TSA reveals its vision for the sector and full results of its national conversation

Controversy as regulator plans tenure overhaul

12/06/2009 | By Emily Rogers

The Tenant Services Authority has thrown off its shackles and waded into controversial debates about security of tenure and housing association rent levels.

After months of deliberation, in which it has toured England talking to thousands of tenants and landlords, the TSA revealed its first plans for the future this week. In a consultation document, Building a new regulatory framework, it sets out 14 standards that social landlords will be judged against and confirms these are likely to be supplemented with local standards agreed between landlords and tenants.

It also published the full results of its consultation with tenants and landlords (see box: It’s good to talk).

But it is the substance of the main document that is already provoking the most debate – especially around security of tenure.

The TSA revealed it is considering drawing up a code of practice, setting out when different types of tenancy may be used. Its paper states: ‘The use of less secure tenancies may be justifiable in areas where demand for homes significantly outstrips supply.’

Peter Marsh, chief executive of the TSA, said: ‘Tenants should be offered the most secure tenancies possible, but there’s a question about balancing the needs of new tenants and prospective future tenants.’

The statement immediately provoked strong reaction. John Bryant, policy leader at the National Housing Federation, said: ‘This is an extremely sensitive issue and this will rather muddy up the water. There are reasons why we might use a less secure tenancy on an introductory basis, but I don’t think the fact that there’s higher demand [for housing] would normally be a factor.’

The TSA will also set a standard for rent levels. Mr Marsh said he was in talks with the government at the moment about how housing associations should set their rents next year. Because rents are linked to inflation, housing associations could be forced to reduce them next year – which could scupper their business plans.

The talks are understood to have looked at three main options, including setting a rent floor, allowing associations to spread rent changes over the next two years, or maintaining the status quo.

Simon Dow, chief executive of Guinness Trust, said: ‘It’s a serious flaw in a consumer-driven theology that you don’t have some flexibility to flex prices either up or down.’

The TSA’s report also reveals that the regulator may only approve mergers if landlords can prove they are good at involving residents. It also suggests that a national standard for housing allocations would ask landlords to maximise the possibility of tenant mobility.

Consultation on the TSA’s plans closes on 8 September.

Repairs top of tenants’ wish list

Landlords’ three main priorities should be repairs, health and safety and neighbourhood security, tenants have demanded.

The call came from 27,000 tenants across England as part of a huge consultation exercise carried out by the Tenant Services Authority.

Forty-seven per cent of the 23,441 tenants who returned a postal questionnaire named repairs as the thing they most wanted their landlords to get right (see graph above).

This was followed by health and safety, neighbourhood security, being kept informed and the handling of complaints.

The findings have fed into the draft standards published by the TSA this week in its discussion paper Building a regulatory framework.

The discussion paper reads: ‘We have learned that what is sometimes measured by our regulation and the inspection regime, is not always what matters [to tenants].’

There was concern among the landlords consulted as part of the national conversation about how the proposal for them to set local standards with their tenants would work in practice.

And a turf war could be emerging between council and housing association landlords over what is defined as ‘local’.

Ann Humber, a tenant of Peabody Housing Association who attended this week’s launch of the document, said she wanted a rethink of how allocations were handled in her area.

She said: ‘There are lots of young people here who can’t get on the housing lists. You have to be a refugee or an alcoholic or a junkie, or mentally ill.’

Readers' comments (26)

Joe Halewood | 12/06/2009 10:01 am
‘The use of less secure tenancies may be justifiable in areas where demand for homes significantly outstrips supply.’

The above verbatim quote is outrageous. To negate tenants rights and the legally binding contracts they sign - tenancy documents - to the whim of the availability of supply should never, ever be considered. It makes a mockery of the law if nothing else and the fact that the TSA are even considering this reveals how woeful their thinking is.

The economics of supply and demand can never be more important than or above the law. The TSA is seemingly considering this and making social housing akin to a means-tested benefit. We will give you a hand up and then pull the rug out from underneath you as others are more deserving is what this amounts to as a strategy.

A huge part of the problem around this debate is the likely fact that any changes to security of tenure will ONLY affect new tenants and not current tenants. Im not a lawyer but even if changes to security of tenure emerge I fail to see how this will affect existing tenants - with their legally binding tenancy agreements - retrospectively. Hence much of the debate is a non-starter to begin with. Yet, all we seem to hear in terms of social housing policy is this notion of reducing security of tenure.

Even setting aside the emotive arguments of tenants and the 'left' that security of tenure is a sacred cow, the idea fails to make any sense whatsoever. In what other sector would this be mooted when you have the universally accepted circumstances of a chronic shortage of supply? To propose mitigating demand by tougher admittance and continually reviewed admittance, that is controlling or regulating demand when the problem is a supply problem is a nonsense.

What other sector or business takes away from customers what they want and are happy to pay for? Yet this is precisely what reducing security of tenure and its inferred means tested regulation (that is to keep it) amounts to.

What the chronic lack of supply reveals starkly is that 'social housing' as a product and service is in demand and more customer wish to take advantage of it. In any other good or service in any other sector providers would massively aim to meet the chronic supply shortage. Why should social housing be any different? The fact is it should not be different.

Unfortunately, the providers in the market are constrained yet just focus upon the barriers to meeting the supply shortage rather than focus upon geting over those constraints. Tha apparent fact that creating supply will lead to an economic as well as a public good for all seems not to be part of the thinking of 'the great and the good' in social housing.

So when we have the much trumpeted new regulator making comments about justifiable means-tested provision, then its time for that regulator to go as it shows the regulator to be at best politically naive and most definitely compromised in terms of their abilty to regulate independently or correctly.
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michaelbarratt | 12/06/2009 10:46 am
TSA is merely a Government QUANGO intent upon homogenizing housing associations and council housing together as ‘social housing’. New Labour’s policy would appear to be to by slight of hand to debase the ‘gold standard’ rights of council tenants to the inferior rights of housing association tenants thereby creating a lumpenproletariate and removing all obstacles to the privatisation of local authorities’ housing stocks.

The expensive TSA monster has been made necessary because New Labour’s plans to destroy the National institution of local authority housing by means of mass stock transfer to housing associations has hit the rocks. Council tenants up and down the country have seen through the shabby trickery as demonstrated by the emphatic NO given to housing association transfer by the tenants of the South Cambridgeshire District Council.

New Labour, CIH, TSA would seem to want to ripup secure tenancies protected by legislation and alternatively bestow discrectionary rights on the TSA and landlords to decide who comes and who goes to the private rental or the sub prime housing markets.

Surely the answer is not to chuck council tenants out of their home to make way more ‘deserving’ tenants but to build more council homes?. The TSA appear to be proposing the housing equivalent of triaging in a hospice and evicting those judged to be in lesser need.
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Jean | 12/06/2009 10:55 am
"The TSA will also set a standard for rent levels. Mr Marsh said he was in talks with the government at the moment about how housing associations should set their rents next year. Because rents are linked to inflation, housing associations could be forced to reduce them next year – which could scupper their business plans."

So my landlord increased my rent in April on the calculation of last years inflation all in all my rent nearly increased by £30 a month. LA tenants had a reprieve after the goverment stepped in to ensure LA tenants would not be hard up due to the level of increase proposed. Now HA's are faced with less money from rent increase next year the TSA wants to step in.

Funny they didn't consider the HA tenants who were hit with these mamouth rent hikes in a time of a recession. I didn't hear of any HA's saying "these increases are too high, our tenants are faced with hardship if it goes ahead" HA's were more than happy to take it. HA tenants seem to be getting a raw deal.It appears LA tenant are much more considered by their landlords.

I couldn't give two monkeys about their business plans as they didn't seem to care about their tenants and the level of increases forced upon their residents. They now want to change the goal posts when it doesn't suit them.
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Harry Lime | 12/06/2009 1:46 pm
Not that I support any whittling away of the security of tenure (and no one speaks up for the private tenant!) I think it's inevitable that new tenancies with less security will eventually be brought in, probably with that old chestnut "means testing" involved, particulalry if the tories come in. The fact is demand will ALWAYS outstrip supply considerably - the population is ever growing, available sites and public funding is sinking.

In the same way RTB was diminished and people talk about Secure tenancies, Pre 89 and AST's so they will eventually refer to those who have got RSL tenancies for life, and those that don't
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Jen | 12/06/2009 7:59 pm
Let the TSA meddle with the security of tenure and they will have a full scale war on their hands, it this what they want, are the tenants going to be their pupets, I don't think so, if the TSA is not supported by the tenants, that could just make them extinct. hope they are not going to be another lot without logic and vision. If they make Big mistakes now it will be the beginning of their end.Tenants are very tired of the disrespect they get.
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Davidjc | 12/06/2009 8:12 pm
I am a true believer in Social Housing and have been proud to be a tenant for the past 28years; I am saddened by the current situation where people in the distance are deciding what to and what not to do with my home and the security of tenure attached to it. Like many of my fellow tenants I have raised my children in this home I have paid my rent in full (no benefits) to the council, I have looked after my home the way I would have if it were my own, I have maintained the property inside and outside to a greater standard than the council would be able to afford to do. I and many others have increased the value of a property that does not belong to us because we take pride in our home; it is our home and the councils or RSL's house. I am becoming more and more frustrated by the ineptitude of those in a position to ruin all that Social Housing stands for. If perhaps the private landlords were taxed heavier on the income that their second, third, fourth, or even fifth homes were generating, from excessively high rents and they were made to rent out at affordable rates then we may have a resolution to the problem of lack of housing. I don't profess to know the answer all I know is that there is an immoral amount of money being spent at the moment on these issues and there are far too many, expensive to join, (sometimes without a choice) bodies being set up to deal with social housing tenants and the problems of homelessness. There will never be enough homes for all as there is not enough land, there will never be enough parking for all the cars, there will never be a motorway big enough to cope with all the traffic, there will never be enough of anything to suit everyone. I can reiterate, however, that there are far too many people trying to solve this problem being paid (probably) extortionate amounts of money to try and solve something insurmountable.
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Jim Paton | 12/06/2009 8:53 pm
I wouldn't bank on moves to reduce security of tenure, whether of RSL or council tenants, applying only to new lettings. Existing tenancy agreements are legally binding only if not trumped (or should that be "trashed"?) by legislation. Both major parties appear to be cooking up some such poisonous brew.

What is needed more than anything on our housing estates is STABILITY. Without that, nothing is sustainable and our problems cannot be effectively tackled or permanently solved. In the face of that clear need, the trendy nostrum from the suits seems to be to turn housing estates into transit camps.

Reduced security of tenure is the last thing we need. Estates work only if tenants see themselves having a future there, and a stake in their estate. These proposals would mean everyone's "jaicket hingin' on a shoogly peg" to use a vivid Scots phrase. We have too many people's clothes on shoogly pegs already.

What I mean is the major problems of transience where RTB flats are now privately rented on shorthold tenancies. Any chance of the TSA studying the effects of that where it is common and learning some lessons? Thought not.
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disgruntled | 13/06/2009 3:26 pm
non-security of tenancy will result in means testing of tenants, so those individuals whos circumstances change, find themselves in work and are deemed to be able to afford to rent in the private sector or buy a property, if they want to or not will find their tenancies terminated.

This will result in social housing becoming more of a dumping ground for the most needy in society, creating even greater concentrations of deprivation. The move will act as a disincentive for people to seek employment or for ways of bettering their circumstances. Many will find themselves trapped in poverty, as the low paid often find the jobs on offer are mostly insecure and without the security of social housing why risk taking a job which could lose your right to the security net of social housing.

the move also begs the question of mixed communities, where the policy has up until now been one of trying to improve the mix of economically active households, this move seems to offer a very sharp move away from this policy as the outcome will be to increase the numbers on estates reliant on the state not less. There are also issues of social cohesion - as the ability of those in employment to gain socail housing will become more difficult, and result in unrest and blame laid at the door of those most in need.

The TSA, rather than blame the lack of real investment in a development programme of social housing seems to be looking for solutions to the affordability question in the wrong place. To really tackle the issues of choice, and affordability we need real investment.

As we have seen relaince on the market to deliver social housing through S106 has failed, and RSL's who have moved away from their original aims of delivering affordable homes to rent to try and copy the developer model with homes for sale and landbanking have also had their fingers burnt. Maybe the move to have council's build homes for their own communities might yet work, but only if there is government money to support this.
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ILAG | 13/06/2009 10:27 pm
Note the grassroots tenant comment: "Ann Humber, a tenant of Peabody Housing Association who attended this week’s launch of the document, said she wanted a rethink of how allocations were handled in her area. She said: ‘There are lots of young people here who can’t get on the housing lists. You have to be a refugee or an alcoholic or a junkie, or mentally ill.’"

Quite. Allocation on the basis of so-called "priority need" translates into housing for the most recidivist and irresponsible at the expense of all others. It is this monstrous creation of the bleeding heart liberal left that needs to addressed, not security of tenure. Merit and contribution to society should be main criteria for allocation as they were in the immediate post war period when a council tenancy was viewed as the desirable asset it is. The stigma associated with council estates is a direct result of post 1960's allocation policy and nothing to do with the concept of the estate itself.
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Robert Latham | 15/06/2009 9:33 am
Something wrong here surely?

Security of Tenure:

(a) Is not the role of the TSA to empower tenants? How is the reduction of security of tenure consistent with this remit? Any housing lawyer knows that it is in areas of high demand where statutory protection is most necessary.

(b) Has the TSA got nothing to say about Ground 8? Why does the TSA not advocate that any social landlord must justify any eviction as being reasonable and proportionate?

(c) If the TSA believes in empowering tenants, how about a Charter of Tenants’ Rights?

Allocations:

Is it not a matter for Parliament to decide how social landlords allocate social housing in order to enable LHAs to discharge their strategic housing duties? Is anyone happy about the TSA filling this democratic deficit?

Who is pulling the strings here? We have a right to know!
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