CLG and national tenant organisations will select voice committee
Government will help to pick national tenant representatives
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The government will have a direct say in who controls the new body being created to give tenants a stronger voice, under proposals seen by Inside Housing.
The move has prompted concern from some tenants who believe that the decision should be left solely to tenants and residents.
Under current plans the Communities and Local Government department would help pick the members of an accountability committee for the National Tenant Voice. Members of existing national tenant organisations would also have a say in decisions.
The accountability committee will then help choose who makes it on to a 50-strong council of tenants and a 15-strong executive group – from nominations that will be open to all.
The information emerged in an unpublished copy of the NTV’s set-up plan.
The council would be made up of 26 independent tenants, nine representatives from existing regional groups, 12 from national bodies such as the Tenants’ and Residents’ Organisations of England, and three from the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (England), the report states.
But tenant John Conroy, a member of the project group, called for full elections and said the national tenant organisations were ‘closing the door’ to ordinary tenants.
‘If the National Tenant Voice is going to be set up not with free-thinking people but by people selected by non-tenants, it isn’t a true tenants’ voice,’ he said.
Phil Morgan, chief executive of TPAS, said: ‘We would like to see the majority of the people coming into the council from an open recruitment process. We believe it is very important.’
The document states the NTV’s main activities will be advocacy, research into tenant issues, communication and support for the tenant movement.
The NTV should commission independent research on strengthening the tenant movement nationally and regionally, and consider representing private tenants as well, it adds.
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Readers' comments (9)
Richard Beville | 10/10/2008 5:08 pm
"Representatives" must be directly elected by those whom they claim to
represent. If they are appointed by a third party, how can they be held
properly accountable, or removed if they fail in their duties to their
constituents ? As Churchill remarked, democracy is a very bad system
until you look at the alternatives. Representatives must be tenants themselves, & have no professional housing duties, which might conflict their interests.Non-tenant reps should be excluded, & partnered with at
"arms length". The "accountability committee " will be nothing of the sort,
& a two-tier structure without it, is to be preferred. Regards. RGB.
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Jimmy Devlin | 11/10/2008 6:38 pm
Unfortunately John, a few of us have known this since its inception .
Why else were the most active regional tenants federations deliberately excluded from the NTV project group.
Of course this is completely unacceptable to the vast majority of tenant activists.
How appropriate can it be that CIH will be able to "appoint" a rep on the NTV Board, after this week's CIH policy suggestion concerning removing security of tenure. How are tenants supposed to work alongside these people?
The NTV should be completely representative of and fully accountable to tenants only. End of discussion.
I suspect that the current proposals will result in a national organisation that will become the most disempowering agency possible , denying tenants any real collective influence as "others"hijack our agendas.
Housing Associations have the NHF , not many "outsiders" involved there. Why should tenants be denied an opportunity to determine (and elect) their national representative body ?
In my opinion the whole NTV concept has been used to turn tenants organisations against one another with promises of scarce resourcing and financial support for those which comply.
Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I still have to be convinced otherwise.
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Jimmy Devlin | 11/10/2008 6:38 pm
Unfortunately John, a few of us have known this since its inception .
Why else were the most active regional tenants federations deliberately excluded from the NTV project group.
Of course this is completely unacceptable to the vast majority of tenant activists.
How appropriate can it be that CIH will be able to "appoint" a rep on the NTV Board, after this week's CIH policy suggestion concerning removing security of tenure. How are tenants supposed to work alongside these people?
The NTV should be completely representative of and fully accountable to tenants only. End of discussion.
I suspect that the current proposals will result in a national organisation that will become the most disempowering agency possible , denying tenants any real collective influence as "others"hijack our agendas.
Housing Associations have the NHF , not many "outsiders" involved there. Why should tenants be denied an opportunity to determine (and elect) their national representative body ?
In my opinion the whole NTV concept has been used to turn tenants organisations against one another with promises of scarce resourcing and financial support for those which comply.
Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I still have to be convinced otherwise.
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michael barratt | 13/10/2008 12:35 pm
"Government will help to pick national tenant representatives."
THEY WOULD WOULD'NT THEY
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Steve Hilditch | 15/10/2008 2:55 pm
Draft reports normally get leaked by someone with an axe to grind and invariably lead to uninformed debate. Here’s a classic case. I do hope John Conroy has been misquoted because he was on the NTV Project Group until August (when he stood down for personal reasons) and took part in making and supported all the key proposals. He was one of 2 members of the Project Group from active regional organisations; the other was from the north east. The Group had tenant members who came from 6 of the 9 regions. Tenants were in a clear majority on the group. Unfortunately, not everyone who thought they should be on it could be on it. We consulted widely, including meetings in each region.
When the report is published I would ask people to read it with an open mind. We have worked hard – and listened hard - to make sure the NTV will be a resource for, and reflect the views and interests of, all tenants, whether they are active in tenants organisations or not. Unfortunately the vast majority are not, and so the majority of places on the NTV Council will be by open recruitment – the very opposite to ‘closing the door to ordinary tenants’.
The NTV will be a resource for all tenants, to help give them a voice, but it should not attempt to replace the existing structure of tenant representation. One of the NTV’s four key activities will be to support the organised tenants movement – they are the representative bodies for tenants, and have their own established membership and democratic structures that anyone can join.
Steve Hilditch
Independent Chair of the NTV Project Group
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Chris Graham | 24/10/2008 2:22 pm
Could it be that Steve Hilditch seeks now to provoke tenants into an unproductive post-mortem of, who said what, in order to deflect any examination of the real issues?
Should we fear that this presages what will happen once the National Tenant Voice is up and running every time anyone dares to step out of line by mentioning the ‘D’ word?
Steve would have us conflate the geographical location of tenants’ homes with the concept of their representing tenants in their parts of the country.
If John Conroy left the Project Group in August then he was presumably not present at the September 30th. meeting when, according to meeting digest No.8 the report was still only in draft form. (see the digest on the TPAS web site)
That digest reveals that CLG will now be commissioning research on regional and national structures but surely this should have been done first, even before the Project Group was set up.
Other than digests to meetings 1 to 4 that have been independently posted onto www.nationaltenantvoicedebate.org.uk only digest no8 seems to be currently publicly available. Consequently we can apply little scrutiny of what transpired at the Project Group meetings.
Having so far lacked robust methodology, democratic representation, accountability and transparency it is hard to see how the progeny of the Project Group will be such that tenant groups can affiliate or otherwise relate to under the terms of their own constitutions with the democratic support of their members.
So what can positive suggestions can be made?
First carry out research on existing regional and national structures.
Then address the issues of democratic representation, accountability and transparency.
Chris Graham. Islington Council Tenant
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Jennifer Holmes | 23/11/2008 9:24 pm
J COOKIE 23/11/08
So after all the hype, meetings/consultations etc etc. the truth will out!! As tenants we are once again being represented by Government lackeys. How much did it all cost and to what purpose other than to divide the tenants movements once again.
Who has gained what in all of this debacle!!!! One of the main instigators who became the man who represented tenants interested and had the ears of senior ministers , as he quite openly boasted at numerous meetings throughout the consultation period was none other than the CEO of TPAS, Phil Morgan. Strange he now has a very senior position in TAS!!!!!!! SOLD and RIVER springs to mind, what do you think???
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justjennie | 16/09/2009 10:58 pm
I was sceptical about this in the beginning and bemoaned the fact that the south wasn't represented by a national body, what better way to address this situation than to apply to be on the panel, we shall see what happens, if I do ok then I shall do my utmost to help those that can't help themselves, isn't that what this is all about?? what does all the rest matter, if I am one of the chosen and I end up feeling that I am there to simply "tick a box" I will very soon be out of there, once expressing my feelings. We all have choices it's just that some of us don't know that.
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BROADSWORD | 04/02/2010 4:11 pm
I agree the NTV should be completely representative of and fully accountable to tenants only. Any posts should be appointable by tenants with advice and guidance from an independant consultancy - not government, not social landlords, TPAS and not the CIH.
HQ should be for the Board (Excluding former) and CEO to decide -perhaps Birmingham or better still Manchester and not London.
Would'nt it be great if the Board was made up of Regional tenant/Resident chairs or reps?
It will be interesting how this body evolves and engages with TAROE, Regional Tenant Resident Groups - like North West Regional Assembly, and the TSA?
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