The Tenant Empowerment Programme allows local authority and housing association tenants and residents to access independent advice, training and information in order to challenge, influence or control how their landlords provide housing services to their communities.

When tenants get involved in managing their own housing, satisfaction levels generally improve and so does the feeling of community spirit. You can see how successful tenant control initiatives have benefited both tenants and landlords in our case studies section.

There are currently seven options, which provide various levels of tenant control.

1 Local management agreement
The simplest option for tenant management is a local management agreement, where tenants take on some, but not all services (such as gardening or caretaking).  You don’t have to be a tenant management organisation to do this but the cost of the work you take on must be under the EU procurement limit (currently around £156,000).  Local authority tenants currently need to get the Secretary of State’s approval to use this option.

2 The ‘right to manage’ option for local authority tenants
Local authority tenants can give a ‘right to manage’ notice to their landlord.  This means that the landlord will have to work with the tenants to set up a tenant management organisation.

3 The voluntary option for local authority tenants
Instead of giving a notice to your landlord, you can choose to work together to set up a tenant management organisation as long as your arrangement keeps to the EU procurement regulations.  If the voluntary arrangement doesn’t work out, you can still switch to the ‘right to manage’ option.

4 The voluntary option for housing association tenants
This option allows housing association tenants to explore setting up a tenant management organisation.  (Housing association tenants do not have the same ‘right to manage’ as local authority tenants).  EU procurement regulations and VAT also apply to this option.  We would like to hear from landlords and tenants who are keen to explore this option.  

5 Tenant-led stock options for local authority tenants
This option lets you look at your choices for managing and owning homes in your local area.  It might involve setting up a new, community-led housing association or co operative to own and manage the homes transferred from a council.  The transfer has to be approved by the government.

6 Neighbourhood arrangements
This option allows a tenants’ group to influence a wider range of services beyond housing, including street maintenance, cleaning, youth services and policing, in partnership with other organisations and the wider community.

7 Do nothing
The final option is to do nothing.  Having looked at their options some groups decide they prefer things the way they are.

TEP grants are available for some of the above routes.  Find out more about the grants that are available to help groups work through these options.