BME Tenants Compact

Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Tenant Participation Compact

Introduction
Background
What is the Black and Minority Ethnic Tenant and Resident Participation Compact
Aims of Black Minority Ethnic Tenants and Residents Participation Compact (BMETRPC)
Identified Common Aims
RBH’s commitment to BME tenants & residents
Removing barriers to involvement and improving access to services
Strengthening Communication
Community Support
Support and Training for Volunteers and Students
Getting Relationships Right
Development of BMETRPC
Implications and recommendations
Supporting Documents

Introduction

Rochdale’s Black and Minority Ethnic Tenants and Residents Participation Compact (BMETRPC) aims to address the under representation of minority ethnic communities in formal structures for tenant involvement. With the existing Boroughwide Tenant Participation Compact, it will help to ensure that Rochdale’s Tenant Involvement Strategy addresses the needs of all residents. It has been developed as a result of consultation with Black and minority ethnic communities and will be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that needs continue to be met. The Compact should play an essential part in ensuring equality of opportunity for the tenants and residents who use the services of RBH. Equally, it is imperative to ensure that people and/or groups are not unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their:-

Age
Disability
Employment status
Ethnic or national origins
Race or colour
HIV status/ Hepatitis Status
Marital status
Religious or political beliefs
Caring responsibilities
Gender
Sexuality
Trade union activities or unrelated criminal convictions.

Background

RBH recognises the poor housing conditions of many of the Boroughs black and minority ethnic tenants and residents and that these communities are massively under represented in formal structures for involvement. Recent research shows that the national picture, which includes overcrowding and public sector housing in poor condition, is mirrored locally. Our recent consultation with black and minority ethnic communities has been carried out to identify barriers to involvement and how to improve communication. One of the main objectives of this Compact is to address issues raised during that consultation.

What is the Black and Minority Ethnic Tenant and Resident Participation Compact

The Black and Minority Ethnic Tenant and Resident Participation Compact (BMETRPC) is an agreement between Rochdale Boroughwide Housing and our tenants and residents setting out:

How tenants and residents can get involved in groups and as individuals in local decisions on housing matters
Help local BME tenants and residents contribute to public life and have a greater involvement at a strategic level including community strategies, local strategic partnerships and best value
What RBH, tenants and residents want to achieve through the compact, such as improving access to local services, creating better communication mechanisms and ensuring good practice is being shared across all sectors.
Sustaining and supporting community cohesion.
How the compact will be implemented and checked to make sure it is working properly and to create opportunities for local communities to thrive on.

A Boroughwide Tenant Participation Compact has already been developed with ROFTRA and/or Rochdale_MBC which sets out plans how RBH will do these things across the Borough. However, we know that Black and minority ethnic communities are under-represented in their local residential communities and we want to do more to reach and involve these communities. Therefore we have developed a Black and Minority Ethnic Tenant and Resident Participation Compact (BMETRPC) to encourage more people from Black and minority ethnic communities to get involved in decisions that affect them.

Aims of Black Minority Ethnic Tenants and Residents Participation Compact (BMETRPC)

It is Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s aim to ensure that black and minority ethnic communities have a real opportunity to shape the development of their future housing service. The BMETRPC will help to raise awareness of the services currently available and the wider opportunities for tenant involvement. It will also ensure that future consultation, service development and delivery takes full account of language and other cultural barriers that black and minority ethnic tenants and residents sometimes experience.
An important aspect of the BMETRPC will be an action plan process to encourage more BME tenants and residents to get involved. This will mean speaking to people other than community leaders about the day to day problems that affect them. To ensure that black and minority ethnic communities have their say, RBH will establish a BME strategic task group of officers and tenants. The black and minority ethnic strategic task group would be developed from the existing BME focus groups and both of these groups will be required to make recommendations and help RBH develop and improve race equality in housing.

Identified Common Aims

The focus groups and the black and ethnic minority strategic task group will consider a number of broad issues, such as how to:

Address the barriers to Black and minority ethnic community involvement identified during consultation
Address the under-representation of Black and minority ethnic communities in formal structures for tenant involvement by developing new mechanisms for involvement that meet the needs of these communities
Seek new and innovative ways of reaching Black and minority ethnic communities
Work in partnership with the Boroughwide Compact process.
Establish a strategic black and minority ethnic task group from existing BME focus groups.
Address the black and minority ethnic housing needs identified through previous and ongoing research.
Contribute towards the existing Rochdale Asian Housing Strategy developed in partnership between Rochdale_MBC Housing Services Departments and Ashiana Housing Association.
Ensure that equal opportunities are an integral part of everything RBH does
Link with other related strategies, such as Tenant Participation Strategy and the Tenant involvement Strategy.

RBH’s commitment to BME tenants & residents

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing recognises that racism has a profound impact on the lives of tenants and residents of the Borough. Negative assumptions about people based on their race or colour, accent, religion, dress, culture and ethnic origin create barriers which may prevent them from receiving appropriate housing services and access to employment opportunities.
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s commitment to BME tenants and residents in terms of racial harassment will include :-

Treat all racial harassment incidents seriously and review them with a Local Housing Manager within 24 hours reporting and where appropriate remove racist graffiti within 24 hours
To provide a bi-lingual out of hours support service
To provide victim support :-
- Provision of advice, same sex interviews when dealing with Asian women if appropriate
- Counseling if appropriate by trained member of staff familiar with racial harassment
- Home security improvements for tenants and residents residing in high-risk areas
- Personal alarms
- Stronger locks and doors provided to those vulnerable to attacks
- Fencing and stronger lighting around high-risk areas
- More extreme forms of “target hardening” such as fireproof Letterboxes, If necessary
- 24-hour racial harassment help line for tenants especially the vulnerable groups i.e. disabled or the elderly
Provide proactive investigation of incidents if and wen necessary
Involve the Multi-agency Racial Harassment Forum to ensure wider support for victims
Regularly review all cases of racial harassment to ensure that the most appropriate action is being taken and publish these results for BME tenants and residents informing them of our commitment and dedication towards racial harassment
Ensure equal opportunities are an integral part of everything it does and to promote equality and diversity
Promote awareness and consequences of racial harassment via education workers and youth workers who specifically work with schools and young people.
To Fund and support community projects for the interaction of Asian and non-Asians to create more of a “social mix”. For example Asian women teaching non Asian women/men cooking

Removing barriers to involvement and improving access to services

Remove barriers to services by promoting in an inclusive way
Publicise what we are doing more broadly and establish permanent and sustainable links with black and minority ethnic communities
Support needs of BME tenants and residents with disabilities or mental health needs and other forms of support via promoting disability awareness through training and events
Attend BME tenants and residents meetings when invited to discuss their issues
Work closely with the BME focus groups to improve their access to our services
Where appropriate provide a telephone help line to improve access to RBH services and strengthen our complaints of racial harassment procedure if necessary
Set itself demanding targets to improve the take up of sustainable annual tenancies and services to the BME communities

Strengthening Communication

Give continuing commitment to employ and value bi-lingual staff
Provide more training for staff, particularly race awareness and cultural diversity training?
Negotiate with the Council to try and recruit bi-lingual call-centre staff
Translate key documents into the main community Language
Provide a ‘language line’ interpretation facility
Consult widely with BME tenants and residents by various means of media
Develop and maintain BME tenants and residents focus group to raise awareness and improve service delivery
A commitment to make greater use of 24 hour translation and interpretation services
The use of other methods of communicating such as audio tapes
Using plain English
Increasing the number of bi-lingual front line staff including at the post office for effective customer care

Community Support.

Support the use of community bases and centres for mother tongue teaching and other community base activities
Support the formation of a tenants association on Pennine View and in any area where tenants are not currently represented
Reaching minority ethnic communities and improving access to services
Hold focus groups of BME tenants and residents from which RBH will aim to establish a strategic black and minority ethnic strategic task group consisting of RBH officers and RBH tenants and residents
Go to places where BME tenants and resident’s feel most comfortable with rather than expect them to come to us for example their community
Where appropriate consult with black and minority ethnic women separately if involvement agreed hold some “women only focus groups”
Hold surgeries about issues that concern BME specifically? If and when raised?
When consulting or distributing information RBH will culturally use appropriate venues, such as mosques, community centres and one stop shops etc.
Recruitment of a volunteers from the communities to enable them to learn more about social housing, racism, and so forth. Who in return could contribute in future projects, pilots schemes etc
Finally to introduce and implement work experience mechanisms for the BME tenants and residents of the community to undertake work experience in social housing who in return could influence other black and minority ethnic tenants and residents to participate in housing. For example 2 weeks placement for both school and college students and 1 year of industrial placement for undergraduates.

Support and Training for Volunteers and Students

RBH will provide training and information on all aspects of the housing service.
RBH will also provide training for personal development.
RBH will explain how local government works and its relationship with central government.

Getting Relationships Right

During our Boroughwide consultation many BME tenants and residents notified us that front line staff often do not understand their needs and were therefore, in some cases, unhelpful. This is why we:-

Promise to share the outcome of consultations and the contents of this compact with all local Housing Staff to ensure that they understand the issues faced by black and ethnic minority communities
Provide more training for staff, particularly race awareness and cultural diversity training.
In collaboration with communities themselves, RBH will strengthen existing procedures to identify areas where particular problems remain and take any necessary action

Development of BMETRPC

The Focus groups and the establishment of the black and ethnic minority strategic task group will be central to the success of the Compact and its continuing development and contribute to Rochdales BME Housing Strategy. How will people know whether the Compact is a success? The Compact should enable communities to see some real and tangible change and we want people to notice a difference. To do this, we will set targets which focus groups and the black and ethnic minority strategic task group will be involved in both developing and measuring. We will publish these results in Tenants Talk Back information pack, which we will then send to every home across the borough. The black and ethnic minority strategic task group will help us set new targets for the following year. Reaching all Black and minority ethnic communities will also be an important measure of the success of this Compact.

Implications and recommendations

Hold consultations with Asian women to determine if they would participate in future involvement via women only forum, if they agree then establish “BME women only focus groups”
RBH to establish BME officers and tenants strategic task group which would encompass :
Asian elders
Asian youths
Both men and women
Develop BME communication strategy
Set SMART targets in reducing percentage of tenants and residents who felt either dissatisfied or negative in contacting the right member of staff from 27% in 2004 to 15% in 2005.
If feasible employ or establish a role, if not already done so, for a dedicated and committed equality and diversity officer rather than delegate to another member of staff who’s first priority is something else and equally is not trained or qualified
Establish a mechanism for volunteers and work placements for BME residential students this would create involvement for younger generations in housing who in return could contribute towards future service developments, pilots schemes etc- Promoting equal opportunities
Monitor current racial harassment procedure in a pilot scheme to determine if improvements are necessary
In relation to choice based lettings for effective customer service establish a systematic approach which will allow a BME officer to operate on the floor at all times. It is felt many BME tenants enter the building when seeing no BME officer available or visible they leave taking back with them their query. For example have one BME officer or more in the morning and have one or more in the afternoon to aid any BME tenants and residents that have difficulty in communicating with the receptionist.

Supporting Documents

Rochdale’s Tenants and Residents Participation Compact
Rochdale Asians Housing Strategy
Black and Minority Ethnic Housing Strategies’ A Good Practice Guide. (CIH, FBHO, The Housing Corporation 2000)
Housing and Social Care Needs in Rochdale’ A report by the university of Salford 2001
Rochdale’s Community Strategy

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Home Information and Services Become a Tenant Current Tenants - Online Services for Tenants - About our Services Leaseholders * * *		Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Tenant Participation Compact Introduction Background What is the Black and Minority Ethnic Tenant and Resident Participation Compact Aims of Black Minority Ethnic Tenants and Residents Participation Compact (BMETRPC) Identified Common Aims RBH’s commitment to BME tenants & residents Removing barriers to involvement and improving access to services Strengthening Communication Community Support Support and Training for Volunteers and Students Getting Relationships Right Development of BMETRPC Implications and recommendations Supporting Documents Introduction Rochdale’s Black and Minority Ethnic Tenants and Residents Participation Compact (BMETRPC) aims to address the under representation of minority ethnic communities in formal structures for tenant involvement. With the existing Boroughwide Tenant Participation Compact, it will help to ensure that Rochdale’s Tenant Involvement Strategy addresses the needs of all residents. It has been developed as a result of consultation with Black and minority ethnic communities and will be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that needs continue to be met. The Compact should play an essential part in ensuring equality of opportunity for the tenants and residents who use the services of RBH. Equally, it is imperative to ensure that people and/or groups are not unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their:- Age Disability Employment status Ethnic or national origins Race or colour HIV status/ Hepatitis Status Marital status Religious or political beliefs Caring responsibilities Gender Sexuality Trade union activities or unrelated criminal convictions. Back to top Background RBH recognises the poor housing conditions of many of the Boroughs black and minority ethnic tenants and residents and that these communities are massively under represented in formal structures for involvement. Recent research shows that the national picture, which includes overcrowding and public sector housing in poor condition, is mirrored locally. Our recent consultation with black and minority ethnic communities has been carried out to identify barriers to involvement and how to improve communication. One of the main objectives of this Compact is to address issues raised during that consultation. Back to top What is the Black and Minority Ethnic Tenant and Resident Participation Compact The Black and Minority Ethnic Tenant and Resident Participation Compact (BMETRPC) is an agreement between Rochdale Boroughwide Housing and our tenants and residents setting out: How tenants and residents can get involved in groups and as individuals in local decisions on housing matters Help local BME tenants and residents contribute to public life and have a greater involvement at a strategic level including community strategies, local strategic partnerships and best value What RBH, tenants and residents want to achieve through the compact, such as improving access to local services, creating better communication mechanisms and ensuring good practice is being shared across all sectors. Sustaining and supporting community cohesion. How the compact will be implemented and checked to make sure it is working properly and to create opportunities for local communities to thrive on. A Boroughwide Tenant Participation Compact has already been developed with ROFTRA and/or Rochdale_MBC which sets out plans how RBH will do these things across the Borough. However, we know that Black and minority ethnic communities are under-represented in their local residential communities and we want to do more to reach and involve these communities. Therefore we have developed a Black and Minority Ethnic Tenant and Resident Participation Compact (BMETRPC) to encourage more people from Black and minority ethnic communities to get involved in decisions that affect them. Back to top Aims of Black Minority Ethnic Tenants and Residents Participation Compact (BMETRPC) It is Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s aim to ensure that black and minority ethnic communities have a real opportunity to shape the development of their future housing service. The BMETRPC will help to raise awareness of the services currently available and the wider opportunities for tenant involvement. It will also ensure that future consultation, service development and delivery takes full account of language and other cultural barriers that black and minority ethnic tenants and residents sometimes experience. An important aspect of the BMETRPC will be an action plan process to encourage more BME tenants and residents to get involved. This will mean speaking to people other than community leaders about the day to day problems that affect them. To ensure that black and minority ethnic communities have their say, RBH will establish a BME strategic task group of officers and tenants. The black and minority ethnic strategic task group would be developed from the existing BME focus groups and both of these groups will be required to make recommendations and help RBH develop and improve race equality in housing. Back to top Identified Common Aims The focus groups and the black and ethnic minority strategic task group will consider a number of broad issues, such as how to: Address the barriers to Black and minority ethnic community involvement identified during consultation Address the under-representation of Black and minority ethnic communities in formal structures for tenant involvement by developing new mechanisms for involvement that meet the needs of these communities Seek new and innovative ways of reaching Black and minority ethnic communities Work in partnership with the Boroughwide Compact process. Establish a strategic black and minority ethnic task group from existing BME focus groups. Address the black and minority ethnic housing needs identified through previous and ongoing research. Contribute towards the existing Rochdale Asian Housing Strategy developed in partnership between Rochdale_MBC Housing Services Departments and Ashiana Housing Association. Ensure that equal opportunities are an integral part of everything RBH does Link with other related strategies, such as Tenant Participation Strategy and the Tenant involvement Strategy. Back to top RBH’s commitment to BME tenants & residents Rochdale Boroughwide Housing recognises that racism has a profound impact on the lives of tenants and residents of the Borough. Negative assumptions about people based on their race or colour, accent, religion, dress, culture and ethnic origin create barriers which may prevent them from receiving appropriate housing services and access to employment opportunities. Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s commitment to BME tenants and residents in terms of racial harassment will include :- Treat all racial harassment incidents seriously and review them with a Local Housing Manager within 24 hours reporting and where appropriate remove racist graffiti within 24 hours To provide a bi-lingual out of hours support service To provide victim support :- Provision of advice, same sex interviews when dealing with Asian women if appropriate Counseling if appropriate by trained member of staff familiar with racial harassment Home security improvements for tenants and residents residing in high-risk areas Personal alarms Stronger locks and doors provided to those vulnerable to attacks Fencing and stronger lighting around high-risk areas More extreme forms of “target hardening” such as fireproof Letterboxes, If necessary 24-hour racial harassment help line for tenants especially the vulnerable groups i.e. disabled or the elderly Provide proactive investigation of incidents if and wen necessary Involve the Multi-agency Racial Harassment Forum to ensure wider support for victims Regularly review all cases of racial harassment to ensure that the most appropriate action is being taken and publish these results for BME tenants and residents informing them of our commitment and dedication towards racial harassment Ensure equal opportunities are an integral part of everything it does and to promote equality and diversity Promote awareness and consequences of racial harassment via education workers and youth workers who specifically work with schools and young people. To Fund and support community projects for the interaction of Asian and non-Asians to create more of a “social mix”. For example Asian women teaching non Asian women/men cooking Back to top Removing barriers to involvement and improving access to services Remove barriers to services by promoting in an inclusive way Publicise what we are doing more broadly and establish permanent and sustainable links with black and minority ethnic communities Support needs of BME tenants and residents with disabilities or mental health needs and other forms of support via promoting disability awareness through training and events Attend BME tenants and residents meetings when invited to discuss their issues Work closely with the BME focus groups to improve their access to our services Where appropriate provide a telephone help line to improve access to RBH services and strengthen our complaints of racial harassment procedure if necessary Set itself demanding targets to improve the take up of sustainable annual tenancies and services to the BME communities Back to top Strengthening Communication Give continuing commitment to employ and value bi-lingual staff Provide more training for staff, particularly race awareness and cultural diversity training? Negotiate with the Council to try and recruit bi-lingual call-centre staff Translate key documents into the main community Language Provide a ‘language line’ interpretation facility Consult widely with BME tenants and residents by various means of media Develop and maintain BME tenants and residents focus group to raise awareness and improve service delivery A commitment to make greater use of 24 hour translation and interpretation services The use of other methods of communicating such as audio tapes Using plain English Increasing the number of bi-lingual front line staff including at the post office for effective customer care Back to top Community Support. Support the use of community bases and centres for mother tongue teaching and other community base activities Support the formation of a tenants association on Pennine View and in any area where tenants are not currently represented Reaching minority ethnic communities and improving access to services Hold focus groups of BME tenants and residents from which RBH will aim to establish a strategic black and minority ethnic strategic task group consisting of RBH officers and RBH tenants and residents Go to places where BME tenants and resident’s feel most comfortable with rather than expect them to come to us for example their community Where appropriate consult with black and minority ethnic women separately if involvement agreed hold some “women only focus groups” Hold surgeries about issues that concern BME specifically? If and when raised? When consulting or distributing information RBH will culturally use appropriate venues, such as mosques, community centres and one stop shops etc. Recruitment of a volunteers from the communities to enable them to learn more about social housing, racism, and so forth. Who in return could contribute in future projects, pilots schemes etc Finally to introduce and implement work experience mechanisms for the BME tenants and residents of the community to undertake work experience in social housing who in return could influence other black and minority ethnic tenants and residents to participate in housing. For example 2 weeks placement for both school and college students and 1 year of industrial placement for undergraduates. Back to top Support and Training for Volunteers and Students RBH will provide training and information on all aspects of the housing service. RBH will also provide training for personal development. RBH will explain how local government works and its relationship with central government. Back to top Getting Relationships Right During our Boroughwide consultation many BME tenants and residents notified us that front line staff often do not understand their needs and were therefore, in some cases, unhelpful. This is why we:- Promise to share the outcome of consultations and the contents of this compact with all local Housing Staff to ensure that they understand the issues faced by black and ethnic minority communities Provide more training for staff, particularly race awareness and cultural diversity training. In collaboration with communities themselves, RBH will strengthen existing procedures to identify areas where particular problems remain and take any necessary action Back to top Development of BMETRPC The Focus groups and the establishment of the black and ethnic minority strategic task group will be central to the success of the Compact and its continuing development and contribute to Rochdales BME Housing Strategy. How will people know whether the Compact is a success? The Compact should enable communities to see some real and tangible change and we want people to notice a difference. To do this, we will set targets which focus groups and the black and ethnic minority strategic task group will be involved in both developing and measuring. We will publish these results in Tenants Talk Back information pack, which we will then send to every home across the borough. The black and ethnic minority strategic task group will help us set new targets for the following year. Reaching all Black and minority ethnic communities will also be an important measure of the success of this Compact. Back to top Implications and recommendations Hold consultations with Asian women to determine if they would participate in future involvement via women only forum, if they agree then establish “BME women only focus groups” RBH to establish BME officers and tenants strategic task group which would encompass : Asian elders Asian youths Both men and women Develop BME communication strategy Set SMART targets in reducing percentage of tenants and residents who felt either dissatisfied or negative in contacting the right member of staff from 27% in 2004 to 15% in 2005. If feasible employ or establish a role, if not already done so, for a dedicated and committed equality and diversity officer rather than delegate to another member of staff who’s first priority is something else and equally is not trained or qualified Establish a mechanism for volunteers and work placements for BME residential students this would create involvement for younger generations in housing who in return could contribute towards future service developments, pilots schemes etc- Promoting equal opportunities Monitor current racial harassment procedure in a pilot scheme to determine if improvements are necessary In relation to choice based lettings for effective customer service establish a systematic approach which will allow a BME officer to operate on the floor at all times. It is felt many BME tenants enter the building when seeing no BME officer available or visible they leave taking back with them their query. For example have one BME officer or more in the morning and have one or more in the afternoon to aid any BME tenants and residents that have difficulty in communicating with the receptionist. Back to top Supporting Documents Rochdale’s Tenants and Residents Participation Compact Rochdale Asians Housing Strategy Black and Minority Ethnic Housing Strategies’ A Good Practice Guide. (CIH, FBHO, The Housing Corporation 2000) Housing and Social Care Needs in Rochdale’ A report by the university of Salford 2001 Rochdale’s Community Strategy Back to top Back to Getting Involved