On best behaviour
The fact that the prime minister and home secretary have made speeches on anti-social behaviour in the past week is significant.
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The Conservatives have been gaining some traction with their mantra of ‘broken Britain’ and, with a general election looming, Labour is keen to fight back. The renewed focus on tackling ASB is obviously welcome, but are Labour’s proposals the right ones?
The government plans to introduce a set of local standards by the end of this month to which members of community safety partnerships (including social landlords) are expected to commit. These are set to require partners to respond to ASB complaints within 24 hours and to name an individual as the sole point of contact.
The latter aim is already practised by a number of landlords, including Birmingham, and is sensible. However, the former, while desirable, is likely to prove problematic due to limits on resources. Landlords already prioritise more serious cases (such as race-related violence) for rapid response so it would be more effective to require the local standards to include such priorities for the benefit of residents, than set a blanket target.
Ministers have also launched a consultation on dealing with dangerous dogs. Although the increasing popularity of dogs is an issue on many housing estates, dangerous dogs are thankfully not a widespread problem. A more pressing difficulty is the number of dogs now kept by residents in breach of their tenancies. This is a nettle that only social landlords can grasp - by properly enforcing their tenancy agreements.
More controversial is the plan outlined by Alan Johnson for victims of failed ASB cases to seek further redress through the courts and for the ‘agency’ responsible to cover the costs. This approach has a number of flaws and is liable to cause more problems in tackling ASB than it solves. For instance, how do you decide which agency in the CSP picks up the tab for a failed case? Who decides when a case has failed? The list goes on.
It would be much more productive for the government to plough resources into ensuring housing officers receive the best possible training to tackle ASB quickly and efficiently. That way the number of failed cases would be kept to a minimum.