GOOD AND BAD IN TENSIONS

After the Horlicks remedy, now some Valium

Carol Matthews...sleepless nights... now impatient.

Housing boss Carol Matthews is impatient…”we just cannot sit back and wait” she says in an article in the social housing magazine Inside Housing. “It`s time to get on with our real response to the recent Social Housing Green Paper”.

Such feelings from Ms Matthews are nothing new to readers of the  magazine. Not long ago Ms Matthews told them of her worries and  her sleepless nights.

These, said Ms Matthews were caused by a threatened drop in income of many millions for her giant Riverside Housing Association of  Liverpool where she is  chief executive officer.

 

Sleepless nights of course are not pleasant and this blog recommended Horlicks to her as a relaxing bedtime drink.

 Ms Mattews latest problem, impatience, can also be a worry. But it is very doubtfulful if in this case Horlicks would offer any relief.

Still, it  is worth discovering the cause of the Matthews impatience.This seems to  be associated with what she calls “the tension between being a good social landlord and an ambitious housing developer.”

She explains the impatience and the tension in the article which discusses the green paper:

“There’s been lots of debate over league tables, consumer ratings and whether and how the social housing regulator should be given back its consumer teeth.

“Now it’s time for us to get on with our real response. Yes, we look forward to seeing what firmer proposals the government comes up with. But we shouldn’t just sit back and wait.

“As we reach the end of 2018, we find ourselves equally preoccupied with the quality of our services and housing supply; indeed, managing the tension between beinfg a good social landlord and an ambitious housing developer goes to the heart of what a modern housing association is.

“It’s not something to be embarrassed about, provided that in doing this we are guided by our organisational vision and founding principles.

“The types of homes we build, and where we build them, shapes the places we serve and the daily experiences of our residents, whether we retain ownership or sell them on to generate profit to invest in our other homes”.

After  Horlicks, what  do we recommend to Ms Mattews to ease the tension she refers to-  between being a good social landlord and an ambitious housing developer- and the impatience she suffers from?

First, the tension. Is it really as bad as Ms Mathews claims? Many critics would argue that  this tension does not exist within Ms Matthews`Riverside. They say that Riverside is first and foremost  a housing developer more interested in  profits than being a good social landlord.

They argue that Ms Matthews has not learnt the lessons of the Grenfell disaster and the problem of voiceless tenants which was highlighted recently by her senior colleague Kate Henderson, the leader of the country`s housing associations . Kate Henderson said these tenants were not really valued and it is time they were.

Ms Henderson is the recently- appointed chief executive of the National Housing Federation and was asked what she would consider as success in her role leading the federation. She said: “The  first  thing  is “empowered tenants, a change in conversation which is already happening in terms of tenants feeling really valued.”

It is significant that the problem of voiceless  tenants never got a mention in Ms Matthews` Inside Housing article. Which is really no surprise because in Carlisle at  least Riverside has an appalling record of abolishing democratic tenant representation.

So for Ms Matthews` problems, this blog recommends Valium a well-known medical remedy  for anxiety . A course of Valium should rid her of tension and impatience.

However, for her future long-term health, Ms Matthews must purchase a hearing aid and  listen carefully to what her senior colleague Kate Henderson has to say.

Then she must give some voice to her 50.000 voiceless tenants.

 Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803

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TODAY`S CALL FROM MRS MAY ...AND FROM BRITAIN`S TENANTS

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• National body for tenants
• now vital 
•  Brexit in miniature, you might say … the many calls continuing to be made in the social housing debate to give tenants a voice. No call anything like powerful as the Prime Minister today after signing the deal in Brussels. But equally influential on a much smaller scale. 
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• The Grenfell disaster started it all with the revelations of gross tenant neglect, closely followed by the government`s recent Green Paper on Social Housing.
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• Here in Cumbria many years of Riverside Housing Asoociation`s authoritarian rule culminated in councillors demanding more say for tenants struggling against that organisation`s bossy ways.

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  Now comes a call for a national body for tenants following new research from the a  group called A Voice for Tenants (AV4T)set up after Grenfell by the Liverpool based Confedertion of Co-operative Housing.

Nic Bliss is secretary of the group. He writes  in Inside Housing, the social housing magazine:

“We worked with the government on the ministerial tenant events that led to the Green Paper and we continue to work with government now.

“In making our response to the Green Paper, we surveyed tenants – particularly about whether there should be a national voice for tenants. A total of 832 people responded – most of them social housing tenants.

“It is not a large number in the context of four million tenancies nor the 8,000 responses the government got in their consultation. But given that we had no resources, it’s a reasonable start.

NIC BLISS....huge expectation

 “The significant result is that a staggering 776 respondents (93%) said that there needs to be a national voice for tenants.“Similarly, 720 respondents (87%) said that their voice is not currently heard in government policy discussions.

“There is huge expectation among tenants that government and the sector needs to deliver major change – particularly regarding tenant voice.“With such compelling evidence, AV4T has told the government that a national body for tenants must be established.”

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A different way of giving a voice to tenants comes from Mr Adrian Waite, the management consultant whose views on a controversial merger of two housing associations were reported on the previous post of this blog (Housing bosses accused in merger row).

Mr Waite is a former chairman  of  Workington-based Impact Housing Association, one of the associations in the merger.

Mr Waite writes in his blog on his  AWICS web site:

  

"One of the themes of the Green Paper is empowering tenants. In my response, I argued that tenants should be stakeholders rather than customers.This prompted the Chief Executive of a Housing Association in the West Midlands to email me to ask:

“What would the role of Tenants as Stakeholders look like?”

I replied as follows:

“I’m not sure I know exactly what ‘tenants as stakeholders’ would look like and I suspect it may look different in different places.

“I think that we have moved from a paternalistic model where housing professionals know best and provide tenants with what they think is appropriate to one where tenants are seen as customers who have a right to comment and complain about the services that they receive.

"Hence the regulator’s emphasis on improving the complaints process. What I would like to see is another step forward towards tenants being seen as stakeholders who take the lead in taking decisions about their homes and communities.

 “I also think this is linked to accountability issues. Who are housing associations accountable to? When I was Chair of Impact Housing Association the board was accountable to the membership. These were about fifty people, some of whom were tenants but most of whom were ex-board members.

"Only a minority of them attended the annual general meeting and they didn’t provide much scrutiny. After I left the board the number of members declined to thirty. When Impact Housing Association was downgraded and had to consider a merger I think the small membership base was exposed as a serious governance weakness. I don’t think Impact is unique and many associations are in the same position. If we need a larger and more effective group to be accountable to, who else is there but the tenants?

“I don’t think I have any original ideas about how tenants can act as stakeholders. Co-operatives, tenant management organisations, tenants’ associations and tenant board members have all been around for some time

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"There is also the question of how to motivate and empower tenants to act as stakeholders. Unfortunately, there are not millions of tenants out there clamouring for a stronger role in taking decisions.

“When I was Chair of Impact, we took an evolutionary approach to these issues, building on what was already there. For example:

• Impact already had five places on the board for tenant members. When I first joined the board, only one of these places was filled. While I was Chair, we made it a priority to ensure that all those places were filled. However, I don’t think it is enough just to have people on the board who happen to be tenants. Those board members have to be empowered to play a full role and also have to have effective ways of having a dialogue with tenants as a whole.
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• We established a Tenants’ & Residents’ Association (ITARA) and tried to avoid some of the common pitfalls. I wanted ITARA to be representative of tenants in general, independent of the landlord and proactive in raising issues, making criticisms and making suggestions.
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• We encouraged tenants to become members of the association. I also suggested that all long-standing tenants should automatically become members of the association, but this suggestion was not supported by the Board." 
  
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•  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803
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