Tread carefully

The Tenant Services Authority draft regulatory framework is out now for formal consultation. However, there are some blank areas on the canvas yet to be painted in. Exactly how the regime will affect smaller associations is not clear. Given that 70 per cent, or 1,100, of the associations regulated by the TSA are small, it needs to think harder about the implications of the new regulatory regime for them.

What could be called the ‘standard model’ of a typical association, implicit in the consultation document, breaks down at the margins, where the size of the operation, its specialty and internal resources come into play. A variant model is required. For example, should smaller associations be able to adopt varying levels of compliance to match their capacity? Should more time be allowed before the first ‘baseline’ report to tenants is required in October this year?

The TSA says that ‘proportionality’ will apply and that further consultation will take place. But what will proportionality look like? Not all smaller providers are the same; flexibility is needed to allow those who want to embrace the full regime and, at the other end of the scale, those whose internal resources are in practice a limiting factor.

The TSA should consider varying levels of compliance reporting to accommodate the differing resources available to this part of the sector and extending the implementation date out to 2011 for smaller associations’ ‘baseline’ report.

In the interim, I would welcome a pilot to test how putting a differentiated regulatory regime for smaller associations would work.

I think the new framework is a good step forward, but it needs work.

Mike Wilkins is chief executive of Ducane Housing Association and treasurer of G320