A small group of four Swindon council tenants have been fighting for improvements in the way the council works as a landlord to thousands of people in the borough.

But they need help and are calling for more people to join in.

Swindon’s Tenant’s Scrutiny Panel has been running for nearly 15 years

It is currently made up of chair Emily Webb, panel member Sarah Burrows and two council officers Nat Widomska and Nick Brock. 

The quartet were at the John Moulton Hall in Penhill Drive to allow people to drop by and raise issues they’d like to see improved.

Emily said: “We look at the big picture and do a deep dive and make recommendations about what can be improved.

“We are independent. When this was set up in 2011, they looked at other panels in other council areas, and often it was council officers bringing things for the panel to look at.

“In Swindon, they said: no, that the panel was independent and solely for the benefit of the tenants and looking at what needs improving.”

An example of where the panel gets involved would be its scrutiny of how the council handles housing complaints.

Emily said: “We look at complaints data and the council’s performance data. We’ll talk to other tenants, but we have to be careful with anecdotal evidence, but we are quite data-driven.

“When we did a communications review, looking at how the council communicated with tenants,  it took about 18 months of work, but we made 11 recommendations and the council accepted them all.

“The council’s action plan to improve communications had all our recommendations. For example, we wanted more call centre staff, and they did that before the report had been finished.”

The panel is now looking at the neighbourhood wardens scheme and will have an open meeting to start the process at 10am at the Civic offices in Euclid Street on October 10.

Emily said: “It’s open to all tenants unless there’s a conflict of interest. We’ll listen and discuss and set the scope of the work, then there’ll  be more sessions.”

The panel would also like more members to take part.

Emily said: “There’s four of us; I’m in a house, Sarah is in a bungalow, another member is in a flat – but we need people from different types of housing and different areas of the borough, because that lived experience is invaluable in knowing how things work.

Srah added: “It’s very rewarding, you get to see things change, and to know you  got things improved.”

Anyone interested in joining the panel should email getinvolved@swindon.gov.uk.