The council's commitment to providing an outstanding service in everything we do includes the pursuit of improvement that has shaped our vision for the housing management service; ensuring the service is built on sound systems, processes and staff on which the Council's culture and values will be embedded.
In addition to this the Regulatory Standards for housing providers set out by the government, contain specific expectations and outcomes that all housing providers, including the council, are expected to achieve. The Regulator of Social Housing sets the Consumer Standards for housing providers and it is the Regulator's role to intervene where there is failure to meet the standards*.
The standards that apply to the Council's housing provision are:
- Safety and Quality Standard -sets expectations for registered providers of social housing to provide tenants with a good quality home, ensure their health and safety and provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs and maintenance service
- Tenancy Standard -sets expectations for registered providers of social housing to let their homes fairly and transparently, and support residents to maintain their tenancy
- Neighbourhood and Community Standard -sets expectations for registered providers of social housing to ensure communal areas are kept safe, and to work with partners to promote wellbeing and tackle anti-social behaviour
- Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard -sets expectations for registered providers of social housing to take tenants' views into account in their decision-making, ensure tenants understand what they can expect from their landlord, allow tenants to hold their landlord to account, and for the landlord to deal with complaints fairly and promptly
These standards underpin the principles of the high quality service Folkestone & Hythe District Council (F&HDC) wants to provide to Tenants and Leaseholders, including supporting a culture of inclusivity and resident involvement.
* A breach of Consumer Standards notice, issued by the Regulator of Social Housing, was lifted in August 2021.
The notice had been issued two years earlier when the arms-length management organisation, East Kent Housing, was running this council's housing management service along with those of Canterbury, Dover and Thanet councils.
When the service was brought back into the council in October 2020 a new team worked quickly to bring about improvements which resulted in the regulatory notice being lifted.
Read the Regulator's letter to Folkestone & Hythe District Council (PDF, 166KB)
Our service to you
Our staff will always:
- Tell you their name when they meet or call you, will always carry identification and be professional, helpful & courteous
- Make sure our contractors carry identification and are also polite, helpful & courteous
- Deal with your enquiry as quickly as we can
- Aim to arrive on time for appointments & visits (please allow a reasonable amount of time for unscheduled delays), or let you know if we are running late
- Give you reasonable warning where possible when we have to change or cancel an appointment
- Leave a calling card if we find you are not in
- Follow government data protection requirements when dealing with your personal information
Listening to your comments
We put a very high value on tenant engagement, enabling tenants to have a say in how we do things. Tenant engagement comes from and promotes a culture of mutual trust, respect and partnership between tenants, leaseholders and the landlord. It exists when these interests work together towards a common goal of better housing conditions and housing services.
The council's Get Involved web page describes a variety of ways of having a say and getting more involved in service delivery, and co-creating a great housing service.
If we get it wrong
We know that there may be times when things go wrong; we want to know if you are not happy and have the opportunity to put things right. We always want to hear any feedback you have and the easiest way to do this through our Ways to Contact Us form.