third of the landlords who responded to the survey had Registered Tenant Organisations (RTOs).
• Based on tenant feedback, landlords have introduced more flexible and informal approaches to tenant participation, offering wider opportunities to participate for both tenant groups and individual tenants.
• Landlords are making more use of digital technology to aid tenant engagement and participation.
• Landlords are adopting a hybrid approach to tenant participation, through which tenants can continue to engage face to face or use online platforms if they prefer.
• Many landlords use incentives to encourage tenant participation, but tenants in the focus groups explained that this was not their main motivation for engaging with their landlords and that a focus on areas that impacted their tenancies were what mattered most to them.
• Some tenants in the focus groups advised that where a landlord had a staff member (or members) with a particular focus on tenant participation, this noticeably improved their experiences.

Gypsy/Traveller Participation

• Building trust between landlords and tenants, and particularly with Gypsy/Traveller tenants/residents was noted by both landlords and tenants/residents as key to successful participation. Some landlords acknowledged the challenges to participation that Gypsy/Traveller tenants and residents face. However, focus group feedback suggests that these challenges are not always being recognised or fully addressed by landlords.
• Some Gypsy/Travellers reside on sites while others live in settled homes provided by social landlords. The accurate number of Gypsy/Travellers living in social landlords’ settled homes is not fully known, this may be because some members of the Gypsy/Traveller community may choose not to identify as such to their landlord due to fear of discrimination.
• 38% of landlords who were aware of Gypsy/Travellers within their tenant base said they were unaware of any specific barriers to Gypsy/Traveller participation, or did not provide a response to the survey question. In contrast, tenants/residents in the focus groups identified a variety of barriers.
• Only 27% of landlords with a known Gypsy/Traveller community had provided appropriate training to staff to ensure they are aware of and consider cultural sensitivities in their promotion of participation to Gypsy/Travellers.
• Many landlords reported that they did not know how successful their approach to Gypsy/Traveller participation was or was difficult to be measured or tested.

Helen Shaw, director of regulation, said: “We strengthened the emphasis in our Regulatory Framework on social landlords listening to tenants and other service users. As tenants, residents and social landlords continue to face significant challenges, it’s more important than ever that landlords make it easy for tenants and residents to communicate with them and enable them to have a say in the decisions they make.

“Our thematic inquiry found that both the landlords and the tenants & residents who took part said landlords use a range of ways to reach out to tenants and service users including face-to-face and digital options to better meet needs. And, both groups noted that building trust is key to successful participation.

“But we also found that some landlords could do more to ensure they understand the needs of Gypsy/Travellers, the barriers they face, and to enable them to better assess how successful their tenant participation strategy is for Gypsy/Travellers.”