Press release
19 June 2007
The Cave Review falls short of the radical overhaul needed to provide a regulatory system responsive to tenants’ needs, says the National Housing Federation.
Responding to the recommendations in Every Tenant Matters, the final report of the Cave Review of Social Housing Regulation, the Federation said the review failed to place tenants’ needs as the key driver behind the regulatory system and instead retained an unnecessary bureaucratic emphasis.
In its submission to the Review, the Federation called for the Cave Review to delivery an entirely fresh regulatory settlement, based around greater accountability to tenants.
The Federation recommended that housing association boards take primary responsibility for regulating their organisation’s standards and performance, with a clear and direct line of accountability to tenants. A government-sponsored regulator would intervene as sparingly as possible and only as a last resort.
David Orr, Chief Executive, National Housing Federation said:
“The aim of the Cave Review is, or should have been, to create a system of regulation that improves services for tenants, rather than bureaucrats.
“A regulation system based upon a clear and accountable relationship between housing associations, their boards and their tenants is the best way to improve service delivery.
“The Cave Review can be said to have short-changed tenants as it retains an undue reliance upon an external, remote and bureaucratic process and not enough on putting tenants in the driving seat.”
The Federation has welcomed a number of specific recommendations in the report, such as the creation of a new independent body with the sole task of undertaking regulation of all social housing providers, whether operated by local authorities, housing associations, private organisations and others.
Mr Orr said:
“Many of the report’s individual recommendations make good, practical sense.”
The Federation is also particularly supportive of Cave’s recommendation that non-housing activities undertaken by housing associations – such as employment and skills training – should not be included within the regulatory system.
ENDS