Core Group and Buyers Group:

As your representative and watchdog on the above committees I feel that a report to you is required at intervals, and now is about the right time. For starters - what are these groups, what do they do, and why are we involved?

Core group (in a nutshell) oversees the work done by the contractor partners, housing staff etc and has been concerned with the delivery of the investment program. It will now evolve to include planned maintenance. The whole object of the exercise is to ensure that all involved are working to predetermined (and much higher than previously accepted) standards, but to be cost effective. The group meets every 6 weeks or so, and various reports are considered. These are quite wide ranging and interesting. Without going on at great length let me list a few examples;

Scheme panel final reports How was it for you? These make interesting reading and vary according to what you as tenants have said. Pennine are doing their best to please all of the people all of the time, and to a point they succeed. No way do they achieve perfection, because some people are sadly never satisfied, and sometimes things just go wrong or the workers occasionally have an attitude problem! I do believe that every effort is made to do a good job, and the contractors and Housing office are encouraged to assess each other performance. It is a pity that too few tenants join scheme panels, and even worse, over half of us do not even complete a satisfaction survey!
How on earth can we encourage more participation?

Progress of (and planning for future) schemes. This advises the present situation of the current schemes, and alerts of any problems that may be developing, also the action taken to resolve the situation. This is helped by the partners being willing to share information i.e. similar problems they have had and what they did. At the beginning, it is fair to say, this was invaluable as Pennine had never been involved in a program of this magnitude, and needed all the help they could get! As time moved on and the original partners (Lovell and Keepmoat) ended their involvement, the emphasis changed. Pennine and especially Technical Services (BMS) are now much more capable of taking the lead with the new, local, partners to develop further good practice and communication.

I see tenant involvement with this Committee to be vital, good as Pennine staff are, they do need (and encourage) our input. - - - they are our homes not simply "properties". It is fair to say that we do indeed play an important role, acting and speaking on your behalf. Very rarely have we experienced something that needed to be reported back to the full Federation, if we did, we would!

Buyers Group is quite different, my involvement is only recent, so my in depth understanding is rather limited. However, for starters we have been made to feel welcome and encouraged to take a full part. The plan is to draw together a list of standards and suppliers. So far so good, there is a need to buy at the best price, but this could lead to strong debate in the future.

As an extreme example, if we bought all our kitchen units from one supplier, in one style and colour the buying price would drop and ongoing repairs would reduce, this would lead to tremendous savings. This has not been suggested, but there does need to be firm representations to ensure that we continue with the fair level of choice we were always promised. All bathroom suites will now be white, and whilst I can see the sense in this decision, we do need to ensure that there is a balance between cost and a reasonable selection. There is a balance between "good enough" and what should be available in the market place, at a realistic price.

Having raised our expectations to a level that few of us expected before transfer, we must ensure that any different approach is not accepted on the grounds that we must save money. As far as I am concerned, the finance side should not be the only factor. As representatives we will have to make sure that what is being done is not to the detriment of tenants, bearing in mind that we do after all provide the funding!
Early days - but watch this space!

N.B. These are my opinions on the subject, and no doubt my fellow representatives may see things differently, but we are all agreed that our role is to do what is right for all tenants (and residents). Pennine Housing 2000 is not really out to "rip us off", indeed I consider them to be excellent landlords, and long may that attitude continue, I believe it will - but we do need to keep our point of view to the forefront!