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Appendix 1 Issues relating to tenants and services

As far as it goes this approach does not provide an independent, self-sustaining tenant body; but it can give tenants a voice and assist community development.
• Housing Action Trust (HAT)
Housing Action Trusts have been controversial in some areas, but there are some very positive ideas emerging.

As with the previous example, this model demonstrates a landlord taking resident involvement seriously. It does not, however, provide many lessons for a tenants group struggling to get a better deal from an old-school paternalistic, authoritarian housing department.
• Tenants and residents associations.
Tenants associations (TAs) are the most prevalent form of residents organisation. They tend to fulfil two main roles – holding the landlord to account, and organising social activities. Many tenants and residents associations belong to an umbrella federation covering their local authority area, and in England these federations in turn are members of a support network called TAROE (the Tenants and Residents Associations of England). The real business of the member TAs and federations is to deal with the landlord, usually their local authority. Where this works well the tenants can expect to be involved in a number of ways. They will have an input into the housing department’s decisions through representatives on housing service management boards, and can request that officers attend meetings on site. They do not expect to have any formal role in allocations matters (15).

This mechanism appears to be capable of tackling serious problems. It keeps responsibility for services firmly with the local authority but recognises that under these circumstances a clear and direct line of accountability must be established. Again, it relies on the landlord’s commitment to meeting its obligations. The next alternative entails tenants taking those responsibilities for themselves, a path that does not appeal to everyone. Many tenants take the line that the issue is to press for the landlord’s salaried staff to do their jobs properly. They have their own lives to lead without taking on those jobs themselves.
From 1 April 2000 a new arrangement will come into force between tenants and their local authority landlords. This includes tenant compacts – agreements about how tenants can get involved in local decisions on housing matters, and how they will be involved in planning, improving and monitoring housing services. From the same date, as a requirement of Best Value, each council will have to show that its services provide a good deal for its tenants.

• Tenant Management Organisations or Companies (TMOs / TMCs).
A TMO is a legally constituted tenant body (usually a Company limited by Guarantee or an Industrial and Provident Society) that has taken over a range of management functions from the landlord. Typically these functions include repairs, allocations, grounds maintenance, security and the concierge, and cleaning. Assuming these responsibilities is a weighty undertaking for a tower block tenant group, and if they are to do so they must follow a process laid down by the government. This involves a programme that includes ballots, capacity-building work, and training – particularly in negotiating and financial management skills.
The programme, which takes up to three years, should help the group to gel. It is delivered by bodies known as section 16 agencies, and is paid for largely by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, which also grants funding to groups wanting to investigate the possibility of becoming a TMO. A similar option is for tenants to form an estate management board (EMB). The main difference between an EMB and a TMO is that while the latter will only have tenants on its board, an EMB includes some local authority nominees (17).
The question arises as to whether the right balance has been struck between ensuring on the one hand that tenant groups are sufficiently serious and well-prepared to take on the responsibilities of a TMO, and on the other making the whole exercise so onerous that perfectly competent TAs decide they would rather put up with unsatisfactory housing management services. The process is also costly (18).
There are some reasons why TMOs can be particularly attractive and effective for tower block residents. Tower blocks are clearly defined but small in size relative to the whole estates that other TMOs may be based on. This can give a high-rise TMO cohesion and focus; and makes it relatively easy for tenants to monitor services. Poor services are often the spur for tenants to form a TMO in the first place. Under these circumstances it is not necessarily difficult for a TMO to outperform the local authority.
A TMO effectively takes on the role of client in obtaining services for the tower block, with a Management Agreement contract with the local council, which has the right and duty to monitor performance and standards. Its role may range from monitoring the performance of local authority or private contractors, to running its own community enterprises to provide the services. This can have a very positive impact on the skills and confidence of tenants, and their sense of responsibility for their block. Efficiency savings can be returned to the community through additional repairs and improvements, environmental services, or internal redecorations for low income residents.
A successful TMO represents a relatively advanced stage of community development and will be able to support and sustain a range of community initiatives. Depending on the tenants’ interests and priorities, it can extend its work beyond the Management Agreement and thus provide fertile ground for further steps to increase sustainability. This could include services for the wider community, links with local schools, etc.
Dangers lie, as with all the forms of association discussed, in power struggles and problems between personalities. Hostile relationships with the local authority may be a problem. Often the fault will lie with the council, but TMOs can create problems as well. They may feel that they are a special case, and their ability to fight their corner may be to the detriment of other blocks in the area.
“Developing tenant management organisations into sustainable social housing will be a long and rocky process, but it is in our view a logical progression” David Birley, Safe Neighbourhoods Unit.

• Community-Based Housing Organisations
In the late 1980s the idea of Community Ownership became a national policy for Scotland under Scottish Homes. There are now over 40 housing associations and co-operatives under community control in areas of former council housing in central Scotland. Research and evaluation (26) shows that these are becoming effective mechanisms for rehabilitating and managing housing. They are mostly of small size, which is making it harder for them to take on larger, employment-creating, projects, which may be run by other local organisations. But the evidence is clear that they are an effective way of delivering services, and building trust and local involvement, at a time when faith in the local council was very low. This approach has not yet been adopted elsewhere in the UK but has great potential and should be actively considered as a way forward.

A2 Neighbourhood Management – moving on from tenant participation.

Neighbourhood Management is in many ways the next step up from tenant management. It is based on the simple core idea that there is ‘someone in charge’ at neighbourhood level, and that such schemes, which are currently focused on estates or town centres, can deliver improved quality of life, can help cut crime and damage and can even save money. Recent research by CASE (the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics) (13) presents various models for this process, and suggests that it works, is affordable and can support and work with both residents and other services such as police and health organisations.
This leads on into the development of neighbourhood warden schemes. The idea of local supervisors, street leaders etc. is not new, but Neighbourhood Management offers a structure in which these ideas can be more fully developed. This could be of great benefit to local environmental projects.
“The way we run urban neighbourhoods in Britain is a key to reversing social exclusion, crime and poor performance on almost every front in our cities” (‘Neighbourhood Management’, CASE)

A.3 Innovative models of service provision

The form of tenant organisation – whether adopted by residents or fashioned by the landlord – and the relationship that it has with the landlord, will have a great bearing on the way that services are provided to the block. These services include day-to-day repairs, more fundamental maintenance and upkeep of the block, cleaning, grounds maintenance, security, waste removal, and heat, power and water.
Traditionally, blocks owned and managed by the local authority received services organised and often provided directly by the authority. This is often still the case, but elsewhere – under the previous government’s Compulsory Competitive Tendering regime – in-house teams have lost the work to private contractors. Essentially, however, the norm remains the landlord, whether provider or merely purchaser, as the body responsible to the residents for the provision of services.
Under this arrangement there is still considerable scope for mechanisms to increase accountability and enforce performance standards. In Southwark the council’s in-house team won the housing management contract, and neighbourhood officers have all-round responsibility for addressing issues of poor performance raised by the neighbourhood forums mentioned above (19).

This is likely to be an area of considerable concern in the near future as the Best Value systems come into operation: such schemes should have a clear commitment to improving service quality.
Tenant management organisations offer a different model of organising services where the TMO itself can decide to take on the role of client, with the ability to choose who to contract to provide services. This can have a big psychological impact – with tenants assuming control of budgets for repairs and cleaning and other services, they find themselves in a position to make demands and assert themselves, with the option of taking their custom elsewhere.
Since they are on the premises tenants can monitor performance directly and check that the bills match exactly with what has been provided. On the Burrowes Street Estate in Walsall the tenant management company has taken over much of the maintenance budget and now deals with contractors direct. It has out-performed the local authority in getting repairs done within the budget (22). At Woodcote House in Hitchin the residents association bought the freehold of their low-rise block from their private landlord, and proceeded to negotiate a much better deal for their service charges (23).

It is this sort of community development that is a necessary, though not sufficient, ingredient in making tower blocks sustainable.
Tenants’ involvement in the provision of services can go beyond the management of contracts – they can set up their own community enterprises to do the job. The Burrowes Street TMC employs a small number of staff to work on various projects, including grounds maintenance. They also secured funding for a Management and Resource Centre, which brings in some income when they let it out for events such as seminars (22).
At Holly Street in Hackney a community trust called the Queensbridge Trust has been formed. This has been the spur for several initiatives with a strong focus on training and community enterprises, which hold contracts for cleaning, minor repairs, landscaping, and the concierge. The Trust is looking to bid for contracts on other estates. It has set up a ‘Job Link’ service for local people and a community centre with an information technology suite and a community café (23).

A. 4 Services: A focus on energy efficiency

Inadequate heating systems are often one of the biggest physical problems in a tower block. This leaves residents treading a line between unhealthy living conditions and high, often unaffordable, fuel bills. The problem lies in the way the blocks were built and the type of systems that were installed. Despite this, towers have tremendous potential for providing warm homes which use energy efficiently and cheaply. This can be achieved by implementing group heating or combined heat and power schemes (CHP).
A CHP scheme (run off a large gas turbine) provides power and hot water to a group of homes. The principle is to capture the energy that is usually lost to the atmosphere in the production of power, and to use it to heat water. Hot water therefore effectively comes as a bonus, without needing the use of any more energy. CHP schemes are particularly suitable for tower blocks because they involve a large common system, and the piping arrangement helps to keep the structure itself warm. A CHP or group heating scheme is also easier and cheaper to service than a system that entails boilers in every flat. The central boiler is housed in a plant room, and its day-to-day operation can be handled by a member of staff as one part of a range of building services responsibilities. This may present an employment opportunity for a local person.
A combined heat and power scheme could form part of a package provided by an energy service company (ESCO). Instead of selling power, ESCOs sell warmth; the idea being to provide the product that people actually want, rather than one of the raw ingredients for that product. This leads to a more holistic approach to service provision – the incentive for an ESCO is not to sell as much electricity or gas as possible, but to design a system which combines good insulation with an efficient power source.
As well as conserving energy, there are financial savings to be made here. After the initial expense of installing the system, the following savings can accrue: first, as already mentioned, a CHP system can provide hot water at minimal extra cost on the back of power generation. Second, it cuts out the distribution and transmission charges that make up a significant portion of any bill from a conventional power company. Third, transferring to CHP can allow residents to opt out of pre-payment meters. These meters are the most expensive way for domestic users to pay for power, and are particularly common in social housing. On all three counts, more money is left in residents’ pockets.
It should be noted that there are also issues around water conservation in tower blocks, with the potential for systems for utilising grey water, improved plumbing, sprinkling taps, and the right to a meter. The Holly St. Estate in Hackney is now considering not only a CHP scheme but also a water borehole, from which water will be sold to the local water supply company under the new competition legislation soon to come into force.

A. 5 Services: A focus on reuse, repair, recycling

Tower blocks are distinct units which, on their own or in a group, can be large enough to support a range of small schemes. Waste reduction is one such area where a project can be organised around a high rise estate. Promoting a project to residents, and the practicalities of a door-to-door recycling collection, can be easier in a block than on a more spread out housing estate. This does, however, depend upon security and freedom from disruption within the block. A few local authorities are piloting the door-to-door approach on high rise estates, but ‘bring’ schemes are more common.
It seems likely that there is considerable scope to increase the level of reuse and repair within housing services. It is possible that tenant management organisations have an inclination to ‘mend and make good’ rather than replace – after all, it saves them money. One area with considerable potential is furniture recycling. Furniture is often left behind when flats are vacated, and the Burrowes Street TMC in Walsall operated a policy of offering it to new tenants, or supplying the local furniture recycling project.

A. 6 Services: A focus on grounds and gardens

Grounds maintenance is another area where the involvement of residents can make for a more successful service. The quality of open space around the base of tower blocks depends in part on the extent to which residents feel it is their space. Tower block grounds often suffer from being open and featureless. However, they hold possibilities for social interaction, contact with the outdoors, relaxation, and gardening and food-growing. As at Appletree Court in Salford, a block might start to reclaim its grounds by putting up a fence, providing a secure area in which residents can invest in creating a mix of communal and private spaces. A project undertaken by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive on the Rathcoole Estate in Belfast was able to release money, previously spent on simply cutting the grass and keeping the grounds tidy, to help fund more imaginative landscaping.