Get involved

Throughout the year, we work with housing teams to organise local forums or meetings as an opportunity for residents to hear updates from Notting Hill Genesis, discuss services and local issues and to meet their local housing teams. More recently these forums have been organised for each region and have taken place online (see the Q&As from the most recent ones below). We hope to be able to return to more face-to-face local forums and engagement this year. Look out for more information in Connections and the local forums page.

Virtual Open Forum: Question and Answers

North region virtual forum Q&A - 23 June 2021
East region virtual forum Q&A - 30 June 2021
South region virtual forum Q&A - 8 July 2021
West region virtual forum Q&A - 14 July 2021

A residents' association (RA) is a group made up of local residents living in a particular area. It plays a part in dealing with problems at a local level, as well as organising activities such as social events and finding ways of improving the local area. It represents the views of its membership and residents to their landlord, the local authority and any other relevant agencies.

If you would like to find out more about how to set up and form a recognised Residents’ Association or if you’re already recognised and you need some hints and tips or wish to apply for your annual grant, please visit our RA page now.

You can contact the resident involvement team or your housing officer or PMO for more information.

As a local volunteer, you’ll monitor and assess the quality of estate services carried out by our contractors for where you live. This can include rating services via text message or accompanying a housing officer or PMO on an estate inspection.

If you are interested in volunteering, please email estates@nhg.org.uk 

Join your housing officer or PMO on their monthly estate inspections. They will advertise for local residents to occasionally walkaround with them as they carry out their routine inspections. Contact your housing officer or PMO to express interest or to find out when the next one will be.

The Oversight and Scrutiny Group undertake different scrutiny reviews of service areas and work alongside staff to make recommendations and improvements. The group primarily takes on projects as agreed by The Resident Voices Group.

Some recent examples of service areas the group has looked at include complaints, Building Safety and the Annual Visits experience. The group is open to all residents regardless of tenure. Ideally there should be a representative number of members from different tenure types in the group, as well as geographical spread. This is a fixed membership group with a resident chair. Please contact the Resident Involvement Team to enquire into any vacancies.

These are short, time specific projects for residents to participate in. They’ll work alongside staff to scrutinise an issue or service area and develop solutions and recommendations. These will be projects as agreed by The Resident Voices Group. Some recent projects have included looking at recruitment and training, developing a charter for staff and residents and reviewing resident satisfaction surveys. For more detail, please read our annual report.

Currently there are two open membership groups with chairs who lead on each project. Recruitment will take place at the start of each project and will be advertised to residents who have expressed an interest in this kind of work and well as being advertised in Connections Magazine. To sign up to take part in these kinds of projects, please contact the Resident Involvement Team.

This group work closely with repairs, planned works and compliance teams assisting them and providing feedback on their services. Some recent work has included shaping the priorities of the NHG Home Standard and looking at satisfaction surveys for repairs and planned works.
This is a fixed membership group with a resident chair and meet at least three times a year. Please contact the Resident Involvement Team to enquire into any vacancies.

The Lab is a repairs pilot area currently working in Kensington and Chelsea and a small area of Hammersmith and Fulham. The resident scrutiny group work with staff involved with the Lab in piloting new ways to improve repairs services. The group is open to all residents regardless of tenure living in the pilot areas defined by the Lab. Any other areas that become involved with the pilot work of The Lab can join the group.
The group has a chair and fixed membership. Where relevant, there may be reason to consult a wider group of residents on the work of the Lab. Please contact the Resident Involvement Team to find out more about this group.

The Rents and Service Charge Forum works to ensure Notting Hill Genesis provides a simple and transparent rents and service charge process. They work with staff to improve this process and the resident experience through scrutiny, accountability, challenge, and joint working. They work on proposed new policies and procedures, consultations on the content and format of resident communications and associated material.
The Forum is open to all residents. Ideally there should be a representative number of members from different tenure types in the group, as well as geographical spread. The group will have a fixed membership per meeting, but a wider group of residents can be consulted where relevant. If interested, please contact the Resident Involvement Team.

This group was established to raise awareness of the issues affecting disabled or vulnerable residents and examine policies and services that NHG deliver. Some examples of recent work they have done include an accessibility review of Notting Hill Genesis offices and developing some guidelines for contractor conduct when in residents’ homes.

This is a fixed membership group with a resident chair who meet at least three times a year. The group will have a fixed membership per meeting, but a wider group of residents can be consulted where relevant. If interested, please contact the Resident Involvement Team.

The Lesbian Gay, Bisexual, Transgender forum meets to discuss matters affecting the LGBT+ Notting Hill Genesis community. Some recent work the forum has contributed towards has included the HouseProud Pledge and developing some guidelines for contractor conduct when in residents’ homes.
The group has a resident chair meets at least three times a year and is open for additional membership. Please contact the Resident Involvement Team to find out more.

Residents can get involved in a range of procurement exercises for new contractors particularly for services that affect residents directly. There are a number of different ways in which residents can get involved in a procurement process, some requiring more time commitment than others.

These include one off focus groups to help design questions to be included in the tender, assisting in evaluating and scoring bidder submissions (requiring between 1-3 days for training, scoring and moderating with staff) as well as opportunities to meet successful bidders at local events. Please speak to the Resident Involvement Team if interested in getting involved in Procurement.

Residents can volunteer to take part in a review of our Stage 2 complaints. When a complainant remains dissatisfied with our response, they can ask for it to be escalated and reviewed by an independent manager and the complainant can also ask for a resident to review their complaint and our response. Independent resident volunteer reviewers will carry our reviews on an ad hoc and rota basis. According to availability Independent Resident Reviewers will be expected to complete 1 or 2 reviews a month, though this frequency may vary. When receiving a case to review you will be expected to provide feedback in writing/email within 2 to 4 working days.

Once you have been trained, this is all done by email, where you will receive a pack setting out the background and chronology and be invited to give your comments. For your time and as a small thank you, the complaints team will also send you £10 gift voucher for each complaint reviewed. If you are interested, please contact Resident Involvement Team who will refer you to our Complaints Leads.

Residents are invited to have a say on how we hold our gas contractors accountable, in a series of gas consultation meetings. Here, you will have the opportunity to speak to our four gas contractors and help us resolve some of our key challenges. If you’re interested in taking part, please email involvement@nhg.org.uk for more information.

Residents are often invited to sense check any resident-facing policies or procedures, to ensure they make sense and make suggestions about how to communicate these important policies more widely. This is often done over email.

Some services also ask residents to sense check communication pieces that go out to residents. Reviewing language, tone, layout of letters, posters and other communications. This is often done over email.

Occasionally residents are invited to help improve the customer experience of a service or accessing information such as the Notting Hill Genesis website or self-serving through My Account. This is often done over email but may also require one off focus groups as well.

Occasionally residents are invited to help give feedback on a service via a survey. These are often done via email.

Any government or housing sector consultations we are asked to respond to as a landlord, we may organise focus groups to help residents shape our response. Often there is an opportunity to residents to respond to these consultations individually as well.

The Resident Voices Group has been set up to act as representative hub where the resident involvement experiences are gathered and heard. It is the formal link between our resident involvement network and group board. The group will meet quarterly to review feedback, and instigate service improvements working alongside the Involvement team, executive board members and directors. The group are made up of the chairs and/or representatives of our established groups and projects as well resident board members and residents who sit on our sub committees. For more information and updates on the progress of this Resident Voices Group, please visit our blogs page. 

We are looking for residents to join our various committees. By doing so, residents will have the opportunity to engage with our board on topics such as strategy, budgets and risk management. 

The board is supported by six strong committees with significant powers: 

• Audit and risk committee – overseeing our financial strength and integrity 
• Development and sales committee – overseeing a development and regeneration programme, which provided about 1,300 new homes last year 
• Nominations committee – overseeing recruitment to our committees and board 
• Operations committee – overseeing performance across our residential businesses 
• Remuneration committee – overseeing pay and reward for top staff, board and committee members 
• Treasury committee - overseeing the borrowings the organisation makes so we can provide new homes 

The application process involves completing a short application form, one or two rounds of interviews along with informal discussions and a reference. You can apply here or email us at: gteam@nhg.org.uk.