North Northamptonshire Council: Tenant Satisfaction Measures Survey
Background and context
North Northamptonshire Council commissioned M·E·L Research to conduct a Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey among its council housing tenants. The work was undertaken to provide the Council with robust, representative evidence on tenants’ views of its housing service, in line with the requirements of the Regulator of Social Housing. The research needed to measure performance across the 12 Tenant Satisfaction Measures, covering overall satisfaction, repairs, home maintenance, safety, engagement, complaints, communal areas, neighbourhood contribution and anti-social behaviour.
The project involved some potentially sensitive issues, including satisfaction with repairs, complaints handling, safety in the home, damp and mould, anti-social behaviour, disability-related needs and tenants’ perceptions of whether they were listened to and treated fairly. The survey therefore needed to be delivered in a way that enabled tenants to give honest feedback, while producing robust and regulator-aligned results that the Council could use to understand service strengths and areas for improvement.
Approach
M·E·L Research delivered a quantitative telephone survey of North Northamptonshire Council tenants. The survey was designed and reported in line with the requirements of the Housing Regulator, with responses such as “not applicable” and blanks excluded from analysis where required for specific questions. The final report also included benchmarking against the Regulator of Social Housing’s published Tenant Satisfaction Measures dataset, using lower quartile, median and upper quartile scores for the 12 measures.
The fieldwork approach included:
Telephone survey with tenants: Tenants were contacted by telephone and invited to take part in the survey. A total of 559 tenant interviews were completed.
Representative quota sampling: Quotas were used during fieldwork to ensure the survey data was representative of the tenant population.
Coverage of tenant groups and geographies: The sample included tenants from Corby and Kettering, General Needs and Sheltered tenants, different age groups, genders, tenants with and without disabilities, White British tenants and tenants from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Weighting: Results were weighted by tenure type, town, age and gender to ensure that the reported results were fully representative of the North Northamptonshire Council tenant population. The weighting interlocked tenure type, age and gender with town, so the data for each town was also representative.
The research also captured explanatory feedback from tenants who were dissatisfied with particular aspects of the service. These comments helped to contextualise the survey scores and identify recurring themes behind dissatisfaction, including long waits for repairs, missed appointments, poor follow-up, communication gaps, unresolved repairs, concerns about home safety, complaints handling, communal area maintenance and perceptions of the Council’s contribution to neighbourhoods.
Outputs and analysis
MEL Research analysed the survey data using weighted results to ensure that the final findings reflected the tenant population. The analysis included percentage scores for each Tenant Satisfaction Measure, comparison with national lower quartile, median and upper quartile benchmarks, comparison with previous results where available, and significance testing by tenant characteristics and geography. The report also included subgroup analysis by town, age, gender, disability, ethnicity and tenure type, highlighting where specific groups were significantly more or less satisfied than the overall sample.
Open-ended feedback was analysed thematically. This allowed MEL Research to identify common explanations for dissatisfaction across different service areas. For example, tenants who were dissatisfied with repairs often referred to long waits, backlogs, missed appointments, poor communication, repeated chasing and repairs being incomplete or ineffective. Comments relating to home safety included references to damp, mould, leaks, broken doors and windows, trip hazards and neighbourhood safety issues. Feedback on complaints handling echoed wider themes around tenants wanting clearer communication, quicker responses, better follow-up and resolution.
The main output was a PowerPoint report for North Northamptonshire Council. The report presented the data collection and analysis approach, the profile of the survey sample, the Council’s Tenant Satisfaction Measure scores, performance against Regulator benchmarks, detailed findings for each service theme and a summary of key messages. It used charts, benchmark comparisons, trend data, subgroup analysis and tenant comments to provide a clear evidence base for understanding performance.
The findings showed that North Northamptonshire Council’s performance across the Tenant Satisfaction Measures was broadly in line with the national median benchmark. Overall satisfaction stood at 72.1%, in line with the national median benchmark. Communal area maintenance was above the median benchmark, while repairs satisfaction among recent users and keeping tenants informed were identified as lower quartile indicators. The report also identified areas where tenant perceptions had remained stable and areas where satisfaction had fallen, including overall repairs satisfaction among those who had used the service and views on the Council’s contribution to neighbourhoods.
The report concluded with key messages to support service learning. It highlighted that tenants living in Kettering, those aged 55 and over, tenants from ethnic minority backgrounds and those without a disability were generally more likely to be satisfied. Tenants living in Corby, those aged 54 or under, tenants with a disability and White British tenants were generally less likely to be satisfied. It also identified recurring themes among dissatisfied tenants, including slow response times, communication failures, concerns about home safety, incomplete or poor-quality action, and questions about value for money in communal services.
The output gave North Northamptonshire Council a robust, regulator-aligned evidence base to understand tenant satisfaction, benchmark performance nationally, identify differences between tenant groups and focus improvement activity on the service issues most closely linked to dissatisfaction.
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