Participation - The Next Generation

Tenant participation and more widely citizen participation are now core policies of central and local government, and public services. Improving users’ and citizens’ involvement in services and in their communities has been a strong consistent theme for many years and has driven huge improvements to participation practice in the social housing sector.

So where does the concept of tenant participation fit within this wider citizen engagement agenda? TPAS Cymru has recently published a significant document on taking (tenant) participation into the next generation.

There is still a view about what “tenant participation” is, that is based on old, traditional thinking about participation. Previous practices and experience from those practices still shape a lot of attitudes to tenant participation.

The more modern view of Tenant Participation is about engaging people and enabling them to have influence over issues that affect them. This is entirely consistent with and a part of citizen participation.

The publication sets out a new ‘model’, the pyramid of participation, which demonstrates a range of important aspects of participation:

• A broad base of different activities with different participants, to cater for the range of different issues and interests, locations, and degree of commitment of different participants.
• Recognition of the different levels of influence and also recognising that higher levels of influence demand higher levels of knowledge, skills and confidence from participants.
• Effective information, consultation, participation and partnership are necessary components of activities at all levels of influence.
• A reflection that fewer participants are likely to be willing and able to contribute at the higher levels, and equally that the wide base is needed to provide feeders of participants with different views and representing different locations or interests
• Both landlords and tenants are included as participants; it doesn’t just apply to tenants

‘Tenant participation’ has become a much wider set of activities that spreads across the scope of services and community issues, and which often involves residents generally. The skills and methods needed for people to become involved in issues and services which affect them are fundamentally the same regardless of the issue or service. Tenant participation is rightly located as a part of wider community development and within a much wider policy of participation and citizen engagement.

A copy of the publication “Participation – The Next Generation” is available on the TPAS Cymru Website. Hard copies can be obtained from:

Amanda Oliver
Information and Policy Officer, TPAS Cymru
Email: amanda.oliver@tpascymru.org.uk
Phone: 029 2023 7303
Write: Transport House, 1 Cathedral Road, Cardiff, CF11 9SD

For more information on this publication please contact:
John Drysdale, Director, TPAS Cymru
Email: John.drysdale@tpascymru.org.uk
Phone: 029 2023 7303