All work and no pay

Yesterday housing minister Grant Shapps said he places a ‘huge premium’ on tenant empowerment.

After confirming that he’s going to scrap the Tenants Services Authority – Mr Shapps said that, in the absence of the regulator, he’s going to rely on tenant boards to monitor their landlords and report any negative findings to the Housing Ombudsman.

In his keynote speak at Housing 2010 in Harrogate yesterday, the minister said that he’d have thought tenants would be happy that the back of the TSA, which has running costs of £35 million a year – now they’d have real ‘teeth’.

This all sounds great – tenants with real control – true democracy. But in reality, isn’t it a bit much to expect tenants to fulfil such an important role for no money?

Many social housing providers are lucky enough to have a handful of really active tenants – many of whom were present at the Harrogate conference – but these are still a minority.

Most people are too busy getting through their day-to-day lives to worry about whether the council or organisation that owns their home is being run properly – they, quite rightly, expect that to be taken care of by the powers that be.

Mr Shapps says he likes the TSA’s new regulatory framework for England which came into force on April 1 and expects to keep it. The framework puts tenants at the centre of their landlords’ organisations – but at least with the TSA, they were backed up by a regulator set up with their interests in mind.

Surely from now on the individuals who give their time – for free – to making sure their landlord are providing a good service to themselves and their neighbours will have to carry too-heavy a burden.

One strong point made within the TSA’s regulatory framework is the importance of involving more than just ‘the usual suspects’ – the tenants who can always be relied upon – but won’t Mr Shapps’ tenant panels mean that these same individuals will find themselves doing even more?

Tenants want to be involved – but I’m sure they must appreciate the support the TSA offered. Whether Mr Shapps is just paying lip service to tenants by stressing how important they are remains to be seen. For a start, how much of the £35 million a year the government will save by ‘deleting’ the regulator will be directly invested in the work tenants are now expected to do?

With 2.7 million out of work, and housing benefit about to be cut for those who have been on jobseekers allowance for more than a year – maybe the tenants who are helping run housing associations should expect some financial reward?

Everyone’s talking about ‘tenant empowerment’ so it’s easy to throw more responsibility at tenants and expect it to keep everyone happy. But if Mr Shapps really does place a ‘huge premium’ on tenant involvement then he should consider whether it’s fair to expect individuals – who by definition have no financial investment in organisations they are supporting – to work for free so that the government can save money.