Tenants’ voice
Creating opportunities
We provide homes and support independence, but we also create opportunities to help people improve their quality of life. We support personal growth, education, and employment and ensure the tenants’ voice is central to everything we do.
Tenants’ voice
We continue to place tenants at the heart of our work, making sure that our activities have a positive impact on people and communities. By listening to our tenants’ opinions and ideas, providing opportunities for feedback, and encouraging their involvement, we strive to create a transparent and accountable environment where tenants feel valued, and their diverse needs are met.
This year, we established our new tenant committees, one for our supported living tenants and one for our general needs and independent living tenants. Both committees meet every quarter to ensure the tenant voice is heard and that it influences decisions made about how we deliver our services. The committees are chaired by a board member and look at our strategic priorities and how we can learn from tenant feedback from surveys and complaints.
We learn from our tenants in many ways, such as through tenant groups, surveys, digital platforms, Community Chats, local groups, and forums.
Tenants’ Voice - Improving Services group
Our Tenants' Voice - Improving Services group is made up of tenants who review different areas of the organisation to identify what we do well and recommend improvements. The group reviewed communication, aids and adaptations, communal areas and tenant engagement with the rent and service charge review process. They made 28 recommendations and receive regular updates on progress in implementing them. Throughout the year, we supported our Tenants' Voice - Improving Services group with independent mentoring support.
Community Chats
Our Community Chats are a chance for us to find out what tenants and residents think about the area they live in. We do this by visiting homes in our neighbourhoods and asking tenants and residents to share their thoughts on our services and communities. During the year, we conducted 11 rounds of Community Chats. The feedback has been shared with tenants and used to create an improvement plan for each area.
Tenant voice
Community Chat in action — team members gathering resident feedback to help shape local services
Real stories:
Our tenant committees
Learning from complaints
Listening to and acting on feedback is crucial for continuous improvement and transformation of how we do things. Complaints offer valuable insights and opportunities to learn from our tenants and customers and to enhance their experience.
Overall, we received a slightly lower number of complaints last year than in the year before. Changing how we deliver some of our repairs has improved satisfaction with our repair service. We have also introduced two dedicated complaint resolution officers and a ‘learning from complaints’ forum.
This year, we received 1,015 complaints and 232 compliments across the Group. Positively, we resolved 497 expressions of dissatisfaction at the first point of contact.
We are members of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme and conduct an annual self-assessment against its Complaint Handling Code to ensure compliance and to learn from customer feedback to improve our services.
Our service improvement plan uses insights from complaints performance to identify ways to improve - and to keep us on track. Progress is monitored, and we report on it quarterly to the Executive Board, tenants, and non-executive director leads.
Key areas of focus include continuing to embed our positive complaints culture through training, briefings and regular check-ins, improving communications relating to complaints, including processes, policy, accessibility and transparency, and better reporting.
Investing in communities
Investing in communities and neighbourhoods creates a sense of belonging and pride and improves the quality of life for residents.
Community events
We hosted 337 events with 5,276 attendees, including 1,647 attendances at independent living events and activities.
These events included social gatherings, training sessions, community events, Community Chats, consultations, and tenant-led reviews. Special events included our annual Progress in Bloom gardening competition, events celebrating diversity and inclusion, and Christmas competition.
Our annual Progress Community Champion Awards honoured our dedicated volunteers and community groups.
RWP tenants recreated our Roots Network logo on canvas as part of a 'Food Do You Think You Are' cultural celebration event in Leeds
Real stories:
Meet Myra
Community Investment Fund
We recognise that strong communities strengthen social connections and a sense of belonging. Our Community Investment Fund demonstrates our commitment to supporting and growing vibrant communities.
The fund is a vital resource managed by a dedicated panel of tenants, chaired by a board member. This panel ensures that the fund is allocated in ways that have the greatest impact on our tenants and their communities.
This year, we supported 43 community projects with £88,322 invested in delivering a wide range of projects, including youth projects, winter warmer campaign, Christmas smiles, carnival, sports equipment and community gardens all designed to support community health and wellbeing.
This also included our innovative Soup Dragon’s Den initiative which funded 10 groups. This programme allows community groups to apply for up to £1,000 by pitching their projects at a community event. The event not only provides funding but encourages networking opportunities and community togetherness.
We provided funding for five community centres in four neighbourhoods in Lancashire where tenants and residents run their activities to benefit everyone in the community. The year has seen us develop our community working at two community centres in Fylde bring activities and events to support tenants, residents and develop stronger community links.
Additionally, our Charity Fund supported 25 applications from tenants and employees, contributing over £13,000 to causes such as the Samaritans, Rosemere Cancer Foundation, Preston Black History Group, Derian House, Doing it for Dylan, Pancreatic Cancer UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, The Trussell Trust, St Catherine’s Hospice and more.
We are committed to enhancing our support for communities, ensuring our investments have a meaningful and lasting impact.
Skippin’ fun at The Base — bringing the community together through events supported by the Community Investment Fund
Clean and green neighbourhoods
Creating homes is about far more than simply constructing buildings; it is about creating happy, vibrant neighbourhoods that people are proud to call home. We strongly believe that building a sense of community and providing a supportive environment are just as important as bricks and mortar. Our goal is to deliver excellent services, help nurture sustainable communities, and promote opportunities for everyone to feel proud of where they live.
We place a high value on things like green spaces, clean and attractive surroundings, and ensuring people can easily connect with one another. By focusing on these areas, we can help create neighbourhoods that are not just sustainable and resilient, but also places where everyone feels welcome, supported, and able to thrive.
To put our priorities into action, we launched a range of projects that are centred around the needs and wishes of the community. For example, in the Central West area, we have worked closely with tenants on several environmental improvement initiatives. These include building a new bin store at Old Mill Court to keep the area tidy and organised, installing improved security lighting at Tuson House to make residents feel safer, and creating a new pathway so tenants can more easily access the car park at Lowerfield. Each of these projects was designed to make everyday life a little easier and more pleasant for those living there.
In Leyland, our Area Team joined forces with local volunteers and the Caretaker Team to organise a large-scale community clean-up day. On this day, we supported tenants in removing unwanted bulky items from their homes—something that can be a real challenge for many people. We also provided extra help to tenants who find it difficult to cut back overgrown gardens, helping to keep outdoor spaces tidy and enjoyable for all. In addition, we installed a brand-new patio for residents at Greenwood Court, creating a welcoming outdoor area where people can relax and socialise.
In the Fylde area, we made improvements by widening the paths at South Hey, making it much easier for tenants with mobility scooters to get around safely and independently. We also organised several clean-up days in the Kilnhouse area, bringing together tenants and employees to work as a team in making the neighbourhood cleaner and more attractive.
Through these efforts, our focus remains firmly on enhancing the quality of life for everyone in our communities—helping to create places that people are truly happy to live in.
Our Caretaking Team preparing for winter by filling bins with de-icing salt to keep community pathways safe
Community visits
Our community tenant volunteers regularly check their local area to let us know how it looks, what is good, and what could be improved. This year, they conducted 17 community visits.
These visits proved valuable and resulted in the removal of fly-tipped items, dog fouling, tidying of gardens, hedge trimming, resolving overgrown pathways and repairing of fencing which helps keep our communities clean, tidy and welcoming.
A community clean-up at Martinfield independent living scheme in Penwortham
Supporting access to education, training and employment
Our Progress Futures service continues to provide a free, personalised service supporting tenants and their families to access employment, education, volunteering, and training. This year, it focused on delivering tailored support through coaching, mentoring and practical interventions, helping people remove barriers to employment and achieve their career goals.
Progress Futures strengthened its approach through collaboration with internal teams and external partners, driving positive outcomes that empower individuals and contribute to thriving communities.
A young man chats with the Progress Futures team about career and training support.
A Progress Futures event at The Base community centre
Creating brighter futures
Our Brighter Futures initiative offered six-month paid work placements for tenants, funded by our Community Investment Fund. These roles are designed to provide practical workplace experience and confidence-building to support tenants on their journey to employment.
This year, four tenants completed placements, gaining skills and valuable exposure to real working environments, and a further three tenants started new placements within our housing operations and tenancy sustainability teams. Three tenants who previously completed placements through Brighter Futures have secured permanent or fixed-term roles within Progress Housing Group this year.
Tracey from the Brighter Futures Team at work
Real stories:
Meet Hope
DFN Project SEARCH partnership
We continued our successful partnership with DFN Project SEARCH, Runshaw College and Lancashire County Council for the fourth consecutive year. This supported internship programme provides young autistic adults and young adults with a learning disability to develop both technical and employability skills through real work placements and individualised support.
This year we welcomed seven interns across various departments, including IT, Property Services, and administration. Several participants progressed into further training or secured employment.
This programme continues to be a key part of our commitment to inclusivity, equality and social value.
Investing in community support
This year, our charity, Key has offered students social work and counselling placements, a strategic investment in both professional development and community support.
By providing trainee counsellors and social work students with supervised real-world experience, it creates a powerful dual benefit: students gain essential clinical skills and meet their qualification requirements, whilst our service capacity expands to reach more community members in need. We continue to offer peer support sessions for parents of children who have mental health difficulties.
Celebrating 30 years of Key’s impact in the community
Investing in our people
We firmly believe that our employees and non-executive directors are our greatest strength. We achieve even more by working together and valuing everyone's contribution. Our People Strategy sets out how we attract, engage, reward, develop and retain our people.
We hold Investor in People - Silver accreditation, and our personal development opportunities align with our Strategic Plan and business priorities, which are underpinned by our mission, vision and values. We value a culture of learning that supports colleagues to develop professionalism and empathy.
As well as providing tenant training and development opportunities, we invest in our employees to help them improve their skills, confidence and future job prospects. Over the past year, learning opportunities have ranged from mandatory training and e-learning to coaching, mentoring, and a management development programme.
This year, along with continuing with our long standing commitment to provided apprenticeship opportunities, we introduced a new internal apprenticeship programme as part of our commitment to be a learning organisation that nurtures talent from within. The programme supports both new and existing employees by utilising our Apprenticeship Levy to upskill current colleagues and support career development and progression.
During 2024, we implemented RAMP (Resolve issues, Adapt our service, Make it easy and Proactive communication), our customer service style framework which has been rolled out across the Group supporting our values and behaviours. It guides the way we interact with both our external and internal customers and helps us to deliver consistent excellent customer service, no matter what our role is.
The publication of the Group’s first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report in 2024 summarises the achievements made over the past year to reduce inequalities and promote diversity and inclusion within our organisation and the communities we serve.
Our most recent employee engagement survey had a 70% response rate, with an Engagement Index Score of 84% and a strong Employee Net Promoter Score (how likely employees were to recommend the organisation) of +37 which is 16 points higher than last year.
Delivering great customer service with a smile
Utilising our Apprenticeship Levy to upskill current colleagues and support career development and progression
"One year into my new role at Progress Housing Group, and one of my ambitions remains the same—to continuously improve the service we provide to our tenants and customers. A huge part of that is ensuring our teams have the tools and development opportunities they need to succeed and provide the best service possible."
Sean Wooff, Head of Repairs and Maintenance
Progress in numbers
337
events, 5,276 attendees
£88,322
invested in 43 community projects
1,015
complaints, 232 compliments
17
community visits improved local environments
7
interns supported through DFN Project SEARCH
84%
Employee Engagement Index Score