Hearing the right kind of voice
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It was refreshing to read the article Street battles (Inside Housing, 12 September).
It is clear that a contentious, combative tenant response to the failures of government housing policies for council housing and social housing tenants is re-emerging.
There is also a growing rejection of government proposals for a National Tenant Voice, which will marginalise existing tenant organisations from a local to a national level and replace their influence with a model based on a private sector view of tenants exclusively as customers and consumers, not as citizens, civil organisations, and part of the third sector.
Consultations with tenants have shown an overwhelming rejection of the NTV, and a call for a national voice based on accountability to, and representation of, tenants and their organisations.
The government itself is guilty of huge contradictions in its apparently joined-up community empowerment agenda and third sector policies with regard to tenants. Tenants are asking why the government does not use the £1.5 million it has earmarked for the NTV to encourage councils to guarantee core funding for tenant organisations at a neighbourhood and local level and to continue to increase support for regional and national independent tenant organisations.
Consider some statements from the Communities and Local Government department’s ‘empowerment’ white paper, Communities in control.
‘The white paper is an important step in rebalancing power in local communities to ensure that the voice of local people is heard and acted on.
‘Housing is a key area where, as the Audit Commission has found, services are “more effective, efficient and responsive when tenants have a say in how they are run”.
‘We particularly value the role of the third sector in social and democratic renewal… groups, campaigns, co-operatives, mutuals, and social enterprises… types of organisations where people learn the skills of democracy and where democracy can flourish.’
And the government recognises the role of local tenant organisations: ‘Neighbourhood organisations can provide a base from which people and grassroots groups can get involved in driving positive social change through a range of activities, services, support and facilities.’
Thus, if communities secretary Hazel Blears starts talking to housing minister Caroline Flint and junior minister Iain Wright about tenant empowerment, perhaps she might quote her white paper and redirect policies away from the irrelevant NTV and towards strengthening existing tenant organisation through better funding as well as encouraging tenant management organisations. C
ouncil tenants, after all, already have a head start with statutory rights to consultation and local tenant compacts. At a stroke a duty on local councils to support tenant organisations would allow them to tick the box of empowerment, local democracy and meet their targets under local area agreements and strategic partnerships.
A healthy and active local tenants’ movement is the best guarantee for the development of a representative national organisation and an accountable ‘voice’.
John Grayson, Sheffield Hallam University and AdEd Knowledge Company
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Readers' comments (3)
Jimmy Devlin | 22/09/2008 7:52 pm
John Grayson's letter encapsulates all the current problems being experienced by established tenants' representative organisations.(At every level)
I remember reading that the Government's "Double Devolution" agenda was dependent on Local Authorities "Devolving" some power to the grass roots communities level.
If that simply means more controlled involvement via Participatory Budgeting , and Councillor's Calls To Action (both of which I welcome incidentally), then the opportunity for real community/local resident empowerment will be missed and services will continue to decline , especially in those areas where no networks exist to represent tenants AND RESIDENTS---local people.
Statutory accountability to tenants and communities suddenly seems to have become almost irrelevant in the empowerment debates.
The NTV ,if allowed to progress, may well increase the stigmatisation of social housing tenants by actually highlighting differences and levels of influence.
Unless tenants organisations are supported to strengthen the current representative structures (bottom-up) to ensure they develop a "Whole community" voice, the worst service providers will continue to escape justified criticism and things may deteriorate further , especially in our now ghettoised most "deprived "neighbourhoods.
All consumers have CHOICE...most social housing tenants have NO CHOICE WHATSOEVER due to their personal circumstances and needs.
I believe that the NTV project is a great idea gone horribly wrong.
Why should social housing tenants be treated any differently to owners,private renters and leaseholders? We all make up the same community, and share the same concerns etc.
Cross- domain regulation ? What about Cross- domain Voice and Choice?
Jimmy Devlin
Chair , Merseyside Residents Network
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David Hale, Chair : ' CLARA ' and its Five Associa | 24/09/2008 9:47 pm
Totally agree ALL except ' all consuners have choice ....' for there are a lot of private sector tenants AND owner occupiers ( and I am one of the latter ) that cannot move home --- usually to be found in large clusters of older / cheaper housing near to shopping centres and a lot of Designated Key Town Centres and for whom Neighbourhood Resident Associations should be the key to resolving problems thrust upon them by heartless Autocrats : however the NRA's have never been funded and in Wirral have no Representation on the Forums, LSP, Panels and input to the LAA's.
It is only through MRN ( Sub-Region ) & NWTRA ( Region ) Information from their committed and hard working Officers / Boards that we have any hope of improving our lot : needless to say ' ditto ' the ' Public Sector Tenants '. To remove ' stigma ' simply swith titles to Resident Associations and cease the rediculous expression ' Tenants & Residents ' for the implication for distinction lies immediately in the Title and we are all Residents : don't let there be Division / Distintion and ' united ' we would have the ' clout ' that is needed for the Fairer Society we all surely desire ?
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Alex Brown | 25/09/2008 1:44 pm
I agree completely with the comments made, but for me the saddest fact is that anyone who has the audacity to challenge the current steering group or the proposals they are putting forward is labelled a blight on the tenants movement, or a mad dog, comments that have been made about myself and some of my colleagues in various regions.
No one wants the NTV to fail, but they do want a bottom up accountable voice that tenants and residents can have faith in. Below is the response submitted to the current proposals from discussions with a wide range of tenants.
The Yorkshire and Humber Tenants and Residents Regional Federation were set up some five years ago to give tenants a voice in regional and national policy and strategy setting. To this end one of its key roles has been to hold workshops around the county with small groups of tenants to feed their views into consultation responses. For this consultation workshops were held in Malton, Richmond and Keighley, but in partnership with Bradford Tenants and Residents Federation it was decided to hold a conference in July, the NTV steering group were made aware of this proposal and offered the opportunity to attend and use it as part of their consultation round. Instead they decided to hold their own event in the next city the same day.
YHF and Bradford made the decision to postpone their event so as to avoid an unnecessary conflict. The event was eventually held on the 2nd September in Hull and rather than being on the idea of a National Tenants Voice it was used to look at the emerging proposals coming from the steering group. The attendees came from the Yorkshire and Humber area as well as London, North West and East Midland regions.
Outcomes
From the entire document there were only two areas that either the workshops or the conference could agree with, these were the core values of the NTV, which should be the values of any tenant group and the fact that the roles would be unpaid.
Sadly the rest of the proposals were felt to be far too vague and without clarity on how any of these vague aims and objectives could be achieved.
Across all events concerns were raised about the make up of the steering group and in particular about the level and makeup of the tenant element therein. CLG responses that the regional representatives were imposed due to time constraints held no water with those consulted as the regions meet on a regular basis and the northern federations already had an elected spokesperson in place who was ignored. Whilst no one had a problem at this stage with the NFTMO and CCH having representation on the steering group as they represent a small but significant specialist sector the level of involvement of TAROE was challenged particularly as both their Chair and Secretary have said in public that TAROE board members will under no circumstances sit on the final NTV. At less than 50% of the body, tenants were unsure how what comes out of the steering group can be truly a tenant’s voice.
What every one was clear about was the fact that a genuine National Tenants Voice was needed and that they wanted it to succeed.
However the current proposals hold little to engender a feeling of optimism amongst tenants spoken to.
Key issues that occurred were: -
? Proposed structures unwieldy and serious questions were raised as to how independents should be involved, there was little if any support for them having voting rights though all acknowledged that they would be needed in an advisory capacity.
? Shareholders, this term caused great concern for some spoken to as it brought forward the term “privatisation”. Whilst it is understood that this is not the case a paper expanding on this proposal in plain English would be appreciated.
? Election versus selection, this was probably the most sensitive area for all concerned, the proposals gave no guidance as to how the structure would be populated. Selection was universally rejected as tenants felt they could have little faith in an imposed structure. How election could be organised nationally gave rise to much debate. A national ballot was ruled out on the grounds that it was impractical and too costly. Regionalisation of a ballot was seen as the best option currently available. Again it was recognised that there were issues around this idea, not all government office areas have a tenant structure in place but several do, so one proposal was that each region be allocated five places, where regional structures were in place these should ballot their membership, where such structures were not yet in place another mechanism would need to be found. One possible suggestion was that TPAS have a database of members in these regions and that some method of selection from this be found. This would give a membership of 45 out of the 50 notional places, it was suggested at the conference that the NFTMO and CCH should be given the remaining places as they represent a small but significant specialist section of the social housing market. However a member who said he was on the board of NFTMO stated that he could see no justification for such an allocation as the numbers concerned were so small and that
these organisations should work with and through their regional partners. This idea was not progressed at the conference as it would need a round table discussion elsewhere. On the subject of TAROE the position was best summed up by a South Yorkshire delegate (Not a member of YHF) “If TAROE had done their job we would not need the NTV, if the NTV does its job there should be no need for TAROE”.
? Nowhere in the paper is there reference to how tenants would get their voices heard at the national table. This was summed up best by a tenant from Richmond and a tenant from Malton asking how do I get heard by this body and how can they find out what I want and need, or what I think about all these consultations that come out? Without a close working relationship with the regions this will not be possible. One possible way to do this is outlined in the previous paragraph. What is clear though from all conversations is that the NTV needs to be a driver to enable tenants to work together and that however it is populated tenants need to have confidence in the structure.
? Funding, whilst it was understood that the funding for three years was concomitant with the current Comprehensive Spending Review there needed to be some form of guarantee of continuous funding. The idea of a tenant levy was discussed but problems around primary legislation for this as well as issues around leaseholders meant this had to be put to one side for debate elsewhere. Concerns were also raised as to how the funding would be used, the primary concern was that it should not be used for buildings and a large staff complement.
Summary
All spoken to felt that even as a work in progress this document had far too little meat on the bones. What needs to be clear is how the structures will be populated and how it will relate to the wider tenant body and how it can strengthen tenant involvement in national strategic and policy matters.
Alex Brown
Chair
Bradford Tenants and Residents Federation
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