Report on National Tenants Voice at Hull
Background
The Yorkshire and Humber Tenants and Residents Regional Federation were set up some five years ago to give tenants a voice in regional and national policy and strategy setting. To this end one of its key roles has been to hold workshops around the county with small groups of tenants to feed their views into consultation responses. For this consultation workshops were held in Malton, Richmond and Keighley, but in partnership with Bradford Tenants and Residents Federation it was decided to hold a conference in July, the NTV steering group were made aware of this proposal and offered the opportunity to attend and use it as part of their consultation round. Instead they decided to hold their own event in the next city the same day.
YHF and Bradford made the decision to postpone their event so as to avoid an unnecessary conflict. The event was eventually held on the 2nd September in Hull and rather than being on the idea of a National Tenants Voice it was used to look at the emerging proposals coming from the steering group. The attendees came from the Yorkshire and Humber area as well as London, North West and East Midland regions.
Outcomes
From the entire document there were only two areas that either the workshops or the conference could agree with, these were the core values of the NTV, which should be the values of any tenant group and the fact that the roles would be unpaid.
Sadly the rest of the proposals were felt to be far too vague and without clarity on how any of these vague aims and objectives could be achieved.
Across all events concerns were raised about the make up of the steering group and in particular about the level and makeup of the tenant element therein. CLG responses that the regional representatives were imposed due to time constraints held no water with those consulted as the regions meet on a regular basis and the northern federations already had an elected spokesperson in place who was ignored. Whilst no one had a problem at this stage with the NFTMO and CCH having representation on the steering group as they represent a small but significant specialist sector the level of involvement of TAROE was challenged particularly as both their Chair and Secretary have said in public that TAROE board members will under no circumstances sit on the final NTV. At less than 50% of the body, tenants were unsure how what comes out of the steering group can be truly a tenant’s voice.
What every one was clear about was the fact that a genuine National Tenants Voice was needed and that they wanted it to succeed.
However the current proposals hold little to engender a feeling of optimism amongst tenants spoken to.
Key issues that occurred were: -
Ø Proposed structures unwieldy and serious questions were raised as to how independents should be involved, there was little if any support for them having voting rights though all acknowledged that they would be needed in an advisory capacity.
Ø Shareholders, this term caused great concern for some spoken to as it brought forward the term “privatisation”. Whilst it is understood that this is not the case a paper expanding on this proposal in plain English would be appreciated
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Ø Election versus selection, this was probably the most sensitive area for all concerned, the proposals gave no guidance as to how the structure would be populated. Selection was universally rejected as tenants felt they could have little faith in an imposed structure. How election could be organised nationally gave rise to much debate. A national ballot was ruled out on the grounds that it was impractical and too costly. Regionalisation of a ballot was seen as the best option currently available. Again it was recognised that there were issues around this idea, not all government office areas have a tenant structure in place but several do, so one proposal was that each region be allocated five places, where regional structures were in place these should ballot their membership, where such structures were not yet in place another mechanism would need to be found. One possible suggestion was that TPAS have a database of members in these regions and that some method of selection from this be found. This would give a membership of 45 out of the 50 notional places, it was suggested at the conference that the NFTMO and CCH should be given the remaining places as they represent a small but significant specialist section of the social housing market. However a member who said he was on the board of NFTMO stated that he could see no justification for such an allocation as the numbers concerned were so small and thatt hese organisations should work with and through their regional partners. This idea was not progressed at the conference as it would need a round table discussion elsewhere. On the subject of TAROE the position was best summed up by a South Yorkshire delegate (Not a member of YHF) “If TAROE had done their job we would not need the NTV, if the NTV does its job there should be no need for TAROE”.
Ø Nowhere in the paper is there reference to how tenants would get their voices heard at the national table. This was summed up best by a tenant from Richmond and a tenant from Malton asking how do I get heard by this body and how can they find out what I want and need, or what I think about all these consultations that come out? Without a close working relationship with the regions this will not be possible. One possible way to do this is outlined in the previous paragraph. What is clear though from all conversations is that the NTV needs to be a driver to enable tenants to work together and that however it is populated tenants need to have confidence in the structure.
Ø Funding, whilst it was understood that the funding for three years was concomitant with the current Comprehensive Spending Review there needed to be some form of guarantee of continuous funding. The idea of a tenant levy was discussed but problems around primary legislation for this as well as issues around leaseholders meant this had to be put to one side for debate elsewhere. Concerns were also raised as to how the funding would be used, the primary concern was that it should not be used for buildings and a large staff complement.
Summary
All spoken to felt that even as a work in progress this document had far too little meat on the bones. What needs to be clear is how the structures will be populated and how it will relate to the wider tenant body and how it can strengthen tenant involvement in national strategic and policy matters.
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