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Louis Loizou
Louis Loizou’s tenant action group has persuaded Brighton & Hove Council to retain onsite wardens - here’s how
In recent weeks junior housing minister Baroness Andrews has been bombarded with more than 500 letters from sheltered housing residents protesting the gradual withdrawal of their resident wardens (Inside Housing, 6 March).
Three-quarters of councils have reduced warden services or are considering them, research by Inside Housing has revealed.
Not so in Brighton & Hove. Here at Brighton & Hove Sheltered Housing Action Group we persuaded the council last month to agree to retain onsite scheme managers. The two bodies are now working together on a sheltered housing policy and other aspects of sheltered housing management.
With wardens all over the country being shown the door, how did we do it? Here’s our nine-point plan.
Step 1: Democracy in action
Assert your rights as a tenant and your landlord’s duties and obligations. The Housing Act invites tenant consultation so don’t assume that you won’t get anywhere with the council.
Officers may have ‘institutional behaviour patterns’, but you can encourage partnership by insisting on your right to information and consultation.
Step 2: Power play
We caught the council’s attention with tactics available to all tenants: we presented its housing committee with a petition showing 92 per cent of its sheltered tenants backed ‘the traditional model of full-time, onsite scheme managers’. It explicitly rejected both floating support and so-called team-based or hub and spoke-working, which can be floating support in disguise. A petition is not strictly necessary, but it adds the power of percentages to your right to consultation.
Step 3: It’s all about the money
Next we pressed council officers to break down how Supporting People funding for sheltered schemes is spent - then figured out where it was being wasted. We have helped the council shave £80,000 in out-of-hours bills from its sheltered housing costs. You may find inappropriate costs charged, such as for pull-chord or out-of-hours cover. Examine operational details - employing agency scheme managers can double staff costs.
Thanks to our financial scrutiny we have secured two extra scheme managers, bringing the total to 21. This is despite initial plans to cut numbers to 17 and bring in floating support.
Step 4: Make friends & influence people
Request support from council officers and the authority’s democratic services team. We enjoy an excellent working relationship with council staff and applaud Brighton & Hove for recognising our entitlement to exercise tenant responsibilities and assert our right to consultation.
Step 5: Town hall tactics
Include local councillors - they can empower consultation. They may not be aware of all operational details and may learn from your enquiries. Involve all political parties, regardless of who has a majority. You may find friends in unexpected places.
Step 6: Keep control
Assume a tenant-led stance to retain control of the process. It can be difficult for public bodies to make the cultural shift from ‘being in charge’ to consultation, but by demonstrating your firm intent officers will eventually understand the benefits of working in genuine partnership.
Step 7: Number crunching
You may find it hard to obtain financial or other information. Keep pressing for accurate data and if it is not forthcoming then make assumptions.
For example, if you multiply the number of flats in sheltered schemes by the weekly support charge that residents pay, you can approximate how much Supporting People funding the council gets for the scheme.
Consider how many scheme managers are employed and work out what savings can be made by reducing expenditures to ensure value for money. You may be surprised at the increases in frontline staff such savings could provide.
Step 8: For the record
Ensure all exchanges are documented, preferably by email rather than telephone, and copy everybody in. When working on a document that needs council ratification be clear on language and detail. Always copy in your solicitor to make clear you are engaged in an accountable process which could potentially result in a judicial review. It is then in officers’ interests to supply you with information in good time for meetings.
Step 9: Don’t stop until you get enough
Don’t give up at the first - or the 20th - hurdle. Keep working, keep officers on their toes and build your own team and its confidence. Remember your belief that sheltered housing is the most cost-effective way to house older people.
It may sound like a lot of work - and it is - but it’s worth the effort. Sheltered tenants have helped Brighton & Hove Council to achieve a unique partnership victory for all so far.
Louis Loizou is vice chair of Brighton & Hove Sheltered Housing Action Group
Have your say
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Readers' comments (9)
Vernony | 20/03/2009 5:31 pm
Well done Loizou
Although you are lucky too in having a democratically aware local Government too. Many councils and RSLs simply dictate what is to happen and consultations are forgotten. If one appeals to the TSA or previously the Government Housing Corporation at best they send them a stiff letter.
So despite a council or RSL having broken its contract with the residents and the TSA they are just told off but meantime, the residents have lost their Warden and there is no instruction given to them to re-instate them and go through the proper consultation processes . So those who thought that the TSA was the new dawn in housing, beware in my opinion they are pretty much the same as the old Housing Corporation, they have a new name - that is all !
Vernon Yarker
Chairman
The Sheltered Housing UK Association
www.shelteredhousinguk.com
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Junior | 21/03/2009 11:32 am
Dear Vernon Yarker - I would like to say that I have found the TSA Mr Peter Marsh a helpful man over the last six months and has directed me to our Housing Association Regulator and his give 100 per cent support but I believe its Government and them stupid House of Lords people who do not live in the real world they have not knownledge of how we live and the different's with Sheltering Home People why you ask! because I speak to the Chairman of the Sheltering Homes in our Area and find out its alright for people of Benefits but lots of people got good pensions but the sum have to pay it beyond a joke and how they work out these Service Charges without a Core Group checking the figures is beyond belief to its suppose to be Tenant's Enpowerment but they no enpowerment with some of these Housing Association most still stuck in the passed and belief no body out they to challenger them all we can hope is that the Tenant National Voice will have to power to make this Housing Association act accordingly but until the law is change under the Freedom of Information Act whereby Housing Association will have to allow Tenants to be propertly involved some of these Housing Association will act in this way and nothing we can do but Peter Marsh is trying to bring in a Accoutability Law. Please understand with our Housing Association and perhaps many others they have Scheme Manager/Wardens whom are lazy and people in these Sheltering Homes do not like it paying both salary and NHS payments and Caretaker wages and services cannot proud have no had but charge on the Service Charges but have no powers to check the records and bills to proof to themselves being charge for something do not have and alot of these so called Group's and Chair person's just do what the Housing Association tells them to do and Officers of Housing Association vote for the Tenant's they want to sit in these position and a hell of alot of Tenant's just go for sandwiches, cakes and drinks and have no idea what they doing to they fellow tenant. Why has no one set up a campaing regarding Housing Association rent increases when we all know Council Tenant let off by Maragret Beckett
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Junior | 22/03/2009 12:39 pm
I very happy your happy but most of the Sheltering Homes Tenant's I speak to whom pay they own rent not happy with Wardens its only the Tenant's whom get Benefit's whom appear to be happy. I very pleased your happy. But I have to say some have terrible Warden's/Scheme Manager and the Services Charges are unbelieveable and I would remind you of the promises made to some of these Tenant's and how some are being treated under Decanting you should hear some of the story's I have heard in the last Eight Months and how I have ask for our Sheltering Homes minutes of the meeting put on our website and up now nothing appearing on Housing Association website and how the Chairman Assessment the Sheltering Homes Forum which I believe is totally unacceptable
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Sandra Martin | 23/03/2009 10:43 am
So Brighton and Hove tenants are happy with their warden service and will be glad to see the back of them, happy for you all though.
One size does not fit all.
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teddy | 23/03/2009 12:46 pm
I can assure you that the vast majority, of residents in northampton want our resdient wardens back. We know there is a tiny number of "tamed" residents [a tamed resident,s is one who/whom thinks that the crocdiles will leave her/him alone while it eats the others, but not realising that the crocodiles eat their own when greedy!] The decimation of our resident warden "the hated "flotation system?!" HOW IT WAS DONE! and a multiutde OF OTHER ISSUES, is a national scandal! northampton will fight on!
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Sandra Martin | 11/04/2009 11:46 am
So brighton and Hove are happy with their warden- others will be glad to see the back of them.
Define 'vast majority'.
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Louis Loizou | 14/04/2009 3:20 pm
1. People generally demonstrate their grasp of a subject by what they say and how they say it.
2. Sour grapes only reflect the small-mindedness of the perpetrators.
3. Whatever happened to solidarity and mutual support, by which all can win?
4. In life there are diggers and watchers - watching (along with its companion, carping and criticising from the comfortability of an ego-centric centre of gravity) is, unfortunately, a national pastime. Your loss, whoever you are. We could have supported you.
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chairman SHUK | 31/07/2009 5:13 pm
Presently there are 55 Sheltered schemes waiting to take their housing provider to Court . Louis did a really magnificent job with Brighton and Hove, but there are some very obdurate councils and RSLs. Some do not and will not consult with their residents regardless that they are legally compelled to do so. The real problem is that there is no legislation which defines Sheltered Housing, this leaves it up the prerogative of the housing provider
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me next | 29/01/2010 9:44 pm
This change for the 'better', NOT THE TENANTS WHO FEEL BETRAYED is now being steam rolled out in our neighbourhood. Is there going to be any more large protests in the near future that we can join in with. Every word written here is what we feel. NO ONE IS LISTENING! this should be on the national news daily. Help!
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