Scrutiny Panel Recruitment - Housing Plus Group

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Message from Sarah Watson, Chair of the Service, Performance and Customer Experience Committee

Dear Potential Candidates,

Following our merger in January 2025, we’ve created a new organisation – the Housing Plus Group – which now manages 33,000 homes and employs 2,000 people. This is an exciting time to join us as we continue to grow and improve our services.

Our customers are at the heart of everything we do. People want safe, secure homes, good repairs, well‑maintained neighbourhoods, and services that really work for them. Our aim is simple – to create places people are proud to call home.

We’re now setting up a brand‑new Scrutiny Panel, made up of 10 customers, to help hold the organisation to account from a customer point of view. These roles are really important in helping us meet the Consumer Standards and make sure services meet the expectations of the people who live in our homes.

The Scrutiny Panel plays a key role in making sure customers’ voices are heard and listened to. As a panel member, you’ll help us:

Review services
Look at how we’re performing
Represent the customer voice
Make recommendations for improvement
Monitor follow-up actions
Provide constructive, independent challenge

As a Scrutiny Panel member, tenants will work with us in a way that reflects how we operate as an organisation. This means:

Owning it – make it happen
Improving it – move things forward
Living it – show understanding and compassion

This is a great opportunity for tenants to get involved, share experiences, and help shape how services are delivered. There’s also many other ways you can get involved, such as surveys, focus groups and walkabouts. Get in touch for more information at customerinvolvement@housingplusgroup.co.uk.

Sarah Watson, Chair of the Service, Performance and Customer Experience Committee

About Housing Plus Group

In January 2025, Housing Plus Group and The Wrekin Housing Group merged to form a new organisation. We now manage 33,000 homes across Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Telford & Wrekin. In addition to providing landlord services, we also offer care for older people and adults with learning disabilities.

Our goals are clear:

Listen to and work with our customers to provide even better services, including investing £55 million in improving existing homes.
Be a great place to work, offering opportunities for our people to grow, develop, and deliver excellent services.
Be more resilient, using our size and scale to invest in existing homes and build over 1,000 new social and affordable homes each year.
Be a local leader, staying connected to our communities while creating a significant economic impact in the region.

We’re proud to provide over 70% of the affordable and social housing in our operating areas. Our team of 2,000 people works hard every day to serve our customers, supported by a dedicated board and executive team.

Where Scrutiny fits in our Governance structure

The Role: Scrutiny Panel Member

The Panel will be customer‑led and will review how well our services are performing, the quality of services provided to all customers across our homes (including general needs, shared owners and leaseholders), and our future plans.

The aim is to identify clear, evidence‑based areas where services can be improved. The Panel will play an important role in holding the Group to account for service standards and quality, and in making sure we continue to meet, and where possible exceed, regulatory standards.

The Panel will work closely with the SPaCE committee, whose role is to ensure we meet the Consumer Standards and actively listen to customers, helping to inform and shape decisions.

Key Responsibilities:

Attend and actively participate in Panel meetings (three reviews per year, lasting approximately 30 hours per review)
Carry out service reviews
Review of policies and procedures
Take part in interviews with staff and service teams
Take part in interviews with customers who have used the service
Visit services to see how they operate in practice
Contribute to shorter reviews such as ‘bootcamp’ style days for smaller pieces of work
Visit other landlords or businesses
Attend training or development sessions as required
Help ensure the organisation complies with legal and regulatory requirements
Act in the best interests of the group, using your skills, knowledge, and integrity.
Declare any potential conflicts of interest.

Scrutiny Panel members will be:

Analytical and inquisitive – able to review information, identify issues, and ask the right questions
Clear and confident communicator – able to express views clearly and challenge in a constructive way.
Objective and fair-minded – bases opinions and decisions on evidence, not personal bias
Collaborative team player – listens to others and works toward shared outcomes
Solution-focused – suggests practical, realistic improvements
Reliable and committed – prepares for meetings, participates actively, and follows through on actions

Panel members are offered:

Remuneration: £1,500 per annum for an estimated 90 hours of work on scrutiny reviews
Reimbursement of reasonable out-of-pocket expenses.
Access to training and development opportunities.
Full IT support for hybrid working.
Membership initially for three years, with an opportunity to renew for a further 3 years (total of 6 years)

Eligibility:

To apply, you must:

Be a Housing Plus Group or Wrekin Housing Group tenant, household member or customer
Be aged 18 or over
Not have any legal disputes or actions against you by Housing Plus Group or its subsidiaries.
Not be an employee of Housing Plus Group or its subsidiaries.

Location:

Our work covers Telford & Wrekin, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the wider West Midlands. Panel meetings are a mix of in-person and online. In-person meetings are usually held in Telford, Shrewsbury, or Stafford.

Next steps:

Applications for our Scrutiny Panel recruitment are now closed, and we’re delighted to announce that 10 candidates were successfully selected. The standard of applications was incredibly high, and we were truly impressed by the passion, experience and commitment shown by everyone who applied. We’re excited to be working with these customers and look forward to the valuable insight and feedback they will bring to the panel.

We will now begin working closely with the new panel members to support them in their roles. Starting in late June, they will take part in two training sessions delivered by TPAS, focused on the skills and knowledge needed to be an effective scrutiny panel, alongside an introduction to Housing Plus Group. Following this training, the panel members will begin their first scrutiny project in July/August.