Councillors and other representatives bag new role after TSA axe

There will be a new role for tenants’ representatives – councillors, MPs and tenant panels – in standing up for the rights of tenants and driving up housing standards, Housing Minister Grant Shapps said after confirming the abolition of the Tenant Services Authority.

The so-called “bonfire of the quangos” – announced yesterday by the Cabinet Office – will see the TSA’s economic regulation functions transferred to a reformed and slimmed down Homes and Communities Agency. Shapps claimed the TSA, the regulator for nearly 1,800 social housing landlords, had made “little difference on the ground”.

The Department for Communities and Local Government said the move would “put local people in real control of driving up the quality of social housing with their landlords, and keep regulation's primary focus on ensuring that lenders have confidence to invest in social housing.”

The axeing of the TSA follows a review commissioned by the Housing Minister in June. It recommended that:

• The TSA should be abolished and its economic regulation and backstop consumer regulation functions transferred to the HCA, “generating efficiency savings in back-office functions and exploiting synergies across investment and regulation”
• Regulatory functions should be vested in a statutory committee within the HCA, legally separated from its investment functions and with its membership appointed by the Secretary of State
• Consumer regulation should be refocused “on setting clear service standards for social landlords and addressing serious failures against those standards, with a higher legal threshold for regulatory intervention”
• Greater onus should be placed on local mechanisms to address routine problems “and to enable tenants to hold their landlord to account and press for better services”
• In order to maintain lender confidence and protect taxpayers, proactive economic regulation of housing associations “should continue as now but with more focus on value for money for the taxpayer”.

Full details of the review of social housing regulations will be published next week but the DCLG claimed that England’s eight million social housing tenants would be given strengthened powers to ensure landlords provide quality housing and are held to account.

The government said landlords would be expected to support tenant panels or equivalent bodies, giving tenants the chance to scrutinise the services being offered and to be involved in resolving disputes. Landlords will also need to agree with tenants what information they need about performance so that this scrutiny is effective.

Shapps said: "The Tenant Services Authority was set up to oversee the financial viability of social housing and to protect tenants. The coalition government is deeply committed to both of these important roles. But in practice the TSA made little difference on the ground with far too many tenants still frustrated by their lack of real power to drive up standards.

"That's why I'm putting tenants in the driving seat so they can scrutinise the services offered by their landlords and hold them to account. They will also be key in resolving disputes and local councillors, MPs or tenant panels will have a new role in standing up for tenants and driving up standards. It's about encouraging local solutions to local problems.”

However, the Housing Minister said better value for money in the sector was needed to cope with waiting lists at record levels and a record budget deficit.

“The new streamlined regulatory system I am putting in place will focus on this vital objective,” he said. “Through healthier balance sheets lenders have the confidence to invest in social housing."

TSA chief executive Peter Marsh welcomed the announcement. He said: “This starts to bring to an end a period of uncertainty for the housing sector and our staff.  We're fully committed to working with the Department for Communities and Local Government and the reformed HCA to ensure a smooth and orderly transfer while we continue to regulate in a way that meets our statutory objectives.

"We're pleased the government has confirmed the importance of ongoing independent economic regulation and is committed to introducing greater local accountability mechanisms to ensure tenants continue to get a fair deal."

Nick Billingham, partner at Devonshires, said it was only a matter of time before the TSA was abolished given Grant Shapps' trenchant views expressed before the election.

"We will have to see just how active a regulator the HCA will be given the slimmed down team they will inherit and also what changes the coalition will make to the regulatory framework – which of course cost millions of pounds to develop," Billingham added.