A Spotlight on: Leigh Caveney

Over the summer, TPAS Cymru has relaunched our 'Spotlight On' series in a new format. In this series, we celebrate some fantastic housing colleagues who we have been working with. Stay tuned as as we shine a light on the faces behind the hard work and best practices that help our homes and communities continue to thrive, and who support tenants in Wales.

Our second post in this series focuses on Leigh Caveney, Tenant Involvement Officer at RHA Wales.

 

1. What is my favourite thing about my job?

There are a few things that I absolutely love about my job: There is massive variety in what I do. I can be collecting food for our community fridges in the morning, supporting a tenant through a tough time and signposting for support by lunchtime, and carrying out a consultation about improving our tenant services in the afternoon. I love that no two days are the same.

I’m also fortunate to work in a brilliant team, none of us do the same job but we are all really supportive of each other – in my experience that’s rare.

 

2. What is 1 thing you would change about housing in Wales?

Parity between all kinds of rented housing – In terms of standards of accommodation and rent charged.  Landlords  are working really hard in difficult circumstances to drive up standards to meet WHQS.  The private equivalent Rent Smart Wales doesn’t appear to have done much to drive up standards but does seem to have reduced the available properties and driven prices up.

 

3. How has housing changed since I started doing my role?

I started working in Housing back in 1992 so there are lots of things that have changed in that time.  Devolution, the introduction of Anti-Social Behaviour Legislation, supporting people,  WHQS -   but the fundamentals are still the same.  It’s all about relationships and listening to our tenants, understanding their priorities – always asking.

 

4. What is a good way to ensure tenants or the public have their voice heard?

I would say this but, I think RHA does a really good job. Our Executive team and Board have a genuine commitment to listening to our tenants and community members. Its not a strapline for us, its meaningful tenant engagement so we can work together to improve service provision.

Tenant voice is a living part of all of the work that we do regardless of the colleague, team or the level.  We also have a lot of engaged tenants that have remained with us for a long time - we consider them part of our RHA family and we work hard to maintain our relationships with them.

 

5. What inspires me to do what I do?

Again, a massive cliché but to an extent you have to love what you do.  I love my downtime outside of work and I keep it special but I often think when I see or read something good that I could use it in work and, I often do so I share that. We want to be innovative in the ways we listen and work with our tenants and communities.