Bossy Riverside hires lobbying
firm to level down tenants` complaints
Have you heard of “levelling
up”…of course you have! Today is the the government`s big levelling up day. Now, stand by for…
levelling down!
Nothing to do with the government.
Levelling down is the brainchild of that British champion of bossiness and
inefficiency, Riverside Housing Association of Liverpool, jointly with seven
other housing associations.
Their levelling down plan is
revealed today, the same day as the government publishes its White Paper on its
levelling up proposals.
These proposals aim to tackle the
increasing disparity between communities, particularly the disparity beween
the wealthy south west of England and the north.
What then is levelling down? It is
summed up in a headline in today`s issue of the social housing publication
Inside Housing which has a scoop in first revealing the story
The headline reads:
“Housing associations hired lobbying firm to ‘reduce
the capacity of tenants’ to pursue ‘inappropriate’ disrepair claims"
I
Inside Housing continues:
“A group of eight housing
associations jointly commissioned a lobbying firm to help “reduce the capacity
of tenants” to pursue “inappropriate disrepair claims.
“In an internal report, seen by Inside
Housing, Riverside Housing Association revealed that a consortium of
associations had contracted a public affairs agency to develop an “influencing
strategy” to reduce inappropriate claims.
“The move came after a rapid
increase in the number of disrepair claims being issued against social housing
providers in recent years.
“In the document, the association
labelled the rise in housing conditions claims across the sector an “epidemic”
that it said was being “driven by unscrupulous claims management companies”.
However, social housing
campaigners have urged associations to focus on fixing disrepair over
campaigning as they said the claims being brought forward by tenants are
legitimate.”
News of this consortium and its
disgraceful activities will probably come as a surprise to many people. But the
news is no surprise to campaigners against Riverside,particularly
CarlisleTenants` and Residents` Federation which publishes this blog.
For more than 20 years the Federation
has exposed and campaigned against Riverside`s gross inefficiency and bossiness
and the fact that Riverside is accountable to no one but itself.
This is the latest example of
everything wrong with Riverside.The Federation believes that social housing
should be run democratically by local
authorities not manipulated by faceless
bosses, answerable to no one.
Here is the remainder of the Inside Housing article:
“Written in February last year, the report written by Riverside’s asset
management team outlined what it and other housing associations were doing to
tackle the rise in disrepair claims, which was described as a “sector-wide
issue”.
The plans included the
commissioning of public affairs agency, Connect PA, “to develop an influencing
strategy, identifying the legislative and policy changes we might seek to
reduce the capacity of tenants to pursue inappropriate claims and for solicitors
and claims management companies to profit from them”.
The eight housing associations
that jointly commissioned Connect PA were Riverside, ForHousing, Onward, Prima,
Regenda, Salix Homes, Shepherd’s Bush Housing Group and Torus.
Riverside said in the document
that it was also chairing a “best practice group”, which included 34 providers
representing over 620,000 homes in December 2020.
At the time the report was
written, Riverside said it was managing 353 live housing conditions claims,
with a projected risk to the business of £3.55m based on an average cost of
£11,000 per claim settled.
Since 2015, the group said it had
received 1,261 housing conditions claims, representing 3.5% of its rented
general needs stock.
According to Riverside, housing
associations have “been working to settle these claims outside of court for a
number of years in good spirit – with a view that reputational risk outweighed
the financial risk”.
“However, the issue continues to
grow and is now posing a very real risk to financial performance,” the report
said.
Lawyers have previously warned that
social landlords are seeing a rise in the number of housing claims being
brought forward by tenants, who are being approached by ‘no win, no fee’-type
firms, which previously focused on payment protection insurance (PPI) claims.
According to sector figures, the
introduction of a cap on how much a claimant can win in PPI claims has led to
these firms targeting housing conditions claims, where costs are currently not
capped.
In its report, Riverside said
“the biggest opportunity to arrest this epidemic would be for a fixed-fee cap
to be introduced in terms of claimants’ legal costs”, which it said will make
“housing condition claims a less attractive proposition for the CMCs and their
legal partners”.
Inside Housing understands that on average the percentage of the claim costs being paid
by the eight housing associations to lawyers over a 12-month period was 47%,
which was more than triple the amount of compensation residents received.
In September last year, the
government confirmed that it plans to cap the amount of legal costs that can be
claimed in housing conditions cases, however it has not said when these changes
will be implemented.
Currently the social housing
sector is facing increased scrutiny for the conditions of its homes after a
long-running investigation by ITV News revealed terrible conditions faced by
social housing tenants living in homes owned by landlords such as L&Q,
Clarion, Croydon Council and Bromford.
The media attention has led the
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee to launch its own investigation into regulation and consitions within the sector.
Suzanne Muna, secretary of the
Social Housing Action Campaign, said Riverside should “shelve their disgraceful
project and address the real problem of disrepairs”.
“These are not bogus claims, they
are people having to endure mould, damp, lift breakdowns, and all sorts of
other hazards. Their actions, and those of all associations in their group,
bring the sector into disrepute,” she added.
Speaking at a hearing of the LUHC
Committee last week, during which the topic of claims management firms was
raised, Darren Hartley, chief executive of tenant charity Taroe Trust, said
that there was “anecdotal evidence” that CMCs “prey on areas where tenants are
most vulnerable and receiving a poor service”.
“In some respects, the best way
of defending against that is to make sure you’ve got high-quality services in
the first place,” he said.
A spokesperson for Riverside said
its “priority… is getting our repairs services right and tackling disrepair”
and said its actions were “not in any way an attempt to undermine the rights of
tenants”.
However, Riverside acknowledged
in its internal document that there were “political risk factors when
campaigning around this issue”.
The document said "any
action to limit [residents’] right to hold their landlords to account could be
considered as disadvantaging social housing tenants", while registered
providers could be viewed as "looking to avoid their responsibility".
The report said Connect would
"appropriately mitigate the risks and control the messaging around this
issue".
The spokesperson for Riverside
said in its statement to Inside Housing that it was “widely acknowledged
there is an issue with some claims management companies and law firms
exploiting tenants for their own financial gain”.
“We have been working with other
housing associations which share these concerns to explore the merits of a
campaign to highlight this issue, looking for ways to speed up the resolution
of genuine cases of disrepair in the interest of the tenant, and limiting the
costs that can be claimed by law firms, including excessive deductions from
damages awarded to tenants,” they added.
All of the other housing
associations who jointly commissioned Connect pointed to the response provided
by Riverside.”
Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`
Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227
