46. Memorandum submitted by the Tenant
Participation Advisory Service (TPAS)
1. TPAS is a membership organisation of
over 300 social landlords and 1,000 tenant groups that exists
to promote tenant empowerment. It is a market leader in Tenant
Participation providing training, information services, conferences
and consultancy work.
1.1 The following response has been prepared
after consultation with TPAS' National Consultative Forum, a body
made up of tenants and landlord officers nominated by TPAS' Regional
Committees. Staff members have also been consulted.
1.2 While this response has been prepared
specifically for the Committee, many of the views contained in
it have previously been expressed.
1.3 The response is subject to formal approval
by TPAS' Board of Management.
GENERAL
2. Responding to the views of its members
TPAS has, for sometime, been a vocal campaigner for a stronger
response to issues of nuisance and Anti-social Behaviour (ASB).
It is the view of the organisation that ASB, if unchecked, poses
the greatest threat to the future of social housing and the Governments'
aspirations for sustainable communities.
2.1 In particular, TPAS would wish to see
greater involvement of local people, including but not exclusively
tenants and residents groups in the design and delivery of responses
to ASB.
2.2 There is a strong view within TPAS'
membership, with which it tends to concur, that current government
policy does not sufficiently match up necessary enforcement action
with preventative action.
THE EFFECTIVENESS
AND PROPORTIONALITY
OF CURRENT
POWERS
3. There are, at present, a good range of
powers available to statutory agencies to support action against
perpetrators of ASB. Government has taken a clear and welcome
policy stance to provide tools which operate at a number of levels
to deal with the problem. In addition, the development of sub-judicial
responses by agencies, such as Acceptable Behaviour Contracts
and their subsequent promotion by government has been a positive
step.
3.1 There are, however, some areas where
TPAS' membership remains concerned. There is a widespread view
that the criminal justice agencies and in particular the magistracy
do not yet understand the importance of firm action where necessary.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that breaches of Anti-social Behaviour
Orders are not always fully prosecuted, undermining the deterrent
value of this tool. Other concerns relate to the repeated suspension
of eviction orders where this last resort is pursued.
3.2 TPAS tends to feel that the powers of
tenancy demotion included in the ASB Act are a useful and proportionate
second chance approach to issues of ASB, however some members
feel that any reduction of security of tenure is a threat to the
basic precepts of social housing.
ISSUES OF
ENFORCEMENT AND
CO -ORDINATION
4. As suggested in paragraph 2.1 TPAS' main
concerns regarding current policy relate to the apparent gap between
the rhetoric of community empowerment and the focus on high level
delivery.
4.1 While many CDRPs clearly function well,
they often remain distant from TPAS' members. Few tenant members
(even experienced activists), or for that matter landlord members,
have access points to express their views at this level or even
have a clear sense of the role of CDRPs in dealing with ASB. Similarly,
anecdotal evidence suggests that some Housing Associations seem
to find it difficult to achieve influence over strategy although
it is vital that their responses are co-ordinated with other agencies
working in the field. At the very least awareness raising work
is required so that local people can see the positive impacts
of their views on local ASB strategies and recognise the work
of CDRPs.
4.2 CDRPs in particular do not seem to be
particularly open to community engagement in strategy development.
It is TPAS' view that involving local people is crucial to developing
effective strategies in most areas of public policy. Around ASB,
the recent ODPM and Housing Corporation guidance for landlords
on producing ASB policies has put a strong emphasis on consultation
with tenants and other stakeholders. TPAS hopes that other agencies
and bodies charged with duties in ASB management will deliver
on these principles.
4.3 While it is absolutely necessary that
work is done to improve the practice of professionals working
in the field TPAS has been concerned by the exclusive focus of
the, otherwise excellent, ASB Units' "Together Academy"
on developing the skills of professionals. If it is accepted that
communities have a crucial role to play combating the problem
then access to training and capacity building should be available
to make sure that activists have a detailed knowledge of the law,
their role in prevention, and the development of negotiated action
with service providers. While it is true that most people will
just want the problem to go away the exclusive focus on professionals
undermines the message that ASB is a societal problem for which
all citizens share a responsibility to act.
4.4 TPAS would particularly welcome efforts
to devolve local control and/or monitoring of services to appropriately
trained and accountable resident groups. This could involve informal
engagement in local ASB management (as with Neighbourhood Watch)
or more formal independent audit of ASB management services. TPAS
has previously demonstrated with its Tenant Led Inspection and
Audit project that committed tenants and residents are generally
very effective auditors of services.
4.5 Despite recent improvements in information
gathering and sharing including efforts to set up a London wide
protocol, TPAS' impression is that co-ordination between agencies,
particularly Police, Social Services and landlords is limited.
Clearly this lack of co-ordination makes tackling ASB more difficult.
Furthermore, TPAS' impression is that many services have a lack
lustre approach to sharing information with individual complainants
and appropriately trained and briefed representative groups. It
should be said that the Government has made its expectation that
information sharing improves absolutely clear. However until the
public, and particularly community groups, are confident that
they have access to all of the information that the law allows
they will believe that they are being asked to provide information
on incidents without seeing the benefits of taking this risk.
THE IMPACT
OF GOVERNMENT
INITIATIVES
5. The Government is to be commended for
the high profile it has given to issues around ASB. While TPAS'
tenant members often raise concerns around the speed of response
to ASB problems or the resolution of individual cases, it is now
less frequent that they say "my landlord doesn't care about
ASB". It seems that social landlords, at least, are slowly
getting the message.
5.1 However, one common concern is that
government initiatives have tended to focus far too strongly on
resolving problems in neighbourhoods of predominantly social housing.
While some cross-tenure tools, such as ASBOs, have been developed
most of the available enforcement tools, in housing at least,
impact only on the social housing sector. This social housing
bias exacerbates a widely held belief, particularly in the press,
that Anti-social Behaviour is a problem exclusive to "Council
sink estates". While it is important to raise the profile
of ASB it remains necessary to make it absolutely clear that the
perpetrators and victims of ASB live in all tenures or negative
stereotyping of social housing tenants will continue to have severe
impacts on people's lives. While the focus on good ASB management
by social landlords is welcome, these initiatives should be extended
as far as possible, to the private sector.
5.2 To return to the point raised in 2.2,
government policy in recent times seems to have focussed very
strongly on matters of enforcement. This focus has gone some way
to strengthening community confidence and there is no doubt that
at times swift and effective enforcement action should be taken.
It is, crucial however, that enforcement is matched up with preventative
action. A higher community safety profile could be given to those
schemes that seek to support people to change their behaviour
as often the link between support provision and ASB management
is not clear. In addition, TPAS feels that adequate support provision
around drug and alcohol abuse is patchy.
5.3 In common with the Governments' view,
TPAS feels that swift action is crucial. It is following with
interest the development of non custodial (and non eviction) approaches
to ASB management. There is great potential in the further roll
out of methods of restorative justice. While careful evaluation
of pilots will be required TPAS also feels there is strong potential
in the Community Justice Centre model.
YOUTH DIVERSION
6. Parenting orders and the youth justice
system have a crucial role to play in diverting young people from
ASB. However, these tools involve a high level of compulsion.
It is to be regretted that mainstream youth and community services
seem to remain stretched.
6.1 To add to this, many youth and community
services tend to remain firmly within local authority control.
While clearly local authority oversight is required to ensure
even spread of services and strategic direction, tenants groups
that wish to provide services to young people in their areas often
find it difficult to access funding and training. Greater opening
out of youth and community services to self organised local groups
would allow for a closer relationship between the older and younger
residents of neighbourhoods.
Disparities in levels of ASB.
7. TPAS is not particularly well positioned
to be able to comment on disparities of levels of and enforcement
action against ASB across the country. A general impression would
be that services are better resourced and co-ordinated in large
metropolitan districts who can support a "corporate"
approach. TPAS' impression is that ASB levels are higher where
there are high numbers of people suffering from other social pressures,
namely overcrowded high demand neighbourhoods in the South and
low demand unstable neighbourhoods in the North.
THE RESPONSIBILITIES
OF THE
PRIVATE SECTOR
8. To return to the point made in 6.2 it
is necessary to persuade the private sector to make use of the
same tools as the social sector. It should be noted that many
private landlords act very responsibly. However, particularly
in low demand areas of the North ASB management is made particularly
difficult by uncaring or absentee private landlords. As a neighbourhood
becomes unstable landlords sometimes fall back on making lets
to potential perpetrators of ASB with little reference to their
support package (or lack of it). If there are problems the landlord
might (if there are rent arrears or a rising number of tenant
abandonments) take rapid eviction action using the shorthold tenancy,
however, this simply causes greater "churning" and neighbourhood
instability. TPAS' view is that only the extension of landlord
accreditation/registration schemes and housing management delivery
agreements, if necessary on a compulsory basis, will address this
problem. TPAS awaits the Housing Bill with interest on this issue.
8.1 There is also a clear and urgent need
to address the seeming vacuum of measures for dealing with Anti-social
owner occupiers.
7 September 2004
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