Tenants and landlords at the heart of change

Co-regulation Clear standards TenantsLandlords TSA

The new standards StandardRequirements 1.Tenant involvement and empowerment Involvement and empowerment Customer service, choice and complaints Understanding and responding to diverse needs of tenants 2. Home Repairs and maintenance Quality of accommodation 3. Tenancy agreement Allocations Rent Tenure 4. Neighbourhood and community Anti-social behaviour Neighbourhood management Local area co-operation 5. Value for money Value for money 6. Governance and financial viability Governance Financial viability

Local offers are central to co-regulation Near universal support from landlords and tenants alike Providers should work with tenants to tailor their ‘offer’ in some areas covered by standards Landlords should publish plans by October 2010 for how local offers will be developed Local offers in place by April 2011 Standards and local offers

Bristol – developing a local standard for disabled adaptations across the city Newcastle – developing a standard for all sheltered housing tenants across Newcastle Hanover – giving tenants choice on a scheme- by-scheme basis over repairs standards including response times, targets, costs and contractor Sentinel – cross-Hampshire forum to agree standards for empowerment and involvement, including residents’ survey and benchmarking Local pilots

Local offers need new forms of engagement Tenants have generally welcomed engagement focused on specific areas of service New forms of engagement can be expensive but may save money in the long term No clear pattern of which models are working best, but none are failing Little understanding yet of what happens if local standards go wrong Early lessons from the pilots

Regular engagement Reported performance Complaints Inspections How we assess performance

The Annual Reports to tenants All RPs must share these with the TSA by 1 st October How is the RP meeting the TSA standards? How is the RP going to deliver on local offers? How have tenants been involved in scrutinising performance? How have tenants been involved in producing and scrutinising the report? Limited extensions in the first year only No further guidance from the TSA but guidance from other organisations, e.g. HouseMark and HQN

A look to the future Review of social housing regulation The Comprehensive Spending Review Local tenant panels Tenant Excellence Fund and Tenant Empowerment Grant

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