WIREDGOV

England’s affordable housing regulator, the Tenant Services Authority (TSA), has welcomed the government’s focus on Family Intervention Projects (FIPs), which will see a crackdown on anti-social behaviour and crime.

Under the new plans, the TSA will be working with the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Communities and Local Government on a new £15 million Challenge Fund.  This funding will be for housing associations and local authorities to identify and provide support to families causing problems within their local community. Some £7.5 million will be provided by social landlords, enabling them to be at the heart of the delivery of FIPs. 

TSA Chief Executive Peter Marsh said, “The TSA will be providing increased focus on this important issue.  Tenants made it clear to us through our National Conversation that dealing with anti-social behaviour was a top priority.  We need to find ways to help families better manage their behaviour so that the problems they create for their communities are dealt with and not just moved to another place.

“We want to encourage greater use of FIPs within the social housing sector as a tool for tackling anti-social behaviour, which will see landlords working with families in trouble to challenge and support them to change their behaviour and get their lives back on track.

“I have seen first hand that FIPs can work.  During a recent visit to Tower Hamlets, I talked to the tenants of Poplar Harca housing association and heard how it was the tenants themselves who voted for FIPs to tackle local problems. One young woman spoke of how a FIP had quite literally turned her life around.  She is the first person in her family who had ever experienced what it was like to get up in the morning and go to work.”

The TSA is developing national standards which will support the delivery of FIPs. Standards on anti-social behaviour and local area co-operation will ensure that landlords take a comprehensive approach to tackling and preventing this issue. The TSA wants landlords to work with their tenants and local agencies to develop standards which reflect the needs of their community.

The Challenge Fund is a voluntary and match funded programme.  Further details will be announced shortly.

For media enquiries, contact the press office on 020 7393 2094/2118/2115 or by email pressoffice@tsa.gsx.gov.uk

Notes to editors:

1) The £15 million Challenge Fund will include £7.5 million provided by the government (£5 million from DCSF and £2.5 million from CLG) and £7.5million which will be funded locally from housing associations. 

2) The Tenant Services Authority (TSA) is the independent regulator for affordable housing. It launched on 1 December 2008 and currently regulates housing associations. From spring 2010, subject to Parliamentary approval, the TSA will also regulate other providers of social housing, such as local authorities and arm’s-length management organisations.

3) As part of its National Conversation, the TSA is consulting with social housing tenants across five million households and their landlords to develop new standards to improve services for tenants, and will apply to all social landlords.  The TSA will be consulting on these draft standards, which will include standards on anti social behaviour, later in the autumn.

4) Initially the TSA will operate under the legal powers of the Housing Corporation while it consults on the powers set out in the 2008 Housing and Regeneration Act.