Press release

Six standards for landlords set to benefit eight million tenants
- Social housing regulator takes on new powers to enforce standards -

Date: Tuesday 16 March 2010       Ref: TSA 11/10

More than eight million tenants across the country will benefit from new standards the Tenant Services Authority (TSA) has set for all social housing landlords.

In the biggest shake up of social housing regulation in decades, the six standards, drawn up with tenants and landlords up and down the country, will come into effect from 1 April and cover how landlords need to deal with issues such as tenant involvement and empowerment, repairs and maintenance, rents, quality of accommodation, complaints and anti-social behaviour.

The new standards will apply to nearly 1800 social housing providers in England which include housing associations, councils and co-operatives. This means for the first time tenants will get similar levels of protection and services regardless of who their landlord happens to be.

The TSA will also have new enforcement powers to rely on to ensure tenants get a fair deal, which could include issuing enforcement notices and directing the transfer of management.

Published today in its new framework, the TSA’s six national standards which landlords will need to meet are:

• Tenant involvement and empowerment, including customer service, choice and complaints, and understanding and responding to diverse needs
• Home, including repairs and maintenance and quality of accommodation
• Tenancy, including allocations, rent and tenure
• Neighbourhood and community, including neighbourhood management, local area co-operation and anti-social behaviour
• Value for money
• Governance and financial viability.

The new framework heralds a fundamental shift in how the sector is regulated by:

• ensuring the six standards are based on clear outcomes tenants care about, not detailed processes
• giving tenants the opportunity to agree with their landlords a locally tailored offer on the standards around home, neighbourhood and community and involvement
• embedding the principle of ‘co-regulation’ where discussions about service delivery takes place between landlords and their tenants, not in response to top-down prescription or performance indicators from the regulator
• providing new rights for tenants to be able to scrutinise their landlord’s performance as part of promoting self-improvement and accountability
• placing emphasis on those who govern providers to ensure there is effective performance and accountability to tenants
• withdrawing around 875 pages of guidance notes and circulars that were previously used to regulate by the Housing Corporation
• ending routine inspections for all providers but inspecting for compliance when the TSA suspects a landlord is failing to meet the standards.

TSA Chief Executive Peter Marsh said, “Today is a landmark for the social housing sector with a new system of regulation that will touch the lives of over eight million tenants. For the first time, tenants will have opportunities, backed by the regulator, to influence the services that most affect them and hold their landlords to account.

“I am pleased we have achieved a broad consensus amongst tenants and landlords on our co-regulatory approach – one that ensures that poorly performing landlords are quickly identified but a system that lets good performing landlords get on with that they do best – providing excellent services.”

Where problems are identified and landlords do not meet the standards, the TSA will discuss how the provider is taking ownership for improving their services before using its more formal powers.

Ends.

For media enquiries, contact the press office on 020 7393 2094/2118/2115 or by email pressoffice@tsa.gsx.gov.uk

Notes to editors:
1) Copies of the Regulatory Framework for Social Housing in England from April 2010 and supporting publications are available at www.tenantservicesauthority.org

2) The TSA is the independent regulator for social housing in England. It was set up on 1 December 2008 and currently regulates housing associations. When the TSA switches on its new powers on 1 April, it will also start regulating local authority landlords and other providers of social housing.

3) Case studies – the standards at work for tenants:
Tenant involvement and empowerment
Our performance indictors suggested that repairs and some tenant satisfaction ratings were poor at Birmingham-based Family Housing Association. We had a short notice inspection carried out which confirmed this. Family acted to tackle the issues raised by the inspectors and it put its tenants at the centre of that process. Its tenant panel was heavily involved in developing and monitoring an action plan for the work needed, and the plan acted as a focus for more meaningful engagement with tenants. Some 76% of Family tenants now say their views are taken into account, against 50% in 2008-09, and satisfaction rates with repairs service have gone up by 10% in a year.

Home
Calico Housing Association in Lancashire is running a local pilot on repairs. They wanted to develop a repairs service that had tenants at its heart and engaged local people through a survey on their plans for greater flexibility and choice over repairs.
The survey found that 80% of people said being given a firm date and time when a repair will be completed is important to them; 45% said that ‘right first time’ meant “the repair is completed as promised, even if the operative had to go away to get parts or materials to complete the task.” These results are now guiding how the association makes repairs and they are engaged in developing a meaningful definition of ‘right first time’ to meet expectations.

Tenancy
Halton Borough Council is running a local pilot on allocations. This new approach has enabled housing associations, in association with the council, to establish a common allocations policy. Joining together, the partners consulted widely with tenants and prospective tenants through a customer and stakeholder steering group, face-to-face focus groups, community events, dedicated websites and Facebook pages. So far, the pilot has ensured more comprehensive housing advice and options at the application stage. It has guaranteed an interview for every applicant, where individual circumstances are discussed and staff can explain the allocations process and next steps available. Providers are also much more proactive in working through with customers their options and their reasons for wanting to move.

Governance and financial viability
A newly stock transferred housing association had overstretched itself in its spending and borrowing plans to upgrade tenants’ homes. It was due to spend over £50 million upgrading its tower blocks. Of this, over £30 million had been identified in its business plan, but the remaining £20 million was to be funded from savings it had yet to identify. In monitoring housing associations’ financial performance and viability, we raised our concerns with this association through the annual Viability Review process and regular meetings. As a result, the association carried out a major review on the long-term demand for its tower blocks. It found that it would be uneconomic to improve many of them and that increasingly tenants didn’t want to live in them. A revised asset management strategy included plans to demolish some of the blocks, which reduced overall spend significantly. As a result these changes have put the association in a much stronger financial position and it is delivering on commitments to improve tenants’ homes.