The Housing Corporation launched a new policy that places residents at the heart of social housing.
People First - Delivering Change Through Involvement sets out the Housing Corporation's expectations on involvement for housing associations. It includes the following:
The policy replaces the Involvement Policy for the Housing Association Sector, which came into effect in April 2004. The updated policy - following the Elton Report and the report of the National Housing Federation's Tenant Involvement Commission - builds on the commitment in the sector to ensuring that residents are properly involved, and the good practice already underpinning that work.
Housing Corporation Chairman, Peter Dixon, said:
"In his report, John Hills set out a vision for social housing which placed residents at its heart. This is a vision shared by the Housing Corporation. We believe that housing associations should do more to involve residents and communities in governance as well as service design and delivery. Resident involvement should be central to the ethos and integral to the management of all housing associations.
"Through the effective implementation of this policy, we are confident that we will establish a strong foundation upon which new post-Cave review regulatory arrangements can be built. Our expectation is that all housing associations, working in partnership with their residents, will seek to ensure that this policy is effectively implemented, and that within housing associations the voice of their residents is clearly heard."
In its February response to the Cave Review of Social Housing Regulation, the Corporation called for:
A re-definition of the core purposes of a social housing provider to reflect wider community needs, interests and concerns.
All social housing tenants to have the same tenancy rights, service level expectations and access to performance information, regardless of their social landlord.
A simplified registration system, open to both housing associations and other private sector providers.
Simplified and reduced regulatory requirements, with greater use of self-certification.
New rights for residents, including increased access to information on landlord performance, resident scrutiny committees, compensation for poor performance, and a new collective right to change housing manager.
Stronger powers of intervention when things go wrong.
The Housing Corporation's commitment to resident involvement was reflected in its choice of 'Empowering Communities' as one of the two Gold Awards 2007 themes. In a special ceremony held last week, the winners of this category were:
Social housing tenants have given a good report for training they received thanks to housing and regeneration group LHA-ASRA.
The tenants, who all take part in the Community Advisory Panel, a forum for residents to share their thoughts about how LHA-ASRA can improve its services, were invited to take part in sixteen training workshops run by staff over the past year. Subjects covered included confidence building, working in groups and how homes are managed.
Most of the training programme was delivered by the Association's own staff, making it possible to tailor it to the knowledge and skills required by tenants.
Participants were asked to give feedback on the courses, which proved very positive. In particular, tenants praised the commitment of staff in organising the courses. An issue raised by tenants was the difficulty some had in attending weekday courses. As a result, the programme is now also run at weekends and in the evenings.
Managing director of LHA, John Stemp, said: "We are very pleased to hear the positive feedback from tenants attending the Community Advisory Panel training. It further demonstrates LHA-ASRA's commitment to tenant involvement, and listening to what our tenants want."
