Portsmouth City Council Tenant Satisfaction Measures Consultation 2025-26

Overall satisfaction

• The majority of tenants are satisfied with the service provided by their landlord (84%). This has remained fairly consistent with the previous years. Those not ‘very satisfied’ mostly suggested improvements to the repairs service and to accommodation.

Repairs

• Three quarters have had a repair carried out in the last 12 months
• The majority of those are satisfied with the overall repairs service and the time taken to complete repairs (85% each)
• Tenants appreciate their experience of the first contact by phone to report a repair and make an appointment and like that repairs are completed quickly. 44% suggest improving the quality of repairs.

Your property

• The majority of tenants are satisfied that their landlord provides a home that is well maintained (81%), whilst 9% are dissatisfied. Those who are satisfied feel their property is in a good condition, whilst those not satisfied feel this way as they have issues with damp and mould or their property is in a poor condition.
• The majority of tenants are satisfied that their landlord provides a home that is safe (83%), whilst 8% are dissatisfied. Those satisfied report that their annual servicing is good, whilst those who are not satisfied raise concerns over anti-social behaviour.

Your landlord

• Around three quarters of tenants are satisfied that their landlord listens to their views and acts upon them (73%), whilst 12% are dissatisfied. Reasons for feeling both satisfied and not satisfied relate to generally feeling listened to, and how proactive or responsive tenants find their landlord or how efficient they are at solving issues.
• The majority of respondents feel satisfied that their landlord keeps them informed about things that matter to them (77%), whilst 7% are dissatisfied. Those who are satisfied appreciate informational magazines, letters and posters, whilst those who are not satisfied feel they do not hear from their landlord frequently.
• The majority of tenants agree that their landlord treats them fairly and with respect (83%), whilst just 5% disagree. Those satisfied report always finding their landlord to be friendly/polite, whilst those not satisfied do not feel listened to.

Complaints

• Only a quarter of respondents have made a complaint to their landlord in the last 12 months.
• Of those who have made a complaint, 46% are satisfied with their landlord’s approach to complaint handling and 33% are dissatisfied. Tenants who are satisfied feel that their landlord is good/quick at responding, whilst those not satisfied report that their issues have not been resolved.

Communal areas

• Around two thirds of tenants have communal areas that their landlord is responsible for maintaining (65%).
• Of those who do, 68% feel satisfied that their landlord keeps communal areas clean and well maintained, and 19% feel dissatisfied.
• Satisfaction largely comes from cleaning and maintenance being regular and reliable, whilst those not satisfied feel that cleaning could be more frequent or thorough or have issues with other tenants creating mess.

Your neighbourhood

• Most tenants are satisfied that their landlord makes a positive contribution to their neighbourhood (67%), whilst 11% are dissatisfied. Those satisfied most appreciate the outdoor areas being kept clean and maintained, whilst those not satisfied are not sure what contribution their landlord makes.
• A majority of tenants feel satisfied with their landlord’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour (62%), however a fifth are dissatisfied. Those satisfied largely report not experiencing anti-social behaviour, whilst those not satisfied feel that their landlord could be more proactive at solving issues or find that there are lots of instances of anti-social behaviour in their neighbourhood.

Further comments

• 23% of tenants left further comments.
• They most commonly express that they are happy as things are or suggest improvements to maintenance and repairs in homes (e.g. making sure they are completed properly, timely).
• They also suggest better engagement/interaction with, or treatment of, tenants, ask for better help dealing with issues with neighbours (e.g. around anti-social behaviour), improvements to maintenance, repairs and cleaning of communal areas, or improvements to safety and communal areas generally.

The overall aim of this consultation is to understand how well Portsmouth City Council, as a social landlord, is doing at providing good quality homes and services, and to specifically:

• Understand how well the Council are meeting relevant standards
• Make the Council’s performance more visible to tenants
• Help tenants hold their landlord to account

A quantitative survey launched on 16 September 2025 and was in field until 31 December 2025.

The questionnaire contained all 12 TSM perception questions, stock and tenant demographic questions to be used for weighting and analysis purposes, and additional key areas of further explanation:

• If not ‘very satisfied’ for ‘TP01: Overall satisfaction’, how Portsmouth City Council could improve their service to tenants [open]
• What tenants like about the repairs service [closed*]
• Suggested improvements to the repairs service [closed*]
• Why tenants provide the response they do for the remaining TSM perception questions ‘TP04 – TP12’ [closed*]
• Any further comments on service provision and suggestions for improvements [open]

The full questionnaire can be seen here: Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey 2025-2026

The paper version of the questionnaire can be seen here: Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey 2025-2026 paper version

*In the 2023-2024 TSM survey, tenants were asked to explain their answer provided for questions TP04 – TP12 in an open comment box, which underwent thematic analysis. This analysis informed the closed answer options (with an ‘other’ option) for the additional questions this year. This aims to mitigate survey fatigue by reducing the time it takes tenants to complete the survey, in addition to providing efficiencies in analysis of the data. Results from previous consultations can be seen here: Tenant Satisfaction

Data analysis was carried out by the Council’s corporate market research team. The team operates outside of the landlord service.

Completion method and promotion

The survey was conducted using an online, paper and face-to-face methodology, with the option for telephone offered to all tenants. It was promoted through targeted marketing and communication channels to reach all Portsmouth City Council tenants, including the following:

• GOV.UKnotify text message
• HouseTalk magazine and Facebook page
• Posters, flyers, and strut cards in all area offices and community centres
• Engagement events

Responses by promotional channel
Base: Total sample (1,460)

This chart shows responses by promotional channel:
Text message: 43%
Door knocking: 31%
E-bulletins: 18%
Paper: 5%
Other: 4%

Completion with assistance from the Council
Base: Total sample (1,441)

This chart shows that 35% completed the survey with assistance from the Council and 65% completed it without assistance.

Completion method
Base: Total sample (1,460)

This chart shows how respondents completed the survey:
70% online
25% face-to-face at their home address
5% on paper
0.5% over the telephone
0.3% face-to-face not at their home address

Most commonly, tenants completed the survey online (70%) and without assistance (65%). This differs from last year’s consultation (2024-25), where 60% completed the survey with assistance and door knocking was the most common completion method (58%), with tenants completing the survey alongside a member of the Council’s corporate engagement team.

Door knocking was chosen as an effective method to engage with the required number of tenants (see more in the ‘Response rate and sampling’ section) and allowed a targeted approach based on representativeness of housing stock, including property type and area. It also aimed to help those tenants who may have struggled to complete the survey independently, as previous resident engagement has shown that many tenants experience difficulties understanding the language used in the TSM perception survey.

This year, the Council was able to trial GOV.UK Notify text messaging to promote online completion, which resulted in a strong response rate and reduced the need for door knocking. As completion method can influence satisfaction scores (e.g. face-to-face shows higher levels of satisfaction than independent online completion), this change in methodology should be taken into account when comparing results with previous years.

Satisfaction is consistently high across various methods of completing the survey.

Satisfaction by completion method
Base, unweighted: Over the telephone (7*) | Face to face (367) | Paper (69) | Online (1,017) | *caution small base

This chart shows satisfaction by completion method:
Of those who completed the survey over the telephone, 86% are very satisfied and 14% are fairly satisfied.
Of those who completed the survey face to face, 82% are very satisfied, 9% are fairly satisfied, 3% are neither, 6% are fairly dissatisfied, and 1% are very dissatisfied.
Of those who completed the survey on paper, 65% are very satisfied, 25% are fairly satisfied, 3% are neither, 1% are fairly dissatisfied, and 6% are very dissatisfied.
Of those who completed the survey online, 50% are very satisfied, 30% are fairly satisfied, 9% are neither, 6% are fairly dissatisfied, and 5% are very dissatisfied.

Prize draw

To ensure the Council met the required sample size to achieve a maximum 3% margin of error, the survey included a prize draw for all tenants completing the full survey, to try and encourage tenants to complete the survey. The prize draw consisted of six prizes: One £250 shopping voucher, and five £50 shopping vouchers. Winners were chosen randomly, and their details were stored separately to their responses to the questionnaire.

Tenant population

The Council manages 15,518 homes; however, Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) perception surveys are intended to capture feedback from households where there is a direct landlord–tenant management relationship. As a result, certain property types are excluded from the tenant population used for reporting. These include properties not occupied as permanent homes, such as those used for office or operational purposes, as well as short-term and high-support accommodation including hostels within the rough sleeping pathway, refuges and supported housing sublets.

These settings are characterised by higher support needs and transient occupancy, meaning they are not directly comparable with general needs tenancies. In line with guidance, these property types have been excluded from the tenant population used for analysis. The survey was also open to leaseholders and shared owners to capture wider feedback, but these groups are not included in the tenant population and are therefore excluded from this report.

In total the survey received 1,460 responses from tenants. With a total social housing tenant population of 15,142, this volume of responses ensures a 95% confidence level with a margin of error of 2%. This is in line with the requirements set out by Regulator of Social Housing (RSH).

The RSH states that only one response per household may be permitted. To ensure this, and that all responses came from valid tenants, respondents were asked to provide their home address. These addresses were checked and validated by the housing team and duplicates were removed from the final sample; only the first response per valid household was counted. Address data was stored separately from survey responses.

Sampling

This consultation used a mixed sampling approach. Primarily, self-selected sampling was used, as all Portsmouth City Council tenants were given the opportunity to complete the survey. As referenced in the methodology, this approach was enhanced by door knocking, which was carried out with around 500 tenants. These households were targeted through stratified purposive sampling, to try and ensure a fairly representative original sample (prior to data weighting), based on property type and area.

Another requirement set out by the RSH is that survey responses should be broadly representative of the tenant population. Guidance suggests assessing representativeness based on stock type, age of respondent, ethnicity, building type, and property or household size. Due to a lack of comprehensive data on ethnicity, this characteristic was excluded from the assessment of representativeness. Instead, area and sex of respondent were used, providing more reliable complete data for this purpose. Survey data was weighted using the existing demographic database of Portsmouth City Council tenants.

Data weighting was outsourced to QPSMR Limited. RIM (Random Iterative Method) was used to weight the data on these characteristics. RIM was used as the Council holds tenant demographic information by category (e.g. age, sex, property type), but not specific information for how these intersect with each other (e.g. x amount of “males” aged x living in x). RIM weighting proportionally weights the data on each factor and adjusts the data to ensure there is a balance of all demographic information provided. The final weighted data returned by QPSMR were validated by the Council’s market research team.

The below table displays the original and post weighted sample breakdowns. Age and property size are shown to 2 decimal places as they add to more or less than 100% when rounded to whole numbers.