Councils are encouraged by the results of their tenants’ satisfaction survey
Published Friday 19 June
South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils have carried out a satisfaction survey among their tenants for the first time since they re-registered as social housing providers and the results are encouraging.
The councils, which now manage 92 properties across both districts scored 100 per cent satisfaction on questions on their housing repair service and whether their homes are well-maintained. They also scored highly on keeping communal areas clean and providing homes that are safe. The lowest score was on the question of how the councils handled complaints and still 75 per cent of respondents were satisfied.
The Government requires all registered providers of social housing – including local authorities – to collect and report annually on their performance using a core set of defined standards called the Tenant Satisfaction Measures. The TSMs provide tenants with greater clarity about their landlord’s performance.
For South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils this is the first measurement of their performance since re-registering in 2023 as a Local Authority Registered Providers (LARP) marking the return to their role as a social landlord.
The councils currently manage properties in Abingdon, Harwell and Wantage in the Vale and Didcot and Wallingford in South Oxfordshire. These range from single rooms to flats and houses with a variety of households ranging from single people to family groups.
Cllr Tony Worgan South Oxfordshire District Council Cabinet Member for Property, Housing and Economic Development said: “A decent place to live is the very least we all deserve. We are very pleased that our return to being social landlords has seen such high satisfaction rates among our tenants. Now we have set this benchmark we must ensure that we keep to these high standards for our tenants in the future.”
Cllr Andy Crawford Vale of White Horse District Council Cabinet Member for Property, Housing and Economic Development said: “While these results certainly are very encouraging, there is still some room for improvement on our satisfaction scores particularly when it comes to complaints. We will be aiming to get it right first time so hopefully tenants will not need to make complaints.”
The survey takes place during April and May, and the councils then publish the results. The 2026 survey results (of the 86 households under the councils’ management at that time – the councils have since taken on six more properties) are available on our websites (South Oxfordshire/Vale)
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