Social housing landlords received new guidance to help them measure their success in tackling antisocial behaviour. A toolkit, developed by HouseMark and the Social Landlords' Crime and Nuisance Group (SLCNG) for Communities and Local Government, offers practical help and advice on collecting, interpreting and using information.
The toolkit explains in easy to understand terms, the information that landlords should collect on antisocial behaviour in order to target their staff time and resources effectively. It will also assist landlords in meeting the requirements of the Respect Standard for Housing Management and encourage even more landlords to sign up to the standard itself.
The guidance has been developed in close consultation with landlords and key national organisations. A panel of 28 practitioners, reflecting the range of different social landlords, has guided the development of the toolkit to ensure that it reflects the needs of the sector.
Junior Housing Minister Iain Wright MP said:
"Tackling antisocial behaviour and helping to create a culture of Respect within our communities is a key part of a social landlord's responsibilities. This toolkit will help them measure and improve how well they perform this important job."
Steve Osborne, Executive Consultant at HouseMark and manager on the project said:
"The Toolkit is a non-regulatory tool that sits well with the Cave reports recommendations for greater emphasis for housing provider self-assessment".
Peter Jackson, managing director at SLCNG said:
"The toolkit has been produced in collaboration with members of HouseMark and SLCNG and will be even more relevant having been influenced by the views of front line staff".
Over 350 social landlords have now signed-up to the Respect Standard in the 12 months since it was launched. Six out of ten social housing tenants, over 5 million residents, live in homes covered by the benchmark.
The Respect Standard for Housing Management: A Performance Improvement Toolkit for Landlords is available on the Communities and Local Government website.
Information Notes
The Respect Standard, which was launched on 17 August 2006 is built around six core commitments:
Accountability, leadership, and commitment.
Landlords need to make a visible commitment to the community so that everyone is clear they take issues of antisocial behaviour and Respect seriously and will deliver what they say they will.
Empowering and reassuring residents.
Landlords and the community need to work as one through involving residents and giving them input into decision making. Engagement and effective communications act to reassure and empower communities.
Prevention and early intervention.
Landlords can play a key role in preventing anti-social behaviour from occurring. Where it does occur if problems are addressed quickly this often gets the best results.
Tailored services for residents and provision of support for victims and witnesses.
Success rests on people being prepared to report and then give support to agencies in taking action. Every case and every person deserves a robust, tailored and sensitive response.
Protecting communities through swift enforcement.
Government has provided landlords with the tools they need to tackle a whole range of anti-social behaviour. Landlords need to understand how tools work and be prepared to use them quickly to protect communities.
Support to tackle the causes of anti-social behaviour.
Provision of support can put an end to unacceptable behaviour by tackling underlying causes. This leads to sustainable outcomes and gets people's lives back on track.
A new way of allocating housing was being planned by Bedfordshire's social housing providers. Consultation on the best way to deliver Bedfordshire's Choice Based Lettings (CBL) scheme was about to be launched, with a series of open day events planned.
Working in partnership, Aragon Housing Association, Bedford Borough Council, bpha, Luton Borough Council, Mid Beds District Council and South Bedfordshire District Council were planning to hold these open days at venues throughout the county, so that residents can find out about and comment on CBL.
Speaking for the Bedfordshire Partnership, Helen Bysouth said:
"CBL is a new way of allocating social rented properties aimed at providing people with more choice in where they live.
"The main housing providers in Bedfordshire have got together to set up a joint scheme that is simpler and fairer than the current mix of housing waiting lists. To ensure it works for those seeking social housing, we are launching a major consultation programme that runs until the end of November.
"Councils, and the housing associations who work with them, still have an obligation to help those people in the greatest need. At the moment, most councils use a 'points' scheme to assess a person's housing needs, but points schemes are complicated and customers often say they don't understand how points are worked out. The Bedfordshire CBL Scheme will be easier to understand, placing customers in a priority 'group' depending on their needs.
"Another major difference is that vacancies will be openly advertised and customers can express interest in properties in which they would like to live. This is completely different to current practice where the landlord chooses the property for the customer. Also, as the CBL scheme will operate across Bedfordshire, the partners will work together to create more opportunities for people to move between districts."
After extensive consultation across Bedfordshire, the aim will be to introduce a full CBL service by 2009.
Fire services added their voice to calls for more investment in decent homes, due to the increased number of fires in poorly maintained properties.
Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union voiced concerns that the repair and maintenance of social housing was an issue of worry for fire services, as they received more calls from poorly maintained estates. As evidence, he pointed to the above average number of calls received from run-down housing estates.
Speaking at the Trades Union Congress, Mr Wrack's union called for a moratorium on further stock transfers or 'privatisations' until the close of consultation on the housing green paper. This was carried by delegates, as part of a Unison motion on affordable housing, asking for local authorities to be given the ability to bring their housing up to standard and build new homes.
The motion also demanded an expansion of options for low-cost homeownership, an increase in the number of rented social homes and more tenant involvement.
Moving the motion, Dave Prentis, General Secretary of Unison, called for an end to the 'bigotry' preventing tenants from having a fourth option.
This was echoed in a motion from Unite, which was also carried, calling on for the Government to create sustainable revenue for council housing and to provide help for councils to plan mixed communities in new developments.
Her Majesty's Courts Service was preparing for the imminent launch of the possession claims online service (October), which will cut the user fee from £150 to £100.
The reduction could lead to savings of around £5 million for local authorities and housing associations who currently make paper claims. However, the discount will not apply to those who continue to lodge claims at the local county court.
Councils and housing associations will be able to link their databases directly to the online service, allowing them to input new claims for repossession of homes where tenants have defaulted on rent payments. The service will let landlords monitor the progress of their claims and it allocates hearing dates automatically.
Online claims will help to ease the administrative pressure on HM Courts Service and the resulting savings will be passed on to users.
