- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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| NIC BLISS....huge expectation |
“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.”
| Add caption |
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.
"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
.
"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.
- 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.
- 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."
- Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803
