Window of opportunity

Earlier this year we ran a huge consultation exercise on tenant participation compacts for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, speaking to tenants and officers from over 170 different local authorities. The new framework document shows that DETR has listened to our findings and the hundreds of other organisations that responded.

The extra money for the introduction of compacts is welcome, even though £12m over two years only averages about £20,000 per authority. That would barely employ a single tenant participation officer.

The money could make a real difference, however, if it was used to supplement the voluntary effort of tenants to empower themselves through training and networking.

Regardless of the amount, the fact that housing minister Hilary Armstrong has committed money to this enterprise is a symbol of how seriously DETR is about making compacts stick. Nobody should doubt the determination this government has to levelling up standards of involvement across the country.

A number of the core standards have been changed as a result of consultation. Housing benefit administration, repairs and rent collection are now picked out as individual core standards, which will greatly please the tenants we talked to in the spring. Using independent advisors should also now be given consideration and although I would say that is a good thing, it has to be remembered that compacts are about choice and trust. If tenants want independent advice, they should also know how much it costs and what else their money could be spent on.

The checklists of good practice give tenants a set of practical options for tenants and landlords to consider. The framework has moved from theorising to providing a starting point for practical discussions.

That doesn't mean that all tenants are happy with the document. The removal of the core standards on tenant involvement mean that councils will not now have to demonstrate a majority of their tenants are members of active tenant groups or that they looking at setting up a borough-wide tenants' federation. Some tenants see that as a climbdown on a key measure of empowerment others as a positive relief - their authority won't now be chasing round setting up meaningless groups to meet an arbitrary target.

There are also real challenges for tenants groups. High standards will apply when groups are discussing and deciding on housing issues in their meetings.

Some councils could to use these standards as a way of undermining tenants' groups. Tenants need to make sure they have the support and funding they need to operate effectively and use the process to give greater weight to their views.

The key question is how do tenants use the framework to best effect. The compact is full of phrases like "informed choices" and "meaningful partnership" but many tenants still want to know what that means in practice. The Tenant Participation Advisory Service believes there are two very basic principles that need to be fulfilled before any tenant can make a "meaningful" choice about housing.

Firstly if a tenant asks how much a service costs they should be able to get an answer and that applies as much to changing a lock as it does to running a call centre. If a landlord can't do that they are falling at the first hurdle of Best Value.

Tenants also need reliable information in order to make comparisons between landlords. Benchmarking is important here and tenants need to have a say in what they want their authority chooses to measure and compare. More important still is tenant networking. Unless people can directly compare experiences of different forms of involvement and management they will always be at a disadvantage to the professionals who do it all the time.

TPAS already offers a nation-wide information service to tenants and landlords that is busily collecting and disseminating information on the compact. Our annual conference in August is themed around compacts and real examples of practical action will be presented. That is an important start, but tenants need local and regional networks too and some of that £12m should help those develop.

The national framework lays great stress on a fundamental review of services, all services, and there is a long list of core standards. The modified timetable for implementing compacts allows both tenants and landlords to prioritise what they want to cover and when.

The idea of fundamental service review is crucial to the compact process.

Let's take one concrete example. At a TPAS seminar last month, one local council explained how they were reviewing their tenancy agreement. The agreement was to be stripped of every clause that didn't relate to the provision of housing services and the payment of rent. Tenants are to be given the choice over whether they actually want any of the clauses relating to anti-social behaviour or the appearance of the property, for example. They could opt to be treated just like their home-owning neighbours who rely on the police, planning dept, environmental and social services to deal with such issues; nothing is off the agenda.

Taking on basic assumptions about the way services are delivered and run is a fundamental behind Best Value but there is growing evidence that a number of local councils still haven't got the plot.

If compacts are to be seen to succeed, those authorities that have invested a lot of time, prestige and money on systems that consult but don't empower tenants should be in for a rough ride. Some officers may wary of admitting to government that their HIP returns over recent years have - let's say - exaggerated the real extent of tenant involvement. Little real assessment of outcomes of tenant participation has ever been done in most boroughs. Some current bastions of good practice may well be riding for a fall.

Conversely, a number of councils with no history of this activity are now starting with a clean sheet and no preconceptions. If these authorities get due recognition and some others are told to go back to the drawing board then the government will have won the doubters over.