Crawley Borough Council to call on government to give local authorities greater powers to scrutinise registered housing providers

The decision was made during a meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday (September 4) following concerns that the way some Housing Associations dealt with tenants ‘was perhaps not up to the same standard that we receive from Crawley Homes’.

There are currently 20 registered providers in the borough, who are responsible for just shy of 3,000 homes.

They are governed and regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing – the council has no powers in that respect.

After a number of concerns were raised with councillors about issues such as anti-social behaviour, repairs and customer contact, the council set up a cross-party group to scrutinise the situation.

Tim Lunnon (Lab, Broadfield), who chaired the group, said that trying to get the providers to engage had ‘proved difficult’, with only Guinness Trust and Hyde Housing Association choosing to doing so.

Mr Lunnon added: “It was disappointing that none of them really seemed that interested in our efforts to try to get them to turn up and just [answer] questions.

“To be clear, we don’t see Housing Associations as a problem within Crawley – they’re a key partner in delivering the social housing mix that we have in Crawley and will continue to be.

“We see them as partners and want to work with them. When you are a partner it would be nice to come along and answer some questions.”

One of the issues raised with the group was that there were times when Housing Associations were given no warning that a tenant assigned to them may have ‘challenging behaviour’.

It was felt that that information should be shared to help with integration.

But the need for communication was the main area of concern.

Chris Mullins, cabinet member for leisure & well-being, said: “To a large extent, these Housing Associations are a bit of a mystery to most councillors.

“We have our residents who live there and who sometimes make complaints to us – but we feel a bit powerless to do anything about those things.

“I would like to see us moving on to building betters links with these organisations.”

Mr Mullins also questioned whether all Housing Association properties were up to Decent Homes standards and whether enough money was spent on keeping them up to scratch.

Ian Irvine, cabinet member for housing, agreed to write to Angela Raynor, secretary of state for housing, communities & local government, about the situation.

Warning that things wouldn’t happen overnight, he added: “While we may have the will, for whatever reason, the Housing Associations may not be quite so keen or enthusiastic to act as partners.

“It’s definitely something we’re going to work on.”