All change please

Residents of an inner city Birmingham estate were at the forefront of tenant empowerment when they set up one of the country’s first estate management boards (EMB), a partnership with their landlord giving tenants more control over the management of their homes. Now, as Bloomsbury Estate Management Board celebrates its 25th birthday this summer, the group is once again leading the way.

The EMB, which manages 659 homes on the Bloomsbury Estate in Nechells on behalf of Birmingham City Council, is among the first tenant management organisations (TMOs) - organisations set up by tenants or leaseholders to manage their homes - seeking to initiate the transfer of control of their homes from a local authority to a housing association.

Since the introduction of the Right to Manage in 1994, tenants have been able to form a TMO to take over the responsibility of managing their homes from their landlord (see box). But two years ago, new regulations gave tenants’ groups further power. 

Cooperation

Under the Housing (Right To Transfer from A Local Authority Landlord) (England) Regulations 2013, a council is required to cooperate with tenants who want to explore changing their landlord and to start the process of transferring ownership of their homes to a housing association where a transfer is the “favoured and viable option”, according to statutory guidance issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Any stock transfer is subject to a ‘yes’ vote in a ballot of tenants and the consent of the secretary of state.

“When they [TMOs] deliver services we see tenants are more satisfied with the way their homes and estates are run, with any savings generated used for projects and improvements, decided on by those within the community.”

Department for Communities and Local Government

Bushbury Hill EMB in Wolverhampton was the first TMO to serve a Right to Transfer proposal notice. Patmos Area Community Conservation Association (PACCA) and Blenheim Gardens RMO (resident management organisation) in the London borough of Lambeth, and Bloomsbury EMB, have also gone down the same route. Two other TMOs are in “very early stages” of the process, according to the DCLG.

A spokesperson for the department says the government wants to help people “take control of their neighbourhoods” and is allocating £1m this financial year to the tenant empowerment programme, which includes funding tenant groups wanting to explore their Right to Manage. “When they [TMOs] deliver services we see tenants are more satisfied with the way their homes and estates are run, with any savings generated used for projects and improvements, decided on by those within the community,” he adds. 

But why would tenant-run groups want to take the step of handing ownership of their homes to a housing association?

What is happening in the world of these EMBs is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Bloomsbury EMB, Blenheim Gardens RMO and PACCA did not respond to requests for comment. Only Bushbury Hill EMB has spelt out its motivation for proposing the transfer of about 840 Wolverhampton City Council homes on the Bushbury Hill Estate in Low Hill to the 12,000-home Wrekin Housing Trust. Bushbury Hill EMB would retain its management role under the transfer. 

“We are very concerned about the amount of money we receive from the council to provide your services,” it says in an online guide for tenants to the Right to Transfer proposal. “Our funding has been frozen for five years and, when inflation is taken into account, this is a year-on-year reduction in real terms. Transfer would protect the services we provide and invest more in the future. It will also guarantee our future and ensure decisions affecting you will continue to be made on the estate by tenants.”

“It’s possible they could have a little bit more control with what they can do with their money and they will have the support of a wider - probably more financially robust - housing provider.”

Jenny Osbourne, chief executive, TPAS

According to the TMO’s online timetable, the transfer was due to take place in Spring 2015. However Karen Williams, chief officer at Bushbury Hill EMB, says a ballot is not likely until the autumn and that the organisation is hopeful for a transfer to complete by March 2016. “One of the reasons it’s delayed is we have had to re-look at the business case in view of the Budget implications,” she adds, but declines to comment further due to ongoing negotiations. The chancellor announced last month that social housing rents would be reduced by 1% a year for the next four years.

Future plans

“It is not appropriate for the council to comment on any potential ownership transfer of the Bushbury Hill Estate Management Board at this stage as the business case is under review by the Homes and Communities Agency,” says a City of Wolverhampton Council spokesperson.

Jenny Osbourne, chief executive of TPAS, the tenant empowerment organisation, says the autonomy rightly guarded by TMOs could be “under real threat or reduced” as councils look to cut or squeeze services, and that it is therefore a “really sensible” option for TMOs to consider a stock transfer. “Depending on who they pick, it’s possible they could have a little bit more control with what they can do with their money and they will have the support of a wider - probably more financially robust - housing provider,” she adds.

She says other TMOs will be watching the first four to serve Right to Transfer notices and expects “a few more” to follow suit.

Nick Reynolds, chair of the National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations, which represents about 130 TMOs, agrees only a small number of groups are likely to go down the Right to Transfer route. “Under the Right to Manage, tenants exercise their right to manage their homes differently,” he says. “Some groups may consider the Right to Transfer, some may stay as TMOs with their current landlord. That is the advantage of the Right to Manage - giving local tenants devolved power to manage their homes differently.”

In the immediate future, the ground-breaking groups will be looking to finalise their transfers. In the case of PACCA, the timescale to transfer ownership of 286 homes in Lambeth - subject to a ballot and regulatory approval - has been set for March 2016, according to a Lambeth Council spokesperson. PACCA is no longer a TMO, but is exploring the transfer of stock as a community interest company. Its management of Patmos housing estate ended in January following a dispute with the local authority. 

Following an investigation by Pricewaterhouse Coopers into PACCA’s finances and performance, Lambeth Council served the TMO with a supervision notice, which PACCA disputed, in December 2013. After PACCA made a failed judicial review application, an independent arbitrator said the council was correct in carrying out a special review and serving the notice on PACCA. As a result, the arm’s-length management organisation Lambeth Living, which was reintegrated into the council in June, took over management of services on the estate. 

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson says that if the Bloomsbury EMB transfer goes ahead following a ballot, it is unlikely to be completed before summer/autumn 2016. “It is important the proposals that are eventually developed are fair and financially neutral to both tenants of the estate and those that continue to remain with Birmingham City Council,” he adds. The outcome of these negotiations no doubt will determine what the EMB has to celebrate if/when it marks its 50th anniversary.