TSA rebrands standards ahead of launch
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The Tenant Services Authority is to change the names of the standards it expects landlords to reach on a national and local level before their launch next week.
Speaking at a conference in Leeds, TSA board member Jim Coulter said the regulator’s final version of its framework would include clarifications over the proposed standards.
The six ‘national standards’ all landlords must meet will be renamed ‘TSA standards’ after feedback on the draft regulatory framework suggested the original name was confusing. Similarly, ‘local standards’ will be rebranded as ‘local offers’.
Mr Coulter said: ‘We have had feedback about clarity of language on our national standards and local standards. There are now a number of adjustments being made.’
He also told delegates at the Board Development Agency conference that the TSA would be focusing on providers offering the poorest quality services. ‘In 2010/11 there is going to be resourcing to investigate the poorest providers. We want to see poor performance driven up, rather than having a blanket approach to the sector overall,’ he said.
The standards were published for consultation in November. The deadline for responses was last month, and the final version is expected next week, before the TSA takes over the regulation of housing associations and local authority housing services from 1 April.
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Readers' comments (6)
Fingers | 11/03/2010 10:29 am
So once again tenants are given hope of a brand new dawn and then clouds appear on the horizon. The TSA for 12 months has been stating that there will be standards that will have to be met and here we are three weeks from the TSA going live as the regulator across the sector there is dissolution of the terminology.
Standards are to be maintained or demanded, offers are take it or leave it from patronising landlords. Tenants have been sidelined once again.
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Norman Adams | 11/03/2010 11:35 am
Tenants’ again see a body that if it ever had any teeth! we see them put into a glass as it prepares to go into slumber
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E. M. Penman | 11/03/2010 11:45 am
I attended the Leeds conference yesterday and heard Jim Coulter deliver the TSA message. I am left in no doubt that this is a case of 'a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet'. Changing the name will make precious little difference to what tenants experience. I am sure that I was not the only attendee who got that impression either. Not to worry, the General Election will soon be upon us and then the message could well be a very different one.
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kass | 11/03/2010 1:55 pm
E. M. Penman | Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:45 GMT...
I agree totally with your feelings. But I am afraid I cannot share your hopes in the forthcoming elections. I just do not see any party making the difference we tenants desperately need and have kept asking for since at least 1979... As usual we'll have to battle on with a very uncertain future in front of us.
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E. M. Penman | 11/03/2010 5:08 pm
Sadly you may be correct Kass but, having experienced the pathetically slow response time by the TSA to a tenant's attempt at Whistleblowing, I very much feel that the TSA should be put into the shredder with the rest of the garbage. I reckon that the money allocated to this particular Quango could be better used in a dozen or so other places. I suppose tenants will have to rely upon lobbying their M.P's (although most of them are next-door to useless) or coming up on the National Lottery.
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Ernest Hemsley | 11/03/2010 5:09 pm
Offers? what next? I agree with Fingers there"Offers" means you can revoke it anywhen. Yet again a limp statement.
Here we are all geared up to tell our landlords what Local Standards mean and we have the rug pulled from under our feet yet again..... Something springs to mind here "Why bother, nothing ever happens" We spend a lifetime getting people involved and then they shoot us in the back.....Tenant Champion my foot............
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