Extending and improving our services to you

We at Peabody want to make sure that our services meet individual needs. That’s why we recently contacted all our tenants, leaseholders and homeowners to collect personal information. 

The information we’re looking for falls into three types: 

• Personal information – including gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and disabilities
  
  
• Information about contact and communication – including preferred language and method of communication
  
  
• Information about emergency and alternative contacts   

So far, we’ve managed to collect personal information about nearly 60 per cent of the people who live in a Peabody property. This will help us to plan for the future as well as monitor what we currently offer to make sure we do not discriminate against anyone and deliver an effective service. Thank you to everyone who has responded.  

Finding out more – because we want to ensure our services match your needs

• Repairs information for the contractor has been updated. This will allow the repairs team to adjust their conduct, for example, giving someone longer to answer the door if they have restricted mobility or making sure to wear shoe covers if entering the home of a Muslim faith resident.
   
• All of our ongoing satisfaction surveys have been updated to measure satisfaction across our services by the six strands of diversity (ethnicity, disability, age, gender, faith and sexual orientation). We will be able to track results and trends by diversity strand and then take appropriate action 
  
  
• The profiling information is now used to inform all of our Equality Impact Assessments. Staff and the Diversity Forum will be a lot more aware of the impact that changes to services will have on different groups.
  
  
• A series of focus groups will be run with residents who have reported anti-social behaviour (ASB). We are also working with specialist agencies and faith groups to remove some of the barriers we have identified to reporting and tackling ASB.
  
  
• Improved knowledge about the age profile of the people living in Peabody properties means that we can better understand our residents’ needs and how to deliver specific services. For example, we are now working with specialist groups such as Age Concern and the Citizens Advice Bureau to increase welfare and benefits take-up and access to basic financial products for elderly residents in our supported and sheltered housing schemes.
  
  
• Following an increase in information on ASB and age profile data, workshops have been held for youths on Peabody estates about knife and gun awareness. Cannabis awareness workshops have also taken place. Estate staff have visited estates with an interpreter and translator to knock on doors and gain feedback on the Neighbourhood Charters from a wider selection of the community.
  
  
• Specific disabled action groups have also been set up on estates in the East region to look at issues from a disability perspective, for example, parking arrangements, lunch clubs and community centres. We now know that we have a larger disabled community in that region than we previously thought.  
  

Thank you again to all those who took part in this important work. If you haven’t yet replied and would like to help us make sure everyone is treated fairly and no-one is discriminated against, please contact policy.helpline@peabody.org.uk to find out more.

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