MHA wins TPAS Good Practice Award 2025

Award Category: Involving Tenants in Designing or Reviewing Services

Team: MHA Neighbourhoods Team

Winning this prestigious award demonstrates how we consider the impact of services on our tenants and continuously strive to do better.

We have included a case study below that outlines the comprehensive review, how it has improved our services, and the positive feedback we’ve received from happy tenants.

We separated our service charges from our rents in 2018 but, prompted by a drop in tenant satisfaction (15.2% since 2021/22) in this service area, we undertook an overhaul of the entire service including the application, administration and affordability. 

We initiated a full-service review to consider the impact of service charges on residents. MHA has 31 chargeable services, some of which are eligible to be claimed as part of Housing Benefit/Universal Credit and others are not, which means they need to be paid for by residents.

The areas with highest service charges are at MHA’s retirement living accommodation and include services such as shared energy, cleaning and grounds maintenance in shared spaces, emergency alarms and scooter stores.

A “customer first” approach was adopted to dig deeper into resident views on chargeable services and to understand the scope, value, quality and regularity of each service.  We reviewed the responses, and it was clear residents value the services they receive and, in some cases, would like services to be provided more frequently.

Improved fuel efficiency and the need for more accessible, simple communication to help residents better understand their service charges was important.

The review to the alarms service and cleaning service were run concurrently, as they both impact on service charge costs and affordability, providing additional engagement insight into the service provision. 

We conducted an equality impact assessment which looked at affordability and customer segmentation against cost. We knew tenants and leaseholders have differing priorities so we needed to undertake a consultation in a way that suited their lifestyle and commitments.

We adopted a range of engagement tools, they included: 

• Local in person discussions at MHA’s retirement accommodation.  

• Community Voice committee discussions. 

• Pulse and telephone surveys relating to specific service charge elements such as grounds maintenance and cleaning.  

• Relational and targeted communications including critical discussions where the highest service charges are incurred. Enabled us to understand what difference the services or any adjustments would make to how tenants live in their homes. 

• We have moved from contracted to an in-house cleaning team. We have reduced costs by £10,000, extended the service to include deep cleans and significantly increased resident satisfaction*. 

• Retained cleaning hours at the schemes where the quality and presence of cleaners is valued by tenants.  

• Reduced service charges by an average of £1.66 per property per week and the highest reduction being £7 per week.  

• Enhanced information on our website and through our rent and service charge increase pack. With a notable reduction of queries by 0.5%.  

• MHA have a better understanding of the value of chargeable services and need for specific enhanced services such as additional window cleaning.  

• Service charges are now considered to be better value for money.  

• Residents feel reassured we are listening and acting on their views.  

• High tenant satisfaction and feedback received on new community alarms system.  

• Expanded self-serve options on MHA’s tenant app enabling tenants to update their UC journals more effectively and timely.  

• A continued plan for service charge amendments which will look at the reduction of service charges by exploring fixed costs for scooter stores, removal of communal aerials where appropriate, reassessing broadband provision and continued roll out of smart meters to ensure accuracy of charges. 

• Warmer homes at a more affordable price following heating improvements.