“If it unleashes community engagement - we should do it.
If it crushes it - we shouldn't.”
The recent announcements on the TSA (toast) and the NTV are understandably dominating the headlines in the tenant participation movement at present. For tenants expecting to see a regulator ensuring the co-regulatory settlement and a body holding them to account it has been a sharp awakening that new Governments can come in with a different view of regulation, tenants and empowerment. Throw in an Early Day Motion trying to dump Annual Reports and Inspections, changes to housing benefit, reductions in housing development and 42% increases in complaints by tenants and we have a toxic mix that might cause even the greatest optimist sleepless nights.
Yet my first point today is to celebrate the fantastic achievements of the tenant participation movement over the past 10 years. Ten years ago tenant involvement meant going through a quasi union structure of local and federation bodies to a single point of contact with their landlord, who in turn often trivialised and marginalised those tenants. During the past ten years there have been two parallel challenges for landlords and tenants alike. For landlords it has been about opening out involvement to be more inclusive, more diverse and more relevant.
Increasingly that has meant connecting involvement with delivery. I recall from my time as an ALMO Board Member, which was well regarded for its tenant involvement, reports at the same meeting on the delivery plan and tenant involvement. Both barely mentioned the other – a clear example of tenant involvement being a parallel universe unconnected from the ‘real’ work of the landlord.
Yet the challenge has been there for tenants too. I recall clearly standing in front of tenant activists and saying the single point of contact is dead – although not loved for saying it there was recognition of the need for tenant structures to change. I also recall watching to four hours of Big Brother videos of tenants asking the only question that really matters – “what do you want?” The answer, quite independently, from dozens of tenants was the same “more tenants involved”.
So from tenants there was appetite for change too. At its best tenants and landlords have got together, created new and innovative approaches and structures that empowered tenants and legitimised tenants as stakeholders. There were, and remain issues where landlords and tenants from one side, or the other, or both, find that process of change difficult. However with mutual commitment clarity about the purpose of involvement, agreement on the way forward and keeping to that agreement can help resolve even the most stubborn issues.
Landlords* I visited recently explained they currently have 32 ways to engage tenants, backed up by Board Members who are tenants. Expect to see:
· Tenant and Residents Associations
· Service Improvement Panels
· Capacity Building
· Green Warden Schemes
· Empty Homes Inspectors
· Mystery Shopping and Tenant Inspectors
· Reading Panels
· Disability Forum
· Customer Service Schemes
· Walkabout Tours
· Tenant Conferences
· Lesbian, Gay, BiSexual and Transgender Groups
· Newsletters
· Compacts
· Action Plans
· Performance targets
· Neighbourhood Improvement Panels
· Repairs Improvement Panels
· Property Improvement Panels
· Safer Communities panels
· New Homes Panels
· Sheltered Housing Panels
· Rent and Debt Prevention panels
· Leaseholder Panels
· Ethnic Minority Groups
· Big Brother vans
· Tenant Fun Days
· Satisfaction Surveys
· Tenant Scrutiny Panels
*thanks to Blackpool Coastal Housing and Wulvern Housing
The pace of change has been profound, driven intermittently by ‘above’ policies but more fundamentally by shared visions of involvement supporting performance and delivery. Many more tenants are now involved, have far greater choice about how they are involved and what they are involved about.
As a consequence I now have my two rules of involvement. If your tenant involvement policies has been in place 5 years it’s in dire need of a review and bringing up to date with the range of involvement approaches and landlord structures. The second rule is much shorter – if your policy has been in place for 10 years it isn’t working.
My second point today is about the intermittent support from ‘above’. Although most of the change has been driven within the sector there have been drivers for change supporting this. The first was the creation of Compacts and in particular the funding available for 2 years and the emphasis on HIP funding being tied to progress. For many councils this created a specific requirement allied to a resource to meet that requirement. We started to see a cohort of tenant involvement officers and wider recognition that their role could contribute to the better working of landlords. Some Housing Associations even borrowed Compacts for their own work. However the emphasis was on process - a point made clear by the parallel review of Compacts and the creation of the Housing Corporation’s involvement policy. At this point two opportunities were missed – Compacts slid down CLG’s agenda and the Housing Corporation did little to support Involvement Policies and Impact Assessments. Yet that cohort of TP staff, increasingly engaged senior housing staff and active tenants took forward their involvement policies and compacts.
There remains one other mechanism that has supported landlords taking involvement seriously – the Audit Commission. Inspection has been a valuable tool in holding landlords to account – under the law of embarrassment (which dictates that people care more about being embarrassed than anything else) landlords would do a lot to avoid being given a poor inspection score. I can see why for poor landlords inspections are to be avoided. Yet despite their good work the KLOEs are now well overdue for a review. This is acknowledged by the Audit Commission, and only held up because of the preparation of the Regulatory Framework.
The Regulatory Framework is a unique beast – loved by all! That’s because it drew upon a lot of feedback from tenants, landlords and stakeholders. Despite some distractions about the methods of engagement the principle was that those affected by regulation should drive its content and that’s exactly what it did. Landlords said – let us free of prescriptive regulation, councils said – don’t replicate the Local Performance Framework, tenants said we want to hold our landlords to account and everyone liked local standards.
It’s important to recall where these ideas came from. Local Standards was developed as a response to the challenge to remove ‘top down’ in exchange for ‘bottom up’. Tenants and staff came up with ideas that tenants would set out their priorities. A South West tenant – Keith Peacock – said to me “who holds the pencil” which captured the ideas of tenant scrutiny. The fundamentals of the tenant part of the co-regulatory settlement didn’t come from a regulator – instead they came from ideas and visions of countless people contributing to ideas over several years.
Going Local
Local standards are fast becoming one of the success stories within social housing. They have already met one important test – that of securing the co-regulatory settlement. Drawing upon work at TPAS events the concept of tenants deciding priorities, setting standards and monitoring performance became “tenant tests” of the robustness of the new regulatory framework. Local standards helped resolve issues with the Local Performance Framework for councils, landlord concerns about getting on with delivery and tenant concerns about transparency and accountability of that delivery. The co-regulatory settlement has created an arena for landlords and tenants to fill.
The Local Standard Pilots have been filling that arena. Firstly ‘local’ is defined by place or community, by landlords alone or working in partnership with others, especially on Anti Social Behaviour. Secondly tenant involvement structures evolve to respond to a challenge that genuinely empowers them, and the staff they work with, to create ways of working reflecting where they live and who they are. Thirdly Tenant Scrutiny, supported by external challenge, creates real accountability on performance, allowing benchmarking with other landlord performance.
For some time I and others have been making the case for performance and involvement supporting each other. Based on my visits to pilots Local standards are now making that case with real improvements on services linked to excellent tenant involvement. There remain challenges with more to be shared about the experiences of the Pilots especially creating a positive landlord culture and sustained improvements in VFM. However through local standards landlords and tenants are well ahead of the rhetoric on localism, empowerment and creating communities with oomph.
And the pace of change hasn’t slackened. Just as tenant inspectors swept most before them then tenant scrutiny panels are in place for many landlords well in advance of any regulatory requirement.
The point here is that change is generated from within the sector and much of what is contained in the regulatory framework is accepted because it’s right. A key challenge for the tenant involvement movement is to understand the difference between the ideas captured in the regulatory framework and the regulator itself. We don’t ‘lose’ tenant scrutiny, tenant involvement or local standards because the TSA is toast. And likewise we don’t lose tenant voice because the NTV has joined the Norwegian Blue – we’ve got TPAS and TAROE as we had throughout the past 10 years. What’s also important is that given the opportunity to opt for an ‘economic regulator landlord bodies have stuck to the co-regulatory settlement.
However the closure of the NTV doesn’t help with making the case for tenant empowerment nationally. With hindsight an opportunity was missed to set this up earlier drawing upon TPAS, TAROE, CCH and NFTMO. In reality they have held that mantle and now reassume it. It is important that they work together successfully and the sector finds the best way to support them in their quasi NTV role.
That’s not to say those decisions on the TSA and NTV are right or wise. Certainly there remains incoherence about supporting a regulatory framework but only having a regulator for part of that framework. For some time I’ve been concerned about the ‘two tribes’ of involved tenants – those whose experiences are empowering and those who still struggle with poor services and involvement. Frankly these tenants don’t have shared points of reference and find it difficult to form a common language. Likewise I meet countless housing staff, not just the praetorian guard of TP staff, who share the vision and reality of involvement, accountability and improved services. However those same staff share their concerns about landlords who don’t and won’t get it, the landlords who trivialise tenants and services and offer poor VFM. The first tribe will continue to offer good and improving services – I’m far less confident about the second.
Yet what happens when their even the modest requirements of the regulatory framework aren’t met? It doesn’t quite hang together to support tenants having scrutiny panels “with teeth”, but whose redress would be through complaints through councillors and MPs to a Housing Ombudsman and not to the regulator. What does happen when a landlord delivers poor services and/or fails to put in place tenant scrutiny? Would they be inspected or held to account or the powers in the Housing and Regeneration act enacted? If, as I continue to predict, there are more mergers and groups structures will tenants be able to hold landlords to account as set out in the Regulatory Framework?
Can tenants complain? Of course the Regulatory Framework does cover complaints – ensuring that landlords must have a complaints policy in place that allows a range of ways to make complaints, including complaints against the standards. This allows tenants the route to highlight where landlords don’t provide panels with ‘teeth’ and the opportunity to work with advocates such as councillors or MPs. Unhelpfully this part of the Regulatory Framework may end up not being regulated and the route of redress identified recently won’t be available as landlords won’t have to comply.
There are two dynamics here – the first is that much of what is in the regulatory framework gained consensus because it is right and reflects the advance made over the past 10 years. Secondly the route when landlords don’t support tenant empowerment or scrutiny or local standards simply won’t be there in the future.
In my view this puts a far greater onus on the sector than ever before. All stakeholders were part of the consensus for the Regulatory Framework. Frankly it is not in anyone’s interest to have a sector failing to involve tenants or to provide poor services. There does need to be robust sector led – landlord and tenant - approaches that ensure compliance both in terms of ensuring landlords meet the requirements and where they don’t there are effective support mechanisms in place.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been able to reflect, discovered I can’t speak Swedish and consider what my contribution should be. Throughout the past 10 years I’ve been driven to make a difference and hopefully this speech captures what I and countless others have achieved. If I have been clear about tenant involvement then I have a responsibility to help put that in place. So for the time being I will look to work alongside landlords and tenants to help them meet the co-regulatory settlement, continue to be an advocate for tenant involvement and support those who strive for this.
With thanks to Sue, Sandy, Kate, Peter, Bob, Carla, Kate, Darren, Helena, Carole and countless others!
