Transfer notes

I am often asked about the factors that determine the outcome of stock transfer consultation with tenants. Analysing tenant ballot results over the years has been both invigorating and unsettling. It's been invigorating because tenants frequently show a breezy disregard for PR and over-packaged offers, are extremely realistic about business planning and deeply suspicious of "something for nothing". But it has been unsettling because there are sometimes depressing signs that, despite enormous efforts to get messages across, misunderstanding or simple denial prevails. Despite the clearest language and commitment, emotion, not reason, often wins the day.

What, then, can counter all this? At bottom it is about trust and confidence. I often wonder where proud councils have gone. There were good logistical reasons for abandoning those grand town halls but with the move, civic pride was lost. Civic centres may be friendly and send the right messages about residents as consumers, but they do not inspire. Experienced officers and councillors who guide but do not direct are a powerful team. Only party politics or, dare I say it, personal politics, get in the way of this; perhaps therein lies the difficulty. So here's the conundrum: we will only get politics out of housing through transfer but transfer cannot happen without politics.