Service user involvement is rightly taking a central role in the work that housing associations do. As services develop, it is being recognised that the best practice is to have service users influencing the service they receive so that they get more out of it and best value services are delivered.

The values of service user involvement mirror perfectly the values of Chapter 1. It is all about supporting and encouraging our service users to take ownership of the service they receive and make the most of their time with us. Service user involvement is also a key tool in ensuring we act with integrity and deliver a quality service; it makes us accountable to our service users and pushes us to do the best we can with the resources we have.

Our business plan rightly placed our service users at the centre of Chapter 1. To quote ‘People First’, the TSA Involvement Policy, it makes clear that we want service user involvement to be “how we do business”.

“I believe passionately in service user involvement… I’d like to see a situation where our Board are influenced by service users’ views. There are challenges in that but none which can’t be overcome. We need to work on it, it can’t be done instantly. We will put in place support processes so that we can have effective contributions. There’s no point putting people in this situation where they’ll going to fail.”

“It’s not going to be just about “what colour do we paint this lounge?” which is important because it’s where you live but we also want service users’ views on where this organisation is going, I think it’s vitally important for us that we capture those views. We won’t always follow views from service users but they are as legitimate as the Finance Director’s who always says we’ve got no money! It’s part of the judgement as to whether something happens.”

Chief Executive; Geoff Hawkins in an interview with service users.