This year’s Tenant Participation Strategy review also shows an increase in tenants’ groups, more people coming along and being part of the council’s events and its team facilitating over 80 sessions with tenants and partners. 

The council’s Tenant Participation Strategy ‘Involving Tenants, Improving Services’ is in place to support tenants and increase participation opportunities across local communities. It empowers local people to get involved, have their views heard and take part in shaping and informing housing services.   

This year’s key milestones include: 

• Supporting an increase in tenants’ groups from 34 to 41
• Encouraging and supporting funding applications resulting in awards of £11,000 made to three groups - Birkshaw, Cambusnethan and Langloan Tenants and Residents Associations. The funding contributed to a healthy cooking class for Langloan, a parents and toddlers group for Cambusnethan and a cultural youth group for Birkshaw tenants
• Engagement levels increasing with highest ever attendances recorded at both annual tenants’ conferences (NLC and North Lanarkshire Federation) and positive feedback received
• Rolling out a continuous programme of events and training to encourage participation
• Supporting an award-winning submission for Driving Digitally Locally which encourages joint working between retirement housing tenants and schools. 

Housing convener, Councillor Michael McPake, said: “I’m delighted with the excellent progress being made in developing tenant participation across the area. The engagement levels have been great and to top this off our TP Team received formal accreditation for excellence in its tenant participation service.  

“We lost the first 2-3 years of our five-year strategy to Covid which meant we couldn’t operate in ‘normal’ conditions, and this impacted on our service. However, as part of our recovery we worked with our tenants and groups and reset. We weren’t sure if we could get back to our existing levels, but we are busier than ever! I’ve seen the growth first hand, from attending meetings and events to speaking with tenants. The enthusiasm is there, and the impact tenants and local groups have within their communities cannot be underestimated. I look forward to the roll out our new strategy and building on this success.” 

Tracy Lennon, tenant participation manager, added: “It’s an exciting time for us as we now take forward our new Tenant Participation Strategy ‘For Tenants, by Tenants’. The new strategy, approved and launched at last year’s tenants’ conference, involved tenants, NL Federation of Tenants and Residents and extensive consultation.  

“Our partnership with NLF remains committed to nurturing meaningful engagement with tenants and residents across the area through a variety of methods including decision making, voicing perspectives and contributing to community decision making. We will continue to strive to achieve high levels of satisfaction while providing meaningful opportunities to participate in local decision making. I’d encourage people to find out more, take that first step and get involved!”