Renfrewshire Council

The People's News

The People's News is our tenant's newsletter about new initiatives, local interest stories, and messages about our service. Tenants receive a print copy of the newsletter. You can also find a summary of the key stories from our autumn 2021 edition below:

• If you are concerned about an empty, privately-owned home in your area, our Homes Again Renfrewshire initiative can help.
• Together with our partners, we are developing a new Renfrewshire Local Housing Strategy, which will cover the period 2022 to 2027.
• Renfrewshire Council tenants have the right to have some small, urgent repairs carried out within a given timescale. This is called the 'Right to Repair' scheme.
• The LIFT (Low-cost Initiative for First-Time Buyers) scheme helps first-time buyers and other priority groups, including current social renters, get onto the property ladder with Scottish Government support.
• Want to get involved with tenant participation? We're proud of our long history of working with local tenants and residents' associations to help improve the quality of our service.
• If you are living in Renfrewshire and have been affected by cancer, our Improving the Cancer Journey service is here to help you live as well as possible.
• By law, the council is responsible for carrying out annual gas services and other safety checks. It is essential that you allow us access to your home to carry out these important safety checks.
• Having home contents insurance can't prevent floods, thefts, or fires from happening, but it can help you get back on your feet.
• Local people are being asked to submit their ideas for infrastructure projects, such as road safety initiatives, new walking or cycling routes, outdoor gyms, or anything which they know will make their community a better place to live, work and visit (deadline was 14 November 2021).
• By registering for MyAccount, you can quickly and easily complete online forms to pay council tax, pay your rent, tell us if we've missed your bin, and more.

We are always looking for news and interesting stories for our newsletter. If you have a story that you think would interest other tenants, please contact our development officer using the details at the bottom of this page.

Housing Charter Tenant Report

Our Housing Charter Tenant Report highlights the performance of the Council as a landlord over the last year. It is based on information collected by the Scottish Housing Regulator and it is important because it lets us see where we are performing well, and just as importantly, what areas we can improve in. You can read the latest report using the link below. 

See the report on Housing Charter Tenant

Scottish Housing Regulator

The Scottish Housing Regulator regulates registered social landlords and the Housing and homelessness services of local authorities.

Its overall purpose is to regulate to protect the interests of tenants and other service users, ensure the continuing provision of good quality social housing and maintain the confidence of funders.

The regulator has produced a 'Landlords Report' outlining how we have performed as your landlord. This report includes the things that tenants told us matter most when it comes to their landlord's performance.

See the report on the Scottish Housing Regulator website.

Engagement Plan

Each year the Scottish Housing Regulator provides an engagement plan to all council housing services and registered social landlords.

In this engagement plan, they outline how they will:

• engage with Renfrewshire about its services for people who are homeless
• continue to monitor, assess and report upon how each landlord is responding to the challenges of COVID-19
• discuss with Renfrewshire the impact of the pandemic on people who are threatened with, or are experiencing, homelessness
• work with registered social landlord partners to provide accommodation
• review our engagement with them.

See the  engagement plan for the Council's housing service [563KB] .

Benchmarking

The Council benchmarks its' performance with other landlords and reports this to the Communities Housing and Planning Policy Board. 

Key benchmarking results are summarised in the charter performance table [115KB] . This highlights where Renfrewshire Council performs well compared to other social landlords as well as several areas where there is scope for further improvement.

Readers with particular requirements

If you would like any of our newsletters in an alternative format (e.g. Braille, CD or large print) or in another language, please get in touch using the contact details provided.

If you require any other housing information, please contact one of our neighbourhood housing services.