Examination of Witnesses (Questions 940
- 953)
WEDNESDAY 19 APRIL 2000
MS MOIRA
WALLACE AND
MR ANDREW
CROOK
940. So you think you could go to them and say,
"This is a dreadful estate. We are now going to move you."
(Ms Wallace) No, that is not what I said at all.
941. What is the alternative?
(Ms Wallace) Local authorities need to address these
things. They need to talk to each other about it. They also need
to have a focus at regional level to give the overall picture.
Chairman
942. What happens if I bought a house in one
of the areas—and there are increasing numbers in the north
of England certainly - where three or four of the other houses
in the street are empty and are likely to remain empty? My chances
of selling that property are almost non-existent. What do you
do about it?
(Ms Wallace) You are at the edge of my knowledge here,
since the great expert on this has just left.
943. Who is the great expert?
(Ms Wallace) Mavis McDonald, who led the work on this.
Some of the issues that the team she led were looking at, were
how you deal with the low demand in private sector areas, which,
as you point out, not only means that you have living conditions
that are deserted and therefore a problem, but also you have lost
money on it.
Mr Benn
944. Who do you think is responsible for dealing
with anti-social behaviour in a neighbourhood which is in decline?
(Ms Wallace) That is a good question. One of the teams
that worked for us on anti-social behaviour looked at this and
concluded that there was a lot of confusion about this and residents
were being driven up the wall by this. It came to the conclusion
that you needed to establish a clear leading role at local level
and also national level. At local level it saw this as a role
for Crime and Disorder Partnerships; working with lots of other
people besides this partnership, but it felt it needed someone
to haul up a flag and say, "In this area we need to do this."
945. To stop you at this point. Local residents,
who have a problem with a neighbour who is driving them round
the bend, they are not going to get on to the Crime and Disorder
Partnership. They probably will not know it exists.
(Ms Wallace) One of the issues is that they should
know it exists and there are named people who they can contact
about this. This needs to be visible. People need to know what
the rules are. People need to know they will get support. It was
also rather ambiguous at national level. The Home Office has volunteered
and announced that it will take the lead in actually supporting
local strategies. What that team found was that this was a problem—again,
this is obvious—that was driving people up the wall. That
there were lots of people who could help but often their efforts
were not very well co-ordinated. There was a lot of isolated good
practice but it was not shared.
946. Most people—certainly the people
I represent—would think, "Right, it is the council
that we should go to. It is their responsibility." Let me
put an issue to you. Private sector households. The only powers,
as far as I am aware, available for dealing with anti-social behaviour
in private sector property, where the landlord will not act, is
for you to take out an anti-social order. Is there a case for
giving the local authority a power in default of where a landlord
fails to act reasonably against anti-social tenants, for the local
authority to be able to say, "We are going to start proceedings
that may ultimately lead to an eviction"?
(Ms Wallace) This issue came up in that team's work.
The Home Office has now been doing a consultation on effectively
that issue.
947. Do you accept that there is a gap in the
powers available?
(Ms Wallace) Yes.
948. Good.
(Ms Wallace) I do. The issue is how you fill that.
There are lots of issues to debate about how you do that. Again,
I am getting quite into the detail of a report that was done by
somebody else, but nonetheless there is a consultation being conducted
by the Home Office on the specific questions which are set out
in that report. They do raise issues about the relationship between
local authorities and the private landlords. But they are issues,
as you know, that are really hampering the work on the way to
tackle this.
Mr Cummings
949. Are the consultations timetabled, or will
you come back in a year's time and it will still be consultative?
What is the time-tabling for it?
(Ms Wallace) I think the consultation on that is scheduled
to close in the summer, although I will correct myself with the
Clerk if that is wrong. The aim is that the decision should be
announced on that by the end of the year.
Mr Benn
950. Could I put a second difficult issue to
you. Housing estate, area of low demand, housing officers under
pressure to fill the properties as we go on about the void rate,
yet local beat officer says, "I know the person who has applied
has convictions as long as your arm for burglary. They have done
one part of town and now they are going to move here." Why
should we allocate that property to someone who is likely to end
up burgling the neighbours? Is there a case for local authorities
or registered social landlords, in those circumstances, to have
more power to be more selective in particular estates about who
it is they allocate to the properties?
(Ms Wallace) I think every landlord needs to think
who they are putting in properties. I believe this issue has been
covered in the Housing Green Paper, which comes out against blanket
exclusions on the grounds that they do more damage than they do
good. Every landlord needs to think about who he is putting in,
where, and how the community feels.
Chairman
951. The Committee is charged with trying to
produce a report on the Urban White Paper. What would you say
were the three or four key recommendations that we should be pulling
into that report, based on what you have told us?
(Ms Wallace) Based on what we have done?
952. Yes.
(Ms Wallace) What we would like to know is whether
you think the ideas we have put forward in our document are going
to help. If they are not going to help, what is wrong with them.
953. Just the key recommendations from your
document that you would like us to give consideration to.
(Ms Wallace) How you get mainstream services to deliver
effectively all neighbourhoods. Two, Local Strategic Partnerships.
Are they going to work? Do you like them? Can they be improved?
Three, some of the neighbourhood management, housing management,
on-the-spot issues. Do you think we have the right approach to
them?
Chairman: Unless any of my colleagues have any
further questions, may I thank you very much for your evidence.
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