Friday, 25 May 2012

TSA Standards

Posted in: Need to Know | Ask the Experts

24/07/2010 5:22 pm

Jon Miles

Jon Miles

Posts: 5

Ask the Experts

Under the TSA's 6 Standards the 4th Standard (Value for Money)  includes the sentance "Registered providers shall have arrangements for tenants to influence the services delivered and the cost of those services that result in service charges to tenants".

The development that I live in is poorly served by 2 contractors in particular and requests have been made by the residents at that development to cease their contracts to be replaced by local contractors who actually live in the same town.

These requests have been passed over by Housing Officers. One reason given is that there is a need to look at all the contracts of all service providers (and there are about 200 of them).

I feel that the wishes of the residents are being by passed and that eventually they will have service providers thrust upon them that they do not have confidence in but have no real say in their appointment.

What can be done?

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Junior

Junior

Posts: 649

25/07/2010 11:51 am

Welcome to the real world.  The standard's may be in place but unless you and your neighbour's/resident's trigger a complaint with the TSA and put in a complaint to the Board members c/o of the Chair via the Chief Executive you may not have a dog chance.

We also finding that we putting in complaints with the TSA but we not getting a up date.   Which I am about to sent a message to the Manager whom is dealing with our matters.

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kass

kass

Posts: 629

25/07/2010 1:43 pm

You should put in a official complaint, if you can get more residents to sign with you is even better.  Make sure you explain why.  Demand an answer in writing.  If you have kept a diary of bad experiences and distress caused by such contractors do not let them in and let your landlord know each time in writing you have not done so and demand written acknowledgement of any correspondence.

this will mean that you will have to put up with repairs not carried out for some time (But why should they be carried out by these contractors anyway, if they have failed often in the past?)

At the end of the day it is the landlord's duty to make sure repairs are carried out efficiently and with not undue disruption to the tenant.

Be aware, especially if you have no support from other tenants brave as you, that a favourite landlord trick will be to classify you as a 'difficult' tenant to cover up their crimes.

As for any legal action you might need/want to take, I would be very interested to see what a legal expert says about this.

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kass

kass

Posts: 629

25/07/2010 1:46 pm

Remember, if you do not put in an official complaint to your landlord, even though you told housing officers a million times and nothing has changed, they would be able of accusing you or not having 'officially' complained about it and therefore they had no obbligations to solve the matter.

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McMadman

McMadman

Posts: 26

26/07/2010 1:52 pm

Almost right Kass (crikey).

In very serious cases, it is possible for a tenant to complain without having shown that they have been through the landlord's complaints policy. Generally, the expectation is that a tenant can show that the landlord has been put on notice of the issues complained of and given reasonable opportunity to resolve them - or explain why it does not intend to.

There are good reasons for this process. There is no evidence otherwise that a matter has been reported. It might be that officers accidentally - or deliberately in the case of persistent "difficult" customers -  forget. That's not right, but let's face it, it happens. And of course some times customers are a little economical with the truth and say they have raised things many times when in fact they haven't. Either many times, or at all.

Sometimes though, notice of a problem is "imputed." Essentially, a landlord cannot deny facts within it's own knowledge or matters it could reasonably be expected to know of. An example might be if a landlord has records of monthly visits to the common area of a block of flats. If, for example, works were clearly outstanding after several of these visits, it would not be a defence to say "noone has complained so we haven't fixed it" - they are on imputed notice of the requirement to do works from having visited, and because they are property specialists, are expected to have known the works needed doing.

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kass

kass

Posts: 629

26/07/2010 7:22 pm

McMadman, as you say I am almost right, could please say what is it I did not get perfectly right for you?

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Chris

Chris

Location: All over the place
Posts: 283

26/07/2010 11:04 pm

What are the terms of the contract and are the contractors performing within those terms?

If they are performing then really your only way forward is to influence the re-tendering process, otherwise you will be involved in a contract variation to improve standards, which will cost you.

If they are not performing then note the non-compliance matters and insist the contract is enforced by the landlord. If there is a failure to enforce the contract in such circumstances then you have due recourse to the ombudsman with the internal complaints process waived by default.

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Junior

Junior

Posts: 649

27/07/2010 10:34 am

Christopher we have contract's with our Contractor ever tried to make the Hoúsing Association make them adhere to the contract .  We have a group and believe things was going well until you go out on the road and meet the Customer's to find out not keeping to the adhere Contract nor adhere to the Code.

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Nic Bliss

Nic Bliss

Posts: 24

06/08/2010 3:59 pm

This sort of thing is exactly what the TSA standards were developed for - to enable tenants to locally improve the services they receive.  Under the TSA standards, tenants can request a "local offer" regarding the services in question, and the landlord should take reasonable steps to provide one.  What that should mean is that tenants should be able to work with the landlord to define and monitor the local service standards that they expect.  Whether this could extend to local employment of staff should depend on a number of value for money considerations - eg. would local contractors provide the service more cost effectively?  Would using local contractors mean that the value for money of the service provided to other tenants would suffer?  We also need to bear in mind that the landlord would need to satisfy the terms of any existing contracts (ie. they might have agreed a long term deal with the existing contractor), and that there are a number of legal and regulatory requirements that landlords have to ensure that contractors comply with that sometimes local contractors don't comply with.
 
All of a landlord's tenants should also be able to be involved in the development of the landlord's approach to the other TSA standards, and this should mean that they can get involved in discussing and agreeing service provision and related contracts.  It is not unusual nowadays for tenants to be involved in specifying, recruiting and monitoring contractors, and the landlord should welcome you and your fellow tenants into discussions about contractors.  The need to look at the contracts of all service providers might be an issue, but the TSA standards require that landlords involve their tenants in discussing "strategic priorities" which ought to mean that they prioritise with tenants what changes are needed more urgently than others.
 
A further possibility that may be right for only some tenants is that you might be able to consider tenant management so that you and your fellow tenants could locally manage the services in question under an agreement with the landlord.  If you are a council tenant, you have a legal right to do this.  If you are a housing association tenant, it should be expected that the association at least give reasoned consideration to a request from their tenants to explore tenant management.  If a tenant management organisation provided the services, you could take the decisions about what contractors you use, but this sort of approach does require high levels of commitment from tenants.

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Jon Miles

Jon Miles

Posts: 5

06/08/2010 8:05 pm

Many thanks for all the information you have provided, certainly enough ideas for me to get working on.

I really appreciate the feedback, another excellent service by Inside Housing!

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