East Suffolk Council

Tenant satisfaction

About tenant satisfaction measures

The Regulator of Social Housing introduced a new system for assessing how well social housing landlords in England are doing at providing good quality homes and services. This involves a set of tenant satisfaction measures that social housing landlords must report on. People will be able to use these measures to understand how well landlords are doing. These measures should:

• let tenants see how well their landlord is doing
• highlight areas where the landlord needs to improve

The tenant satisfaction measures cover all kinds of rented social housing in England. Some, but not all, of the tenant satisfaction measures also cover shared ownership homes. They came into effect in April 2023.

With effect from 2025, East Suffolk Council use a company named Acuity to carry out our Tenant Satisfaction Surveys. Your views are crucial in allowing us to make any improvements needed and we are grateful to those who have taken part. If you are contacted by Acuity, please continue to help us by providing your views.

Tenant satisfaction at East Suffolk Council

East Suffolk Council has created a performance dashboard for sharing our tenant satisfaction results with our tenants:

We are also reviewing how we engage with East Suffolk tenants and how our tenants are involved in guiding us to improve and develop our services.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures Survey Approach 24/25

East Suffolk Council works with Acuity Research & Practice Ltd, an accredited organisation that is dedicated to providing research services in the social housing sector. Acuity was commissioned for collecting, generating and validating reported perception measures.

In 2024/25, East Suffolk Council completed TSM surveys with a sample of tenants. The sample size was chosen to ensure that the level of statistical accuracy set out by the Regulator of Social Housing was met. We needed to survey enough residents to meet a statistical accuracy (margin of error at 95% confidence interval) of +/- 4%.

During 2024/25, East Suffolk Council completed 647 TSM surveys. East Suffolk Council had 4,426 properties which means that a statistical accuracy level of +/- 3.6% was achieved, which is a greater level of accuracy than required.

No tenant was removed from the sample frame. Incentives in the form of shopping vouchers were used to complete the survey.

Timing of Survey

East Suffolk Council carried out a total of 659 surveys between the 2 April 2024 and the 25 March 2025.

Collection Method(s)

The TSM Surveys were completed via telephone interviews and online. The rationale for using a mixed methodology approach is:

Sample Method

A sample approach was used for the survey. Acuity contacted a random selection of current tenants from Low-Cost Rental Accommodation properties to participate in a mixed methodology survey.  Following the survey fieldwork, representation checks were then carried out to assess the representation of the sample of respondents that had been collected.

Representativeness

The final survey data was weighted on housing need.

Representative checks were carried out to review the survey’s representation of the tenant population as a whole. As a result of the representation checks the data was then weighted on housing need.

View a copy of the introductory text and full Tenant Satisfaction Survey.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures Survey Approach 23/24

At the beginning of the reporting period, April 2023, East Suffolk Council had a total of 4,323 properties. In accordance with the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) Tenant Survey Requirements, a sample of 528 responses per annum needed to be reached in order to achieve a statistical accuracy of +/-4%.

Paragraph 48 of the Tenant Survey Requirements details that we must ensure that survey responses used to calculate perception TSM’s are representative of the relevant population. We can do this through one of two routes:

• A representative sample
• Weighting responses

Based on these confidence intervals, Stock Type and trying to achieve a representative sample of +/-4% overall, East Suffolk Council needed to achieve 492 General Needs responses, and 36 Retired Living responses per annum.

East Suffolk Council received 650 total relevant responses in the year April 2023 – March 2024, achieving total statistical accuracy of +/-3.5% over our General Needs and Retired Living properties.

Our previous provider, TPTracker, surveyed the tenants online (email/SMS) and/or phone in order to achieve the required number of responses. The questionnaire comprised of the 15 TSM questions, and East Suffolk Council included some additional questions.

Every relevant household were available to contact unless they had specifically requested that they did not wish to take part in surveys. Each month a random sample of the population were selected to take part in the survey. The provider used survey fatigue controls to ensure that the same household was only included and contacted in a programme once per 12 months.    

Production

Email/Online Version

Emails with a link to the online version of the questionnaire, were sent through the provider’s software. Each person was emailed or, if they didn’t have email, texted an individual link to the survey portal. Once they had responded online this would be recorded in their communication and participation records in the provider’s database, and they would be unable to take part again using this link.

Phone Survey

All phone surveys were carried out by the provider’s in-house survey team. If a tenant had responded via the online link, they were removed from the phone list so that surveyors did not call them.

If the provider was unable to contact a person because a mobile or landline number was unavailable, they had neither an email address, nor mobile number, this would register that they had not received the questionnaire. We are assessing the best ways to engage with our tenants to ensure that there is a communication stream available that is accessible to all tenants.

An incentive of a £25 love to shop voucher was sometimes used on phone calls to encourage tenants to take part in the perception survey. The email and online portal landing page all disclosed the possibility of winning the voucher, saying:

“Without affecting the confidentiality of your answers, we will be entering everyone who completes the survey into a monthly prize draw to win £25 of love to shop vouchers.”