ReCAP: Putting culture, accountability and participation on the menu at the ‘repairs café

On 13 August, over 60 residents and engagement staff from 17 different housing associations took part in a World Café-style workshop hosted by Your Housing Group (YHG). What was on the menu? All things repairs and maintenance.

The event formed part of a wider resident insight programme currently running in coordination with the Repairs Culture, Accountability and Participation (ReCAP) project. This new CIH-led national initiative is turning the call for greater tenant scrutiny over the upkeep of their homes into practical, free-to-use guidance to raise standards across the sector.

With concerns over the condition of many social homes on the rise, and Awaab's Law introducing strict timeframes for tackling hazards, there needs to be a rethink around how repairs services are delivered. ReCAP is about placing tenants at the heart of that rethink. Sessions like this are therefore an opportunity to hear directly from them about what’s working, what isn’t, and how they would like to see things done differently.

So, what were some of the key themes that emerged from the ‘repairs café’, how do these insights feed into the wider ReCAP project, and how can you get involved too?

What feedback was received during the session?

Each table held a different 'course’ from the menu, and guests rotated between them with a ‘table host’ guiding the conversation. The topics covered residents’ current experience of repairs, what gets in the way, what the ‘gold standard’ looks like, and what their ideas for change were. Attendees were mixed into groups which blended young with old and experienced scrutinisers with novices. All participants were asked to discuss each question openly whilst YHG customer engagement staff took notes. 

By the end of the session, 300 pieces of feedback had been collected. Communication emerged as a recurring theme, with tenants emphasising that when repairs cannot be completed in a single visit, ”honesty” and “transparency” go a long way. Residents also attached previous ‘gold standard’ experiences to being treated with ”empathy” and ”respect”. For scrutiny panels, having different perspectives around the table was cited as integral to effective and representative oversight.

There was also a strong appetite for creating more routes into involvement, so that scrutiny does not rely on the same small group of residents who already know how to engage. Another key takeaway was the importance of closing the feedback loop, with ‘you said, we did’ styled announcements from landlords to demonstrate how recommendations have been translated into action.

Thank you to Your Housing Group for hosting such a constructive and engaging event, and to Manchester City Council, Stockport Homes, West Lancs Council, MSV Housing, Wigan Council, Onward Homes, Sanctuary Housing, Staffs Housing, Wythenshawe Housing, Muir Group, Southlakes Housing, Stoke Council, Livv Housing, EPIC Housing, One Manchester and Foyer Foundation for coming along.

Reflecting on the event, Christopher Quigg, Your Housing Group's Customer Scrutiny Manager, said: “We were pleased to host the ReCAP Repairs Café and bring residents and housing professionals together to discuss how we can improve services in the future. It was great to hear positive feedback from those who took part, and we're looking forward to using the insights from the session and wider ReCAP programme to help improve the repairs experience for our residents.”

What are the next steps for the ReCAP programme following the session

The repairs café was just one part of a wider engagement programme that is helping to shape ReCAP. It builds on feedback from housing providers and residents that we gathered from TPAS’ Tenants Conference in July.

By the time the project concludes in summer 2027, we’ll bring this evidence together into a range of practical resources for the sector, including:

• A resident scrutiny toolkit, co-designed with TPAS and residents, for use by scrutiny panels, tenant chairs and resident board members
• A culture and accountability framework for landlords, housing providers and contractors
• Board-level briefing materials for boards, executives and governance leads
• A sector learning report, freely available to the whole sector
• Case studies from pilot landlords, shared through CIH, NHMF and TPAS channels.

How can you get involved?

The final outputs of the project will be determined by the perspectives that are shared with us. So, if you would you like to get involved and contribute towards improving tenant scrutiny across the sector, please fill in our online ReCAP survey. It closes on Monday 14 September 2026.

Dr Eve Blezard, Policy Lead and ReCAP Project Chair, will be chairing a ReCAP session at 10:10am on day two of The Housing Community Summit in Liverpool (9 September). Come and join us for the discussion to learn more. If you haven’t booked your ticket yet, there’s still time. Book your place here.

If your organisation has recently run a scrutiny review or a repairs scrutiny project, we'd love to hear from you as part of our desktop review. All feedback is anonymised; we just want a clearer picture of current practice. We're also on the hunt for good practice case studies, so if you have an example to share, please get in touch with policyandpractice@cih.org.