The Government is making £8 million available to set up Tenants Panels where key decisions to improve a local area can be made - such as how quickly repairs should be made, measures to make their streets safer and children's play schemes. The panels can also be used to hold landlords to account.
Funding for the Tenant Empowerment Programme is over the Spending Review period, making £2 million available in each of the next four financial years.
This programme is managed by the Tenant Services Authority. It provides information, training, and capacity building to enable social housing tenants to challenge, influence or control how housing services are delivered to their communities, in order to improve the quality of life for residents.
The programme supports activities over and above the activities that landlords' should provide as part of their regulatory responsibilities.
The Government is also planning to reduce bureaucracy and red tape to make it easier for council tenants to use their Right to Manage, whereby they can take responsibility for managing their homes from their landlords and take control for themselves.
Local authority tenants currently have a statutory right to take over the management of local housing services. The Housing (Right to Manage) (England) Regulations 2008, together with statutory guidance, set out the procedures to be followed where a tenant management organisation proposes to enter into a management agreement with a local housing authority.