Non-customers having a role in governance: is that news?

Midland Heart have issued an intriguing press release: "For the first time, a housing association will include non-residents alongside existing customers on a unique decision-making body, giving them powers to shape the delivery of services."

For some time (to be precise, forever) almost all housing association boards have had a non-resident majority. Board members, like myself, have never had the social housing resident experience – and that can be a problem. Having accountants, bankers, lawyers, etc on boards is great in terms of professional experience, skills and “competences” but do some of us bring other baggage and lack some of the most relevant experience?

I don't think that Midland Heart’s press release is actually talking about boards. As always the devil is in the detail. I presume that Midland Heart are creating arrangements for accountability and scrutiny of service delivery - perhaps based on the Chartered Institute of Housing's model. If so, it all makes sense and should be welcomed.

The challenge of meaningful customer involvement remains for all public services.

Putting people into public services: better regulation and inspection

The National Consumer Council has launched a new, short report on Putting people into public services: better regulation and inspection (pdf available).

The report should be required reading for the new Oftenant in social housing. Indeed all regulators and inspectors should be asked to think about the issues raised.

The report warns of the danger that services are modelled on what satisfies regulators rather than the public.

The report’s vision is of a regulatory system that:

1) is organised for the benefit of the people who use services, not for the convenience of regulators and the regulated;

2) inextricably links efficiency, value for money and satisfactory outcomes for the people –specially as new and different providers enter the market;

3) builds on continuous conversation with service users and the public – starting from where people really are, rather than from assumptions of how they might think and behave;

4) makes the most of service users as the experts on what it feels like to receive a service; and

5) builds popular support for difficult regulatory decisions.

I would also add that wherever possible choice and competition should be used to drive improvement – rather than relying exclusively on regulation and inspection regimes. While the regulator and the inspector may ensure recognition of social benefits and costs, promote good practice and protect the vulnerable and poorly-informed, they are not so good at generating innovation, encouraging value-for-money and tailoring services around individual needs.

Supporting student governors - learning lessons from Scotland?

This week I discovered the sparqs website. It is a free service which is funded by the Scottish Funding Council to assist and support Scottish students in improving promoting quality improvement. I am not aware of anything similar in England – we could perhaps learn from our devolved cousins.

On the sparqs website there is a useful Supporting College Student Governors Handbook. (We’ll have to forgive whoever forgot to proof read the web page about it. The odd typo creeps onto this blog so I won’t cast the first stone.)

The Supporting College Student Governors Handbook sets out key information for student governors including how they can engage with their fellow students.

In the Handbook I did find some confusing wording on the difficult issue of to represent or not to represent. It notes: “Governors do not represent particular groups or interests, and as such they cannot be mandated.” Yet elsewhere: “Although you gain your position on the board as a student representative, remember that all of your decisions as a board and as an individual member will impact on other stakeholders too.” I would suggest that student governors are not student representatives but are there to give a student perspective – not least in a providing a reality check in what can be an isolated governance bubble. (I would suggest that the same issues arise for resident members on housing association and ALMO boards – or indeed any board members who are customers.)

I would also query the relevance of the examples of conflicts of interest in the Handbook. They are not likely to encounter the examples given. How many student governors are likely to also be a company director in the construction industry? Examples relating to, say, grants to student unions may have been more instructive when student governors may also be active on student union executives.

Despite my misgivings over some elements of the Handbook, I would like to see something in England for student governors. It would be timely given the profile now given to Learner Voice.

Social housing and self-regulation - CIH on residents leading the way

I’ve not read all of it yet but it looks like the Chartered Institute of Housing have published an interesting report on resident-led self regulation of social housing. Leading the way: Achieving resident-driven accountability and excellence (pdf available) sets out how scrutiny by residents could be an effective substitute to external regulation of service delivery.

While I believe that resident board members are important in ensuring accountability in social housing, they are not enough. (Indeed there is a risk that the most effective resident voices are co-opted.) Likewise other channels for resident representation are not sufficient.

The report sets out a framework for councils, ALMOs and housing associations where board members and senior managers have a formal duty to respond to the queries and recommendations. The resident-led self regulation group (RLSRG) would have “internal and external powers to get responses and drive change where the board/executive is uncooperative”.

This makes sense to me. How can residents be asked to invest time and effort in getting involved unless they know that they will be taken seriously?

Social housing - time to give consumers some clout?

It is disappointing to read in Inside Housing that fewer than one in three of social housing residents in a National Consumer Council (NCC) study said their landlords took on board tenant suggestions for service improvements.

It is noteworthy that residents said local authorities were less likely to provide a flexible housing service or foster a sense of community than housing associations. (Something for the "Defend Council Housing" campaigners to ponder. How about campaigning to "Transform Council Housing"?)

There is a real need to give consumers clout in social housing. That can be done in all sorts of ways. Hopefully we will see a national voice for residents as recommended by the Cave Review. But new forms of accountability and governance are needed with a key role for community gateway housing associations and co-operative housing. Interestingly, the NCC has suggested an approach based on “markets and mutuality”.

The future of ALMOs - through the community gateway?

It was interesting to read in this week’s Inside Housing that some arm’s length management organisations are looking at the community gateway model of stock transfer pioneered in Preston.

As I've said before, I am a big fan of the community gateway model as a form of mutually owned and led housing association committed to supporting and working through resident involvement. The community gateway was designed to reassure residents doubtful about stock transfer and traditional forms of housing association.

If some ALMOs move towards stock transfer into community gateways that is good news for ALMO residents. However, I hope that we continue to see ALMOs surviving and prospering beyond their contract contracts to manage council housing. ALMOs are keeping council housing in municipal ownership while introducing new and better management than what went before.

Of course any change in the status of ALMOs must be with the consent of residents. (Defend Council Housing would love to see any evidence of the "two-stage privatisation" that they have sought to scare council tenants with.)

Cave Report - the single regulator and resident scrutiny panels

The Cave Report on social housing regulation (a pdf is available of the full report as well as an executive summary) has arrived at last! It is a pity that the government appears to be lukewarm on the recommendation of a single regulator for social housing. Surely Cave was right to query the silos in social housing regulation - why should ALMO or council tenants be regulated differently from housing association tenants?

Many of the Cave recommendations were perhaps heralded in advance.

My only initial criticism would be that the idea of resident scrutiny panels as a form of accountability is supported but does not feature very prominently in the report. I would argue that such panels can be more effective forms of voice for tenants than one or two tenant board members - especially for the increasing number of large social landlords.

Social housing regulation - tenants' views

Recently the Department for Communities and Local Government published the output of the tenants’ focus groups for the Cave Review of social housing regulation. (The document can be downloaded.)

As you’d expect from a series of focus group meetings there were a variety of views expressed. Important themes can be found in the key findings:

- local management arrangements in organisations of a “human scale”;

- a common framework and regulator for all housing organisations – including the private sector;

- removing benefit dis-incentives that discourage tenant involvement on boards;

- a national organisation giving tenants a voice alongside the Audit Commission, National Housing Federation and the Chartered Institute of Housing; and

- more choice for tenants – including choice of landlord.

I agree with all those – and have argued on this blog for them!

Hopefully the Cave report will reflect the views of tenants.

The radical, critical and thoughtful contributions of tenants to the housing debate contrasts with the empty rhetoric and anti-housing association stereotyping in this month’s Red Pepper Housing Special (I’ll be cancelling my subscription) or on the Defend Council Housing website.

ALMOs and council housing - the balance sheet so far

The Department for Communities and Local Government has recently issued a Housing Research Summary on Arms Length Management Organisations: Early impacts and process lessons. It is based on research by London South Bank University on these relatively new council-owned companies managing increasing numbers of council homes. It is timely with the tenth ALMO getting the top “three stars” inspection rating last month.

The study’s found:

Overall, ALMOs are delivering significant improvements to homes, contributing to improving the quality of life and the living conditions of residents and communities in local areas.

Its key findings included:

ALMOs are seen as key drivers in creating stable and sustainable communities. Better resourcing of tenant participation is improving access and social inclusiveness. ALMOs are also providing new opportunities for tenant involvement through improved representative structures.

ALMOs have developed new partnerships involving construction and employment

ALMOs have led to significant organisational and cultural change. They are committed to staff, board training and development. There is an impetus to provide the best homes and services for tenants and leaseholders.

It also found ALMOs developing a range of services to local authorities and housing associations. Interesting, it also noted the possibility of ALMOs managing the stock of housing associations – an issue that I have discussed here.

The Study did identify problems and challenges such as the relationships with sponsoring local authorities – but the balance sheet for the development of ALMOs is generally very positive.

Defend Council Housing and "predatory social landlords"

Defend Council Housing have just issued a new briefing (pdf available). It attacks housing associations as you’d expect.

Government's claim that tenants won't be worse off with privatisation but Registered Social Landlords provide 'assured' not secure tenancies and so have higher evictionrates; they charge tenants more in rents and service charges and they are unaccountable.

A single contract for council and housing association tenants is on the horizon – that will take away one argument against stock transfer. Increasingly there is a leveling of the playing field on rents too. Housing associations are unaccountable? Tenant surveys suggest that housing association tenants are more satisfied with their opportunities to participate in decision-making than council tenants. Hopefully we will see housing associations working even harder on this with resident scrutiny panels and/or other forms of enhanced accountability.

Shelter's Adam Sampson, speaking at a fringe meeting at Labour conference, expressed his concern that RSLs were becoming increasingly dominated by the banks and focuson homes for sale rather than their tenants.

Housing associations are only responding to the government’s agenda. Hopefully we will soon see the (long awaited) step change in building for social rent.

I know that housing associations are not perfect. They could do better and at times they can be prone to complacency. But they are not the villains of DCH mythology.

(I should also say that I think that the government should offer another route to Decent Homes improvement funding where councils choose to retain existing arrangements for council housing and these arrangements are demonstrably working.)

What I find so frustrating about so much of the rhetoric from DCH – as well as the prejudice against housing associations - is that it seems to assume that all is well with council housing. There is an unwillingness to suggest any thing other than more cash. Any change in the form of council housing – such as council-owned Arm’s Length Management Organisations – is immediately condemned as “privatisation”.

At least there are people like the Confederation of Cooperative Housing who show more open-mindedness and promote new models of social housing.

Ruth Kelly on Housing Policy and Social Housing

Media coverage (online and in the press) has inevitably focused on Ruth Kelly’s suggestion that all council and housing association tenants should be offered a new "right to own" and encouraged to buy anything from 10% upwards of their homes. Her speech to the Fabian Society is now available online. It talks about a lot more than this.

It sets out four “big policy challenges” in housing:

First - more homes in decent communties. Getting a first foot on the housing ladder is harder than ever today. It is clear that building more homes, in well-planned communities, will be vital to help first-time buyers.

Second - greener homes. With housing responsible for 27 per cent of national carbon emissions, housing policy must play its part in tackling climate change.

Third - while in recent years the rising value of property has brought benefits for homeowners, some have been excluded. As it gets harder to get the first foot on the ladder, how do we ensure that no-one is left behind?

Four - making social housing more responsive to each individual, taking into account their own particular circumstances. Social tenants want and deserve more than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Ruth Kelly also talks about going beyond the 30,000 socially homes per year that are currently being built. There do seem to be other indications that the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review will crank up the rate the social house building although linked with an emphasis on efficiency and innovation. (I suspect that this will not really compare with the 120,000 social homes being promised by Segolene Royal in the French presidential election.)

In the speech there are mentions of the Hills and Cave reviews although Ruth Kelly is careful not to pre-empt them. She does however note:

people can sometimes be frustrated by managers whose performance is poor. So we should think about how we can give people more opportunities to influence decisions when they want better for their estates.

This is could be read as code on the introduction of contestability in social housing management – a topic I wrote about a week ago – as well as the more obvious reference to resident involvement.

Age and governance - a legal risk and some wider thoughts

According to Inside Housing last week (but unfortunately not on the IH website), housing associations with paid board members are exposed to legal challenge on age bars on boards:

A shake-up of employment law has left social landlords vulnerable to legal action from paid board members, lawyers have warned.

Measures introduced by the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 late last year could pave the way for disgruntled board members to file employment claims against housing associations.

Chief among concerns are new rules that dictate how organisations can impose a compulsory retirement age on board members.

I’ll leave to one side the issue of the iniquity of age bars in organisations committed to equality and that the fact that older board members can make an effective contribution to governance.

I would suggest that housing associations put their rules right asap but also think about this in a broader context.

Firstly, housing associations should be adopting the National Housing Federation’s recommended practice of a nine year cap on board membership. I believe the overwhelming majority of associations do so. However, many also have the bizarre provision for capped members rejoining after one year which weakens the cap as a means of refreshing boards with new blood.

Secondly, housing associations should be ensuring that their boards do have a mix of ages. While the NHF Board Members conference last week had quite a few delegates under 50 (and the numbers seem to grow each year along with other evidence of diversity), there is a case for housing associations to work hard to recruit a few more young-ish board members. Linked to that housing associations should be thinking about the practicalities of the timing of meetings, the payment of childcare costs, etc.

Thirdly, housing associations need to think about how they can get the voice of younger residents heard in decision making processes. I’m not an expert in this field so I’ve no easy answers, but I do know it is important.

Cave Review - HAs, self-regulation, contestability and a daft idea

Yesterday evening I was at the National Housing Federation's (NHF) conference for housing association board members. The evening plenary session was on the future regulation of HAs.

One of the speakers was Julian Ashbury who is a member of the Cave Review team on social housing regulation (covering regulation for HAs, council housing and, potentially, private sector involvement in social housing). He spoke about the issues for the Review in a personal capacity.

Ashbury was clearly lukewarm about the NHF’s core proposal of self-regulation. He likened self-regulation to the weak regulation by the medical profession and the Press Council – unchallenging and too “producer-friendly”. (He didn’t mention how the NHF’s espousal of self-regulation could be perceived by the stakeholders and critics of HAs.)

There was more positive talk of “co-regulation” – allowing a degree of self-regulation that is regulator-approved and externally validated. A bit vague but surely more reassuring for tenants (and voters in stock transfer ballots).

I was interested in Ashbury’s thoughts on “market-style incentives”. In particular, he suggested making poorly-performing HAs (and others) give up the management of stock to those who can manage it better. (I said something similar here the other day.) This is essentially “contestability” (the idea that performance can be improved by the credible threat of competition) although he did not use the term. There is nothing more powerful than the thought of losing “business” to make an organisation raise its game.

Ashbury (and James Tickell advises the NHF) recognised the role for residents in the framework. Interestingly he advocated a national voice for residents with a right to be consulted by the social housing regulator – something similar to Energywatch and Passenger Focus.

I should add Ashbury seemed to float one positively daft idea. Letting HAs charge more (less) rent if they get better (worse) satisfaction rates in tenant surveys. Does he not realise that residents might spot that, claim dissatisfaction and vote for lower rents?

I hope some of these ideas from Ashbury are shared and espoused by his colleague Martin Cave when he writes the Review report. Whatever happens, we are in for an interesting debate as well as potentially more freedom and flexibility for HAs and other social landlords – with greater reliance upon good governance and less on strict regulation.

Regulation in housing - HAs, councils and accountability

I would recommend this week’s Inside Housing. In particular, the interview with Professor Martin Cave who is reviewing the regulation of social housing. (PDF available)

I was interested in the comments on regulatory frameworks – especially as its unclear whether the regulatory role of the Housing Corporation will move to Communities England. (I think there is a strong case for keeping regulation independent of this super agency.)

‘I think it is very unlikely that you would want a one-size-fits-all solution for providers of social housing,’ warns Professor Cave. ‘We’re exploring and looking forward to receiving evidence on the appropriateness of having a uniform system of regulation across local authorities, arm’s-length management associations, not-for-profit housing associations and other suppliers, including for profit organisations.

‘Clearly there are major differences in the underlying governance structures of those bodies. In the case of local authorities you have a democratic process that may make it less appropriate for an independent regulator to intervene in the process.’ But since, after all, the business of any landlord is providing services to tenants, there will be some regulatory consistency across the sector. ‘The resident in local authority housing or in housing association housing is basically interested in the same things and that suggests that there should be some degree of commonality in the regulatory arrangements to which those two types of services are subject to.’

While there is a need for flexibility rather a rigid “one-size-fits-all”, I don’t think that reliance on “a democratic process” when council tenants are in an electoral minority is necessarily adequate.

I certainly hope that the Cave review will place strong emphasis on tenant-driven accountability (both voice and choice - and in all the sectors of social housing) in reducing the need for external regulation.

Resident involvement - and exclusion

The Housing Corporation's "Delivering change through involvement" consultation paper should be welcomed. It generally chimes with the talk in the housing sector and through out public services of changing the emphasis from regulation towards accountability to and participation by customers/patients/users/residents

I fear that the requirement for housing associations with over 250 properties to have at least one resident/tenant board member will attract the most attention and debate – with other issues overshadowed. (I believe that housing associations should have resident board members but feel uncomfortable with yet another regulatory requirement being imposed on housing associations when we are meant to be heading towards lighter-touch better regulation.)

The consultation paper notes examples of good practice in involving residents. Several of these are seen in organisations shaped by a co-operative or mutual (member owned and controlled) approach - Preston's Community Gateway Association, Redditch Co-operative Homes. (More generally, these kinds of organisations may well be the key to making stock transfer attractive and winning the trust of council tenants wary of housing associations.)

One depressing note is hit by the consultation paper when it refers to benefit rules and board members:

The Elton Review [on regulation in housing] recommended that the tax and benefit rules for resident board members in housing associations that pay their board members should be revisited. The Department for Communities and Local Government/Housing Corporation joint action plan for delivering the Elton recommendations confirms that this matter has been raised with the Department for Work and Pensions. Regrettably, there are no plans to change the tax and benefit system at this time.

Currently if a board member is paid (or even if they decline payment when board remuneration is adopted by a housing association), they can on occasions lose all their means tested benefits - which could be well in excess of any payment. When many housing association residents are in receipt of such benefits, this puts actual and potential resident board members in a difficult position. They can be excluded from involvement on housing association boards - never mind the mandatory one resident board member!

-