Death of a watchdog
Less than three months after its regulatory framework came into effect, the Tenant Services Authority is to become one of the first casualties of the coalition government. Grant Shapps’ decision has left staff reeling but what will it mean for the tenants it was set up to protect? Isabel Hardman investigates
The announcement of the planned abolition of the Tenant Services Authority came out of the blue for some of the regulator’s staff.
Opening their copies of Inside Housing last Friday, they learnt, for the first time, that the government was planning to press ahead with the long-rumoured axeing.
Housing minister Grant Shapps confirmed that he wanted to ‘delete’ the regulator, using the 2010 decentralisation and localism bill, and split its role in two. The Homes and Communities Agency will regulate governance and viability and complaints will escalate through councillors or MPs and on to the Housing Ombudsman Service as a last resort.
Although TSA staff might have been shocked that the end is coming so soon, the sector at large is hardly surprised. But this is the first glimpse of the brave new regulatory world. So are housing providers happy, or are these plans just too brave? And what do they think the TSA has offered tenants and providers so far?
Over before it began
There’s a certain amount of frustration that a regulator which has only just gone live is doomed so early, particularly on the side of tenants. Cora Carter, chair of Tenants and Residents’ Organisations of England, says: ‘We are seriously concerned that the removal of the TSA will involve greater self-regulation that removes tenants from this process.
‘Further regulatory upheaval is also likely to bring more distractions from what we need to be focusing upon - delivering greater quality services for tenants.’
Professor Martin Cave, who’s influential review of housing regulation in 2007 prompted the creation of the Tenant Services Authority, says he has serious questions about the change of direction.
He says: ‘I am disappointed because I feel it will leave tenants and groups of tenants without the protection they need against incompetent landlords.’
Richard Capie, director of policy at the Chartered Institute of Housing, warns that coalition government means there is a shared responsibility for what happens next.
‘First of all, we would need to accept that whatever is taken forward, there has to be shared responsibility across the coalition for this,’ he says.
This is something that Liberal Democrat MPs are going to have to agree on as well.’
End the uncertainty
One of the key worries for many housing associations is that scrapping the TSA could upset the banks that have lent the sector almost £60 billion at low interest rates. John Bryant, policy leader at the National Housing Federation, adds: ‘I think any fundamental regulatory change is likely to result in a bit of uncertainty, and any uncertainty is potentially damaging. What is important is that the uncertainty should be brought to an end as quickly as is possible.’
A spokesperson for the Council of Mortgage Lenders is hardly reassuring. ‘Lenders want to support social housing but the current risk-averse climate means that until they are confident that the new regulatory regime will work effectively, the uncertainty surrounding the decision to replace the TSA with the HCA and the HOS may discourage them from doing so.’
It isn’t just lenders who are unhappy with the new arrangements mooted by Mr Shapps. Professor Cave describes the plan to hand tenants’ complaints to the housing ombudsman as ‘my worst fears realised’.
He says: ‘The ombudsman deals with individual cases and I’m not sure whether he can deal with a landlord that is failing across the whole of its estates.’
Ruth Lucas, policy consultant at the Local Government Association, says: ‘We will need to ensure that the housing ombudsman has the suitable powers and the suitable resources to expand to take on the new regulatory role from the TSA.’
Shadow housing minister John Healey says he cannot see ‘the ombudsman nor the HCA being able to take this forward with the same energy.’
Complaints aside, there are also fears that abolishing the TSA will mean tenants have less everyday influence over their landlord’s performance.
Gwyneth Taylor, policy director at the National Federation of ALMOs, says: ‘We would be concerned if the tenant role was in any way diminished because a lot of work has gone into trying to develop that role, particularly in terms of developing the local standards. We would be concerned if any of that was lost.’
But Alistair McIntosh, director of consultancy Housing Quality Network, believes that the commitment to localism may help tenants become more powerful. ‘In a curious sort of way we could see these standards being enforced more rigidly by tenants,’ he says.
‘And one of the big implications in terms of saving money is that people can no longer justify spending in fear of a big bad ghost, whether it is the Audit Commission or the TSA.’
A false economy?
Saving money is one of the main reasons given by ministers for scrapping the TSA. But it isn’t quite clear whether this will actually happen or whether the government is embarking on a PR exercise which involves axeing quangos. The regulator cost £42 million to set up, and the early closure may mean that much of that cost is never justified.
Mr Bryant says: ‘I think that this is not just about saving money. I think a lot of the TSA’s expenditure has already happened. The TSA kept many Housing Corporation staff, and we will need many of them where-ever the regulation is.’
That might be some comfort to those staff below senior management who are now wondering what is going to happen with their jobs, but cold comfort to a sector which desperately needs to retain its good relationship with lenders when central government finance is drying up. Grant Shapps has much convincing to do before many people will embrace his brave new world of regulation.
The rise and fall of the TSA
June 2007
The Cave Review proposes an independent regulator of all social landlords
October 2007
Housing minister Yvette Cooper announces a new cross-domain regulator, called Oftenant, for the social housing sector
1 December 2008
The regulator, renamed the Tenant Services Authority, opens for business, replacing the regulatory function of the Housing Corporation
12 November 2009
The draft regulatory framework is published
10 March 2010
Stewart Jackson, Tory shadow minister for Communities and Local Government, confirms in a debate that the party plans to scrap the regulator
16 March 2010
TSA publishes its final regulatory framework
1 April 2010
TSA begins cross-domain regulation of the housing sector
18 June 2010
Grant Shapps announces his intention to scrap the TSA in an exclusive interview with Inside Housing
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Readers' comments (9)
kass | 25/06/2010 6:49 pm
.kass | 25/06/2010 6:41 pm
It is quite clear that there has to be a change not of minister but of governemnt. It is no use to try to convince Shapps and co. That's their way and that's all there is to it as far they are concerned.
The only thing that can stop Shapps and co is another general election at the soonest. and I expect the Lib Dem will be wiped out of the parliamentary map for having given support to a conservative governemnt of this kind.
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Rick Campbell | 28/06/2010 10:29 am
The TSA needs to be replaced with a truly independent watchdog who will ensure miniimum standards are met along with appropriate locally agreed standards.
Such a simple idea???
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kass | 28/06/2010 11:39 am
A truly independent watchdog can only be one with a strong tenants representations and any tenants representives MUST NOT be selected but ELECTED by other social tenants - and to be elected a tenant has to campaign and show what he/she can do - just like local councillors or MPs. anything else is a sham.
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Anonymous | 29/06/2010 8:13 am
The downside of "elected" representatives is that they dont have to be qualified or even have the faintest clue what to do, they just have to "campaign"! Hence why so many politicians and Councillors are just plain useless and in some cases a liabilty as they dont understand fully what the have the power over.
You wouldnt want you doctor or heart specialist to be elected because they are nice caring people who speak very well, you want them to be quailifed and experienced.
Sorry but elected is not always best as has been proven time and time again with the mess our politicians get us into.
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kass | 29/06/2010 12:13 pm
Anonymous | 29/06/2010 8:13 am
Your post is utter nonsense.
"The downside of "elected" representatives is that they dont have to be qualified or even have the faintest clue what to do, they just have to "campaign"! Hence why so many politicians and Councillors are just plain useless and in some cases a liabilty as they dont understand fully what the have the power over. "
So the current UNLECTED tenants representatives are qualified? In what way? How they have demonstrated them to all the tenants they reprents they are qualified?
Election of tenants as against selection is to insure LEGITIMATE REPRESENTATION.
Any elected reprentative's quality is representing who elected them. If they can show this quality I can vote for them. If they are not good I vote them out for someone I think it is better. But it is the TENANTS' CHOICE who represents them for better or for worse, and nobody else's.
Democratic elections do not deliver perfection, they deliver representation.
Elected tenants would have moral and even legal authority to represent tenants interests, while selected ttenants representatives do not have any such authority and are open to charges of being there just for personal interest or because the landlords can manipulate them i ntheir ongoing abuse of tenants needs and rights.
Only elected tenants can represent tenants, anything else is a big con. The only anser is One tenancy one vote.
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Amelia Nixon | 29/06/2010 12:32 pm
Who could forget Peter Moss entering the social housing sector stage? Arms folded in defiance against malfunctioning HA’s, giving
the impression that the TSA would be defender of tenant rights.
As time went by though the TSA seemed to pull back from this promise and then started to act like a regulating body- performing the functions of those the Housing Corporation had performed.
When tenants contacted the TSA directly, they were told that the TSA was not there to answer individual tenants concerns and complaints. They were sent a form letter which outlined the functions of the TSA- sadly none invloved addressing day to day issues such as treaspass, refusal to aknowledge tenant complaints etc etc.
They were there to monitor the performance of Housing Associations.
Oh, ok then.
Tenants were then thrown back on the old solutions.
Tenants felt cheated and are still without an honest straight forward system to air their grievances.
Of course HA’s should be held to account but this has little or nothing to do with the day to day issues facing tenants who’s patience is sorely tested by unresponsive and avoidance prone organisations.
It was misleading of Peter Moss to promote the TSA as a force to be reckoned with.
I do not think that it was ruse but symptomatic of a sector that perceives its customers as being in need of vetting, petting or fretting.
This has created a huge industry, the mad bad or sad are housed in the public sector.
£42 million was spent on creating this auditing body.
How many homes could this have paid for? How many mortgage relief payments?
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kass | 29/06/2010 2:53 pm
"Anonymous | 29/06/2010 8:13 am...
...You wouldnt want you doctor or heart specialist to be elected because they are nice caring people who speak very well, you want them to be quailifed and experienced...."
No, I would not want that - because you have not understood representation is not about appointing or electing "specialists" but representatives or your own class or category....
If you yourself have a heart operation and goes wrong who would you want to protect you and talk to a representative selected by the hospital organisation employing the doctor (interested in covering it all up) or a representative elected by patients like yourself ?...
The anti-tenant attitudes and discrimination in social housing is so massive that even common sense can't win against it.
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Michael Carr | 01/07/2010 2:47 pm
£42m to set up the TSA how much to start a son of TSA? the framwork was working for tenants is that why it with be scraped? Just let the tenants get on with it we do it almost for free, Do we need the DCLG telling local government and its residents what to do?
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Anonymous | 08/07/2010 10:54 am
From my experience, the regulatory system has hidden the true inefficiencies and actual costs of housing organisations.
It is possible for large housing organisations to get good ratings and still harbour massive problems and extremely poor services. So in effect the regulatory establishment ended up maintaining the same system that generated this insanity. So the banks might get jittery, but this is part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Since this is the case and regulation and inspection hasn't worked trying something different seems absolutely the right thing to do. I still feel sorry for the staff of the TSA and wish them all the best. It isn't their fault.
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