Kingdom has undertaken several key areas of review in consultation with tenants, including its new participation strategy, undertaking audits and setting up and supporting tenants to do independent scrutiny.

Covid struck in the middle of its strategy review which helped Kingdom accelerate plans to increase opportunities and methods of digital participation. The new participation strategy includes mid-market as well as social tenants and other customers, and a new ambitious three-year action plan.

Max Scotto, lead tenant participation officer at Kingdom, said: “As an organisation, we totally transformed our TP Strategy over the last 7 years, and we wanted to recognise all the work the team and the tenants contributed to make it happen. There were two accreditation routes available to us.

“We selected the TPAS Accreditation as it involved an independent assessment of all the aspects of TP services and gave us a framework to work with. We are now also considering TIS accreditation, which is more focused on scrutiny. This is an area we want to continue to support and strengthen.”

There were 5 key stages in the accreditation process:

1. Met with the TPAS lead learning & development officer Leza Lafferty to discuss the framework and the evidence required for each of the 10 standards.
2. Looked at each of the 10 standards and provided evidence to back up our claims.
3. The assessment team at TPAS met with key members of staff and tenants to check and validate the statements made in our submission.
4. TPAS assessor then met with an Independent panel; which is made up of tenants and professionals from other landlords and agreed the final score to determine the award.
5. TPAS then produced a report, commenting on each standard, providing any recommendations and formally confirming the award.

There have been a wide range of benefits for Kingdom resulting from the accreditation.

Max Scotto added: “We were able to reflect on where we were and identify areas of improvement. It also gave us a huge sense of achievement, both for staff but also for tenants to demonstrate that the work they have committed has received recognition.

“The team at TPAS Scotland have been brilliant. They have helped us throughout the whole process and have been very patient as we had to change things a few times. They introduced us to a couple of organisations who had already been through the process which helped enormously as we could understand the process before we started. We would love to maintain Gold level accreditation going forward, but realise we can’t rest on our laurels. We need to ensure we continually improve and evolve to ensure our TP strategy is at the top of its game.”

Lead learning & development officer at TPAS Scotland, Leza Lafferty, said: “It’s fantastic to see Kingdom HA obtain Gold Accreditation. They have worked hard over the last few years to enhance their TP strategy, and this is reflected in the fact that they received such a prestigious accolade.”