Don’t get in a tangle

At Inside Housing we understand that the Tenant Services Authority’s new regulatory framework for social housing in England is a lot to absorb. So before you become tangled up in its 142 pages, here’s a summary of its main points.

First things first

The framework published last month was a statutory consultation paper, which means interested parties can still feed in to the final regulation. Consultation closes on 5 February 2010. However, ideas in the document are expected to be more or less what will appear in the regulations coming into force by April 2010.

As soon as possible after this date, the TSA is expecting landlords to publish their plans for their local standards. They must do this by 1 October 2010 at the latest. Local standards should be up and running by no later than 1 April 2011.

On top of the all-important local standards, landlords must adhere to the TSA’s six national standards:

• tenant involvement and empowerment;
• home (including repairs and maintenance);
• tenancy (including allocations and rent);
• neighbourhood and community (including anti-social behaviour);
• value for money;
• governance and financial viability.

By October 2010, housing providers will need to show tenants how well they are achieving each of these.  They also need to have consulted with their residents on how performance can be improved.

Both local and national standards apply to organisations that own 1,000 homes or more. Not wanting to swamp smaller organisations with regulation, the TSA is still consulting with those that have fewer than 1,000 units to decide how their performance will be monitored.

Flexible approaches

‘There’s a huge spectrum in the perception of landlords out there,’ says Graeme Foster, assistant director of tenant participation at the TSA. ‘There are the very good organisations and then there are those that just pay lip service to tenants, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach.’

Initially, at least, the TSA will ‘concentrate on the rump of [worst-performing] landlords’, adds Mr Foster.

High-performing landlords – those awarded two or three stars by the Audit Commission – will experience lighter regulation than they have been used to. Red tape will be slashed, with the TSA getting rid of Codes of Practice, removing thousands of regulatory consents, and cutting more than 50 detailed Housing Corporation circulars and guidance notes.

With significantly less interference from the regulator, organisations will be expected to share their experiences with one another. ‘The key to this is sector-led improvement, with the sharing of good practice,’ explains Debbie Larner, head of practice at the Chartered Institute of Housing. 

Gone are the days when organisations could rely on the Housing Corporation prescribing what they should be doing and how they should be doing it. Housing associations will now have to be more proactive. ‘They’re starting with a blank piece of paper,’ adds Ms Larner. ‘It is much more about fitting [the framework] to your organisation.’

Tenants rule OK

If there’s one thing to remember about the regulatory framework, it is this: tenant engagement can never be tokenism. Organisations are now accountable to their residents, not their regulator, explains Mr Foster. ‘This is going to be a huge change in culture for the majority of tenants,’ he continues. From now on, their organisations will be actively seeking their involvement.

Having tenants on their boards is no longer enough for landlords. They now need to make sure that a significant proportion of their residents are active participants in the running of their housing provider. They must engage all tenants, ‘not just the usual suspects’, explains Ms Larner.

‘It is not hard to find board members. The TSA is saying that you need a significant group of tenants to take a strategic role,’ adds Peter Hubbard, a partner at Anthony Collins Solicitors.

Michelle Reid, chief executive of the Tenant Participation Advisory Service, points out that ‘new [social housing] providers seeking registration will now need to demonstrate their commitment to resident involvement nd empowerment as an essential part of the registration process’.

Again, there is no prescribed method of encouraging tenants to participate. ‘We will be looking at how landlords are engaging with tenants in exciting and interesting ways in order to get new people coming through,’ says Mr Foster.

There are any excuses for failing in this. ‘Landlords used to be able to say there were not enough tenants coming forward to participate, but this is no longer a valid reason,’ explains Mr Hubbard.

Tenants should be presented with a menu of options for participation, which includes different activities appealing to people of different ages and lifestyles.

Working together

‘Co-regulation’ means landlords and tenants working together in partnership in setting, achieving and maintaining standards.

Ms Reid says this aspect of the regulatory framework will have a ‘real and meaningful effect on day-to-day life in the communities of England’.

In a nutshell, everything an organisation’s board used to consider should now be looked at against what its customers want, explains Ms Larner.

Steve Stride, chief executive of Poplar HARCA, says: ‘It’s about how you enable residents to “shape” what you are doing, with tenants setting priorities and putting forward policy ideas.’

The starting point for this is October 2010 at the latest, which is when housing providers need to present their tenants with a report showing how they are meeting national standards. By this time, landlords and tenants will need to have agreed on local standards and the action they are going to take to meet them.

Ms Larner suggests that organisations should get the ball rolling by getting to know key information about their tenants and their individual needs along with what they want from their landlord.

Scrutiny is the key

The TSA will now expect landlords to be scrutinised and inspected by their residents. Housing providers will therefore need to make their governance structure visible.

Will Nixon, director of operations at Stoke-on-Trent housing association Aspire, says that his organisation achieves this through its 40-strong customer panel, which is linked to the board in an informal way, but at the same time remains independent and free to scrutinise.

Aspire is one of numerous organisations that use residents as ‘mystery shoppers’ who test services and report back to the organisation’s board. Where standards have not been met, the board will offer suggestions as to how improvementd can be made.

Tenants should also be involved in ensuring their organisation achieves value for money. ‘This should be integrated across all six [national] standards,’ says Mr Foster.

‘Organisations cannot take for granted that the ways they have always done things is the way things should be done,’ he adds

What does ‘local’ mean?

As previously mentioned, housing providers and tenants will need to produce their own local standards which reflect the priorities of local communities. However, the problem many landlords are facing is how to define ‘local’.

Mr Foster explains that the TSA is not prescribing what local should mean, so organisations and their residents will be left to focus on what it means to them.

Organisations such as Poplar HARCA in Tower Hamlets shouldn’t have any problem defining this – it owns nearly 9,000 homes in one borough. Multi-regional organisations, however, are likely to find it trickier.

‘We can’t prescribe what happens locally. We can’t sit at the boardroom table and intervene,’ explains Mr Foster. Local problems should be dealt with locally, and if this is not successful, they will go through the TSA’s complaints procedure.

Landlords may not have local standards for everything covered by the national standards, but there can be key issues in localities and these must be addressed.

Time for a spot quiz

Under the old regime, housing providers were given six months’ notice before they were inspected by the Audit Commission. Under the TSA’s new regulatory framework, shortnotice inspections will be the norm.

‘There was a whole mock inspection process which meant inspectors saw fresh paint rather than the real situation,’ states Mr Foster.

‘Previously organisations would give attention to weaker areas just before the inspector arrived,’ adds Jim Wilson, who was an Audit Commission inspector before joining Tribal, where he is a managing consultant. ‘Now we are advising people to be in a constant state of preparedness.’

Housing providers can get ready for inspections by conducting self assessments against their standards, which should be a ‘living, breathing document’, he adds.

They could also conduct their own mock short-notice inspections.

Both ALMOs and councils

From April 2010, local authorities (including those whose stock is managed by arm’s length management associations) will be regulated by the TSA. All of the national standards apply, except for the sixth part dealing with governance and viability. This is because those involved in the governance of local authorities are elected, not appointed, according to Naomi Goode, a partner at law firm Lewis Silkin.

TSA powers do not extend as far for councils and ALMOs, so the vision of the whole ‘domain’ of social housing being regulated on a level playing field has not been realised.

However, the TSA standards still represent an additional level of regulation – local authorities already have to comply with the Audit Commission’s comprehensive assessment.

As for ALMOs, Gwyneth Taylor, policy director at the National Federation of ALMOs, says that the new regulations should have a positive impact. ‘Local standards will be a driver in getting tenants to participate,’ she says.

Sue Vaughan, community development manager at ALMO Homes for Northumberland, believes ALMOs shouldn’t have much trouble with tenant empowerment, as their tenants make up a third of their boards. ‘Even though they are part of governance, they still wear their tenants’ hats and give a level of scrutiny,’ she says.

Now organisations should know what to expect, ‘don’t wait until April to get yourself shipshape,’ concludes Ms Larner of the CIH. ‘Start working on this now.’

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