We want to give our customers the opportunity to volunteer with us, helping us improve our services.

Supporting you to volunteer

We want to make it easy for you to volunteer and work with us to improve services. So, we will:

  • Provide extra support in order for you to volunteer and take part. 
  • Pay travel expenses and help arrange travel if needed. 
  • Pay childcare and carer costs.
  • Provide training and support so that you can develop and enhance your skills and knowledge.
  • Provide information in alternative formats, such as large print and different languages. 
  • Lend or provide IT equipment where required. 

Our Customer Engagement team can help you in a number of other ways too. 

Meet our Customer Engagement team.

Contact us

Register your interest to get involved.

Ways that you can volunteer with us

There are many different ways you can volunteer with us, from taking part in a quick survey to joining one of our long-term groups, such as InFocus.                                                                      

InFocus

Estate Service Champions

Shared Ownership Virtual Panel

Procurement opportunities

Customer Communications Group

Residents' associations

InFocus

InFocus is the name of our customer scrutiny group. The group currently has 50 volunteers who are located across the South West.

The volunteers work in partnership with the business to:

  • Make sure that our customers’ priorities are heard and acted upon.
  • Review our performance, including how we are performing against the Tenant Satisfaction
  • Measures, and focus on key issues for us to address. 
  • Act as a sounding-board for proposed changes to how we deliver services and our policies.
  • Consider value for money and help identify the services our customers value.
  • Identify and celebrate what we are doing well.

Meet some of our members.

The group have been working with us since May 2019. In the past 12 months they have worked with us to shape:

  • Our Aids and Adaptations policy.
  • Our Service Charge policy.
  • Our Neighbourhood Management policy.

Read the outcome of the latest reviews.   
  
The group also worked closely together to agree a collective response to the Regulator of Social Housing’s consultation on their proposed new consumer standards.  

Alongside all of this, InFocus carry out up to three independent reviews of different services each year. The group look at lots of different information to decide on which services they will review. Each review involves reading lots of different information, interviewing LiveWest colleagues, researching best practice and hearing the views of other customers through the Friends of InFocus, surveys, social media and focus groups. Once a review has been completed InFocus write a full report containing their observations and recommendations for improvement.
  
The group have now completed six comprehensive reviews: 

  • How we manage tenancy breaches including ASB.
  • How we handle complaints. 
  • Service charges and value for money.
  • Tenancy pack. 
  • How we look after our neighbourhoods.
  • Repairs and customer experience, from when you report a repair until the repair is completed


If you are interested in finding out more about volunteering with InFocus and taking part in one of their reviews, please contact us

You can apply to join InFocus here

If you would like to volunteer but do not have much time to spare, you can support InFocus by signing up to be a friend of the group. As a friend of InFocus you can support the group by sharing your experiences of services with them, and by commenting on their reports and recommendations. 

Estate Service Champions

Our Estate Services Champions work in partnership with us to gather feedback on how our grounds maintenance, communal cleaning and communal fire alarm contractors are performing.

Find out more

Shared Ownership Virtual Panel

Do you live in a shared ownership home?  Would you like to work with us to improve the services that you receive? Join our Shared Ownership Virtual Panel today.  

As part of the group, we will ask for your feedback about our services and proposed improvements. 

The group meets virtually every 6-8 weeks on a Thursday from 6.30-8.00pm. 

Join the Shared Ownership Virtual Panel

Customer Communications Group

Join in on our Customer Communications reviews through short, snappy surveys which help us to ensure all customer facing communications are relevant, engaging, accessible and easy to read. The group have already completed lots of reviews on our letters, newsletter articles, website pages and more!  No need to leave the comfort of your own home, let us bring the interactive surveys to you, through your e-mail. For more information.

Sign up to volunteer

Procurement opportunities

When we look to procure services, whether this is hiring grounds maintenance contractors, or selecting the design of the taps in your new home, it’s important that we provide our customers with opportunities to be involved in these decisions. 

To support you to get involved in these opportunities, we can provide full training help you to learn about how to procure services and be part of procurement interviews.

Recent examples of procurement projects have been around reviewing our contracts, selecting an out of hours emergency provider and selecting cleaning contractors.  

We are committed to making sure you can join in by providing support towards childcare and travel expenses.

Get involved in Procurement Opportunities

Residents' associations

Residents’ associations are groups of residents who work together to improve where they live. 

It’s a great opportunity for our customers to share ideas, solve problems and have a say in how things are run. Typically activities include organising and running social or educational events.

You can speak to your Housing Officer if you are interested in starting a residents' association. 

View our Residents' Association guide