Tenants to dictate their own terms

The government is offering tenants the chance to dictate the pace of change as a response to claims that it is rushing through plans to boost tenant participation.

Housing minister Hilary Armstrong has moved to allay fears that some councils and their tenants are having problems establishing their Tenant Participation Compacts in time for next April's deadline.

The news comes as fresh research reveals some councils are still reluctant to hand power to tenants, or involve them in strategy or budget decisions.

Few councils have undertaken any cost or benefit analysis of tenant participation and neither is there much monitoring, evaluation or appraisal, according to preliminary findings research for Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

Armstrong insisted that she expects compacts to "encompass a range of practical approaches including shared decision making and control of delegated powers and budgets".

Speaking at a National Tenant Resource Centre conference, she suggested tenants could take the introduction of the compacts at their own pace by choosing how far they want to participate.

Tenants might want to be given new powers over crucial matters like tenancy conditions, Armstrong said, or simply kept informed on issues of lower priority like environmental work.

She told delegates: "It is a central principle of compacts that tenants should be able to choose how they become involved in issues which affect them."

"They should be able to negotiate and choose to participate in the ways which they feel comfortable and confident with."

Additional compacts specifically aimed at young tenants or people from black and ethnic minority communities could be developed, she added.

The move will be seen as a direct response to concern expressed by councils and representatives on the DETR's Tenants' Sounding Board that the compacts are difficult to digest and could take some time to implement (Housing Today, issue 130).

Local Government Association housing policy officer Jeanette York, who revealed the new research findings at the event, described the minister's new stance as "very encouraging".

She said making the compacts more flexible, would take regional variations such as high numbers of rural tenants into account.