This is the first of a series of briefings examining in more detail the six new national standards for registered providers in England.

Cutting across each of the other standards, the Tenant Involvement and Empowerment standard is central to the TSA's approach to regulating the housing sector and is at the heart of the requirement to set local offers.

It is one of the more detailed standards covering a diverse range of issues from customer service and choice, dealing with complaints and understanding the needs of tenants.

What does this mean for you?

There are five key objectives for registered providers under this standard. They must:

  • support co-regulation with tenants by allowing a wide range of opportunities for them to be involved in the management of their housing, including capacity-building to empower tenants to do this effectively;
  • consult with tenants to agree 'local offers for service delivery' by 1 April 2011 (see below);
  • provide tenants with accessible information about the range of available services, proposed standards of service delivery and performance;
  • provide tenants with a range of opportunities to influence how their provider will meet the new standards and scrutinise their performance against the standards; and
  • review complaints procedures to ensure they are 'clear, simple and accessible' and allow tenants to raise complaints about failure to meet the standards.
  • In meeting all the standards, providers must demonstrate they understand the different needs of tenants and address equality and diversity issues in the way they respond and communicate with tenants.

What do I do now?

Review your tenant engagement strategy

  • The primary issue is no longer whether you have tenants on your Board but how effective you are at practically involving wider groups of tenants in management, how they influence your strategic priorities and how tenants scrutinise performance.
  • Key to this review is to talk to your tenants about how they see themselves being supported and involved and how you can build their capacity to engage strategically with you as a provider.
  • Our community engagement team (accredited by the department for Communities and Local Government for community empowerment work) can work with you and your tenants in developing your strategic plans to do this.

Adopt a strategy for developing local offers

  • Local offers need to be developed and put in place by 1 April 2011.
  • The first step is to plan how you are going to develop your local offers and publish these in your first annual performance report in October 2010. You will then need to engage meaningfully with your tenants to develop your local offers based on your own (hopefully agreed with tenants) definition of 'local'.
  • The local offer discussions should relate to this standard and the Home & Neighbourhood and Community standards, recognising the need to deliver value for money. The offers should cover standards of performance, how they will be monitored by tenants, what happens if they are not met and arrangements for review.
  • Again, our community engagement team can help facilitate these discussions and translate tenants' suggestions into workable and realistic variations to your core services.

The new regulatory framework document and accompanying annex document, is available at: http://www.tenantservicesauthority.org/server/show/ConWebDoc.20175

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.