In April 2023, it became law for landlords to report TSMs to the Regulator of Social Housing.
There are 22 TSMs in total and they are split into two parts:
- 10 performance measures that are collected through management performance information
- 12 customer perception survey measures that are collected by surveying customers directly
This page sets out the scores that you gave us in 2025/26 and how staff are working together to improve the areas raised in the survey.
Thank you to the 700 customers who gave us feedback.
By anonymously sharing your honest opinions of our services, you are helping us to focus on the key areas that matter most to you – such as keeping our properties in good repair, respectful and helpful engagement, and responsible neighbourhood management. It is only with your help that we can improve our services for all of our customers.
Our approach to TSMs
How do we collect feedback from customers?
We use an independent organisation called Pexel to ensure all feedback is collected fairly and impartially. We do not target particular groups or leave anyone out when conducting the survey.
See the questions Pexel asked here
How many customers did we speak to?
A total of 700 surveys were completed across a range of tenants to ensure that the feedback we received would be representative of all our customers.
What are we comparing our results to?
While this is the third time we’re collecting official TSM data, we have been collecting customer feedback data in line with TSMs since 2023. This means we can see where improvements are being made year-on-year and where we might need to focus on in future.
How we performed
Overall, did Watford Community Housing score better this year than last year?
Our scores improved in five out of the 12 TSMs when compared to 2024/25. Most notably in our management of communal areas, which went from 67.4% in 2024/25 to 72.1% in 2025/26.
We’re proud of the work we’ve done to improve things for customers and we will continue to strive to improve scores across the board for next year.
Areas that saw the largest improvement from 2024/25 were:
Satisfaction with repairs +2.0%
Customers feeling that they are treated fairly and with respect +1.4%
Customer feeling that we make a positive contribution to neighbourhoods +0.8%
Where are we looking to improve?
We’re working to improve across all the areas measured by TSMs, but we are particularly focusing on those where we saw a decrease in the scores we recorded in 2024/25.
The main areas we’re looking to improve are:
Complaint handling -9.0%
Time taken to complete repairs -3.5%
Overall satisfaction -1.5%
Did different types of customers have different concerns?
Yes, they did. In response we’ve:
- Undertaken an exercise to compare our TSM results with information from our transactional surveys and Big Door Knock. To ensure that we are linking areas of dissatisfaction, Neighbourhood Plans, and Love Your Neighbourhood work, we will be focussing on improvements in three of our lowest scoring areas – Radlett Road, Boundary Way and Caractacus Cottage View.
- To detect any trends in movement, we compared customer responses year-on-year and, of the 170 customers that had completed both the 2024/25 and 2025/26 surveys, we found that 51.7% had stayed at the same satisfaction level. 7.5% of customers became more satisfied and 5.3% became more dissatisfied. The remainder of customers had remained positive or negative and there were no obvious common trends.
- Worked more closely with our customers aged 40-49 to understand the drivers for their dissatisfaction. These customers were the group who were most dissatisfied across the measures TP02 (time taken to repair) and scored the lowest in TPO9 complaint handling (15.2%). Two thirds of this resident group live in houses and are based in Meriden and Holywell. Upon meeting customers from this group, they told us that many of them are struggling to cope because they have competing priorities. They are juggling their finances and family life and are feeling overwhelmed when they have to report issues in their homes and neighbourhoods. We will be creating targeted communications to these customers to offer more support from our financial inclusion and housing teams.
How can I find out how Watford Community Housing compared to other landlords?
Every landlord should be publishing their results on their website.
If you are thinking of moving to another landlord, including through a mutual exchange, you should be able to request information about how they carried out their surveys, their results and their plans to improve.
What are we doing to improve?
- We worked with our Gateway Membership Team and Housing Ombudsman to undertake a review of our complaint handling policy. This is in line with the Housing Ombudsman Code.
- We have increased the levels of complaints that we are escalating to Stage 2. We have also reviewed our Compensation and Remedies policy and hosted regular complaint investigation training sessions for managers dealing with cases.
- We will be recruiting more Customer Representatives for Chime Housing in 2025/26 and providing training for these customers, so that they can work alongside our Directors to manage and determine compensation levels for Stage 2 complaints.
- We will provide managers with a weekly complaints and compliments report and review lessons learnt from customer feedback. We will publish this for our customers every six months.
- We have made a commitment to increase frontline staff following our merger to Chime Housing. We have invested in our Repairs Team and on-boarded two new plumbing / gas apprentices in September 2025.
- We continue to work to address ongoing repairs and have increased our contractor base to keep completion times within target. Customers completing our post-repairs surveys told us that they were happier with the time taken to complete repairs, with satisfaction levels rising to 74.3% at the end of 2025/26 which was an 8% increase.
- We are continuing to address our backlog of repairs by using a variety of contractors to support our in-house teams and will work towards meeting the timescales in our Responsive Repairs Policy, as well as improving communication with our customers.
- We have worked to improve the data held on repairs with contractors and ensure that all jobs have been fully completed.
- We have increased the feedback that we collect and received customer contributions from 3,124 surveys about our services.
- In 2026/7 we will build a new model which collates all types of customer feedback and also builds customer profiles, so we can direct resources to the customers who would like to hear more from us and receive more support.
- We will continue to contact all customers that have requested a call about dissatisfaction with our services and ask them how we can put things right.
- We work with stakeholders and partners to obtain additional funding for our neighbourhoods. This year we’ve been successful with bids to the Household Support Fund for Watford and Three Rivers, and the Community Infrastructure Levy Grant from Watford Borough Council which has improved play spaces in Holywell and Foxhill.
- We have five community hubs and a network of scheme lounges that are used for a variety of events. We will consult with residents in Holywell and Boundary Way to look at provision of to new community spaces in these areas.
- We hold regular estate inspections with local stakeholders and support local community groups with grants as well as practical support from our team.
- Our Financial Inclusion team has helped residents to improve their finances by a combined value of £1.45 million.
- Tackling fly-tipping remains a key priority for us and we created an action group to ensure we are taking proactive steps to address it.
- Three mobile cameras were set up to cover fly-tipping hotspots and these are also installed in some of the bin areas in large communal blocks like Yeatman Court. Where fly-tippers have been identified they have been issued fixed penalty fines and warning notices.
- We work with local Community Safety Partnerships and the Police and our Director of Housing is the Chair of the Watford group.
- We’re working on gaining an accreditation from the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) which will help us to support customers experiencing domestic abuse and improve our strategy to meet legal and regulatory requirements.
- Our Neighbourhood Champions meet regularly with our contractor Accuro for communal cleaning, grounds maintenance and assisted gardening to complete joint scoring of our neighbourhoods.
- We held skip days in local communities including Meriden and Radlett Road so that customers could dispose of items from their communal areas or gardens.
- We have improved the decoration and flooring in communal areas in our blocks in Holywell after feedback from our Shared Owners at Question Time events.
- Customers have told us that we have improved when it comes to resolving their query on the first call – this has moved from 72.6% to 75.8% for first-time resolution from 2024/25 to 2025/26. We have also seen excellent scores in our Customer Service Officers being polite and knowledgeable at 92.9%.
- We have introduced a tracking system to ensure we are responding to customer enquiries in line with our service standards. We investigate every complaint about staff members through our feedback process and take appropriate action.
- Complaint-investigating managers call customers to understand their concerns. We are working with our customers to ensure our complaint responses meet any needs such as any disabilities or different languages, and also offer a customer advocacy service.
- Customer-facing staff record customer contact using a mobile housing app while on visits. This ensures accurate information is kept and customers do not have to repeat themselves.
- We send out Voice, our customer magazine, three times a year, and make sure it covers areas that customers have told us we need to improve on or give them more information about.
- We now send more targeted texts and emails to specific blocks to let customers know if there has been any disruption to services or if we are going to be visiting to undertake a communal repair.
- 80% of customers have engaged with our messages and surveys in the past 12 months.
- We have continued to hold Question Time events which are targeted to specific customer groups, so we can understand where we can make things better. We hosted 12 of these in 2025/26 with specific dates for Shared Owners and Leaseholders.
- We have carried out two in-depth scrutiny events on Parking and Lift Management and invited all of our customers to attend. We have two scrutiny events planned for Damp and Mould and Stock Condition Surveys in 2026/27.
- We have created summary reports after each of these meetings and published these on our website and shared them via text and email to customers.
- We are trying to better close our feedback loop to customers. When things like service failures or issues are reported to us, for example a reported fallen tree. We have sent more communications about these individual blocks so that customers are updated about when contractors are going to be on site to put things right.
- We stepped up our communications to make sure customers know how to get support with damp and mould concerns. We prepared for the introduction of Awaab’s Law and have trained our staff to understand how to escalate concerns.
- During our Big Door Knock in June, we asked all customers if they had any issues with damp and mould and have made sure that we have inspected and dealt with any concerns from these visits.
- We have been working with our contractor, Lux, to install new smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and we sent out information to all customers living in flats about the importance of fire safety.
- We have continued to make good progress on our programme of works to make customers’ homes warmer, more comfortable and more energy-efficient.
- Our Gateway Membership Team (GMT) will undertake a Tenant Question Time and a scrutiny of the effectiveness of our stock condition surveys in Q2 of 2026/27
- Our road map for 2027/8 will see us implement a new repair system that will integrate with our current platforms. The new system will enable us to record, plan and manage a repair job more effectively. The system will assist with ease of reporting, first-time fix and customer satisfaction
- We will take a more innovative approach to managing repairs, using historical data to understand the most common causes of repairs and proactively manage our service. By anticipating where problems are likely to occur, and addressing them before they lead to bigger issues, we’ll deliver a better service for customers as well as reducing our repairs workload.
Performance management scores
The below shows how we performed on the 10 management performance measures in 2024/25:
CH01 (1)
Number of stage one complaints received per 1,000 homes - 47.8
CH02 (1)
Proportion of stage one complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code timescales - 100%
NM01 (1)
Number of anti-social behaviour cases opened per 1,000 homes - 22.0
RP01
Proportion of homes that do not meet the Decent Home Standard - 0.6%
RP02 (2)
Proportion of emergency responsive repairs completed within landlord’s target timescale - 96.3% against a target of 24 hours
BS02
Proportion of homes for which all required fire risk assessments have been carried out - 100%
BS04
Proportion of homes for water safety checks have been carried out - 100%
CH01 (2)
Number of stage two complaints received per 1,000 homes - 16
CH02 (2)
Proportion of stage two complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code timescales - 100%
NM01 (2)
Number of anti-social behaviour cases that involve hate incidents opened per 1,000 homes - 0.8
RP02 (1)
Proportion of non-emergency responsive repairs completed within landlord’s target timescale - 71.7%against a target of 20 working days for responsive repairs and 7 days for urgent repairs
BS01
Proportion of homes for which all required gas safety checks have been carried out - 100%
BS03
Proportion of homes for which all asbestos management surveys or re-inspections have been carried out - 100%
BS05
Proportion of homes for which all required communal passenger lift safety checks have been carried out - 96.7%