Tories attack TSA consultation
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Conservative shadow housing minister Grant Shapps has attacked the social housing regulator for spending too much time consulting with tenants.
Mr Shapps told MPs in a Westminster Hall debate: ‘I am not terribly impressed that the authority has so far spent its time surveying 27,000 tenants to get responses and then writing a draft report about what it might do.
‘I want to see action from those organisations - they are spending a lot of public money.’
Noting that the TSA’s regulatory powers had not yet been extended to cover social tenants living in council housing, Mr Shapps added: ‘The fact that the TSA does not yet cover them, coupled with my concern about the speed at which things are moving, makes me wonder whether it is going about things in the best way, or whether there are other ways of helping to provide those services to my constituent tenants.’
Conservative leader David Cameron has asked his shadow cabinet to review the viability of every quango in their portfolio, and Mr Shapps has refused to rule out the possibility that a Tory government would merge the TSA with the Homes and Communities Agency.
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Readers' comments (6)
Alan Savage | 21/07/2009 10:16 am
Well by the looks of things all that Conservative shadow housing minister Grant Shapps is saying, is what many tenants’ have said on here previously. Many felt that the awful pink camper van exercise was a waste of money, so, in that sense, I agree with Mr Shapps.
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VH | 21/07/2009 10:27 am
All of the good social landlords already consult, engage and include customers in all of their activities and corporate plans. All we have heard so far is what we already know, repairs services are key, be innovative in your inclusion methods - and some landlords are much worse than others - Peter Marsh - deal with these!!!!! I thought it was a risk based approach? There are many zero or one star ( or not yet measured) organisations, so get scoring please
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michael, islington | 21/07/2009 10:43 am
@VH - "All of the good social landlords already consult, engage and include customers ... "
Perfect PC speak. Nothing Human. What planet?
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VH | 21/07/2009 12:22 pm
Michael - all our customers are human, and they feel like this
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Joe Halewood | 21/07/2009 1:17 pm
All bull and bluster! So the opposition party is attacking the incumbent developed service for finding out what the problems are before spending money dealing with them.
Why Mr Shapps wants to be impressed 'terribly' is another matter - or is this just a Freudian preconception all Tories have of regulators public or private?
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JulesD | 27/07/2009 9:37 am
Well said Alan, who on earth thought that a pink camper van (and pink everything else for that matter) was the right image for a serious campaign to find out what tenants really want? You would would think it was fairly obvious anyway.
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