Tories: We will abolish the Tenant Services Authority

The Tenant Services Authority has been rocked by the news that it will definitely be abolished if the Conservative Party wins the General Election.

The shock announcement was made by Stewart Jackson, Tory MP for Peterborough and shadow communnities and local government minister, during a parliamentary debate.

He told MPs: "For the avoidance of doubt, a future Conservative Government will abolish the TSA.

"We believe that what is being proposed in terms of the rationale reveals a fundamental lack of trust in tenants and an opinion that they cannot be trusted to work through properly elected boards with professional officers with registered social landlords in terms of the oversight facility.

"We also believe that in respect of the power to extend the order to local authorities, it could be argued, if one was playing devil’s advocate, that the best regulator is the voter, who will judge the performance of that local authority as a landlord—or a registered social landlord, to use the new name—whether they are delivering the goods at election time."

This week the TSA confirmed its new regulatory framework and the six national standards social landlords will be expected to meet from April 1.

But Mr Jackson told the Commons: "Our commitment is clear. The performance of the TSA has not been good over the past 12 months or so. It was the quango responsible for the extra bureaucracy laid upon council tax payers and central Government taxpayers, which paid the Audit Commission £1.8 million to carry out its basic audit function.

"That body paid a public affairs consultancy £100,000 to arrange meetings with influential Ministers.

"That is the level of waste and duplicity that we see in that new body. It talks about value for money, supporting tenants and core activities at the front line, yet it spends significant amounts of public money on wasteful activities, such as paying a lobbying firm to arrange meetings with Ministers and paying £89,000 on a contract to employ a human resources expert on a consultancy basis to advise on and oversee the entire recruitment process of its board."

"We can therefore understand tenants’ concerns about the TSA. It comes down to this: would you invent this body if you did not have to?

"I do not decry the Government’s rationale for wanting to improve tenants’ democracy, accountability, quality of life and quality of housing—I understand all that.

"But is establishing a new body the best way to do so? We believe that if there is malfeasance and maladministration, it is proper for Ministers to be responsible for intervening in extremis, for the local government ombudsman to be charged with the responsibility of ensuring that tenants are treated fairly and with equanimity and for the Audit Commission to have a role.

"It could be argued—as some have—that even the Homes and Communities Agency should have a role across the country on matters of oversight and assessment of the performance of those who used to be called registered social landlords.

"For those reasons, we are committed to abolition. We do not think that the case for the TSA has been made thus far by Ministers in a coherent and comprehensive way."

In a statement issued today, the TSA said: "The Tenant Services Authority is aware of the comments made in the House of Commons Committee.

"Our focus remains on getting on with the important job Parliament has given us - to secure a fair deal for all social housing tenants in England.

"Last week marked a landmark in the regulation of social housing in England and we welcome the cross party support for the extension of our powers to local authorities which will ensure that for the first time all social landlords will be protected by the same regulatory standards. 

"We've worked hard to develop the new standards in partnership with tenants and landlords and we are pleased that both the Government and the Opposition parties support the standards we have produced.

"Having gained a broad consensus from tenants, landlords and lenders on our new regulatory standards our task is to implement the new framework from 1 April - when our new powers are switched on  - to ensure all landlords deliver a fair deal to over eight million people in social housing.

"In these challenging economic times, we are also continuing to ensure sound governance and financial strength within the housing association sector - where every pound we spend saves the taxpayer £15 in lower private lending costs.

"Our job is to deliver that new regulatory approach from April and to show the difference we are making day by day in our work."