Tenants and residents deserve freedom of information

You might think that, given the extra effort involved for me as a staff member, I’d have a dim view of this bit of legislation, but no. I believe the legislation pushed me to take time to make better and more considered policies and systems, knowing that I might one day have to justify what I was doing.

You may or may not have heard about our experience as tenants and residents of Coniston House in Mile End in London. Our homes have been damaged by a construction project by East End Homes, our non-compliant landlord. 

When we first saw damage in the early stages of the project, I started to look into how I could request documents from our landlord, such as risk assessments and documents showing its decision-making processes.

I was shocked to discover that despite providing the quite obviously public function of social housing, East End Homes was not designated by the secretary of state as a public body for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act.

Local authorities have been subject to the act since its inception, but residential social landlords (RSLs) created through stock transfers in the early 2000s escaped it. This oversight has already been corrected in Scotland, where RSLs have been subject to the act since 2019.

The act has been with us since 2000. It has been tested through the courts on many occasions, establishing substantial case law. The Information Commissioner’s Office, which enforces the act, has over two decades of experience. It’s a mature and well-functioning law.

In opposition, Matthew Pennycook, the current housing minister, proposed an amendment to bring RSLs in England and Wales under the act. I was saddened, therefore, to discover in a reply to a question by my MP, that he now intends to press ahead with the previous administration’s sector-specific scheme, Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs). The STAIRs scheme is much narrower in scope than the act and is to be adjudicated by the Housing Ombudsman, which has no experience in administering an information-access scheme.

Those making and replying to requests will not have the extensive case law to rely on and, due to the narrowness of the scheme and the lack of resources that tenants have to bring cases, will likely mean very little case law will ever be established.

“The STAIRs scheme is much narrower in scope than the act and is to be adjudicated by the Housing Ombudsman, which has no experience in administering an information-access scheme”

Being subject to requests from anyone – tenants, residents, politicians, journalists – might focus the minds of those working in RSLs, like it did mine while working at universities. One can’t help but think that proper scrutiny at an early stage might have avoided our predicament at Coniston House. Possibly, just the prospect of a request may have given decision-makers pause to check they had covered all the risks involved with their project.

Some well-targeted requests may also have brought to light the real scale of the disrepair crisis in social housing much sooner, and we may have avoided recent tragedies.

If the government really wants to address the power imbalance between RSLs and their tenants and residents, it should give us the gold standard: the Freedom of Information Act. 

Martin Donkin, chair, Coniston House Tenants and Residents Association