Needed: Tenant Voice
As the clock ticks inexorably toward 6 May and the expected general election, time really is not on the side of Peter Marsh and his colleagues at the Tenant Services Authority.
SIGN IN TO ACCESS THIS CONTENT
You've reached your monthly limit for unrestricted access to Inside Housing content. To get free unrestricted access simply sign in below, or register your details.
Sign In
If you are already registered sign in for unrestricted access to alll the content on the site.
If the widely anticipated Conservative victory materialises, Tory shadow housing minister Grant Shapps has made it clear the TSA is likely to be one of the first on the party’s bonfire of the quangos. Yet it is only now that the regulator and the new framework it oversees is beginning to spark into life.
Aside from its first major landlord intervention, this week also sees the end of the TSA’s key consultation on its proposed new regulatory standards. It should be a source of pride for Marsh et al that their new light-touch approach has been so widely accepted and debate has quickly progressed to the details.
It is with these details that another newly minted quango, the National Tenant Voice, is principally concerned. The members of its National Tenant Council met for the first time last week and it will be responding to the TSA consultation. But its impact is more likely to be greater as landlords feel their way into the new regulatory landscape over the next six months. Like the TSA, the future of the £1.5 million a year NTV hangs very much in the balance if the Conservatives enter Number 10 in May. So where should it focus its energies to quickly prove it’s more than just an elaborately assembled tenant talking shop?
It and its council members could do worse than look at the results of a piece of work commissioned by London & Quadrant housing group from respected academic Hal Pawson. It finds that the results of many current tenant satisfaction surveys cannot be relied upon as their methodologies are flawed.
TSA or no TSA, the new pared down regulation system is going to be here for at least the life of the next parliament.
With an end to a cycle of planned inspections by the Audit Commission, tenant satisfaction surveys will play a key role in determining landlord health.
The NTV exists to hold landlords to account and in so doing it should demand that these landlord-funded surveys are beyond reproach.