Do not mourn, organise!
Michelle Glavin sets out plans for a legacy project to follow the end of the Tenant Empowerment Grant (TEG) programme
After 13 years, the TEG programme will no longer be available to groups across Wales. This follows the outcomes of research commissioned to review the support provided by Welsh government to tenant participation priorities for the future, which is available at wales.gov.uk/statistics-and-research/support-tenant-participation/?lang=en
The programme has provided over £1.3 million in grants to 172 groups since 2003. Local authority or housing association tenants and residents in Wales were able apply for a TEG to:
- provide groups with independent advice and support on opportunities for greater involvement
- assist groups to develop the skills and knowledge to become more involved
- create innovative ways of participating effectively within their communities
Just over half of grants awarded fell in the range £4,200 to £8,000. Overall, the average size of grant was around £7,000. TEGs always demonstrated a good geographic and thematic spread, as well as distribution across types of organisation.
The access to independent funding for ‘tenant-helping-tenant’ approaches was welcomed by tenants and landlords with 99 per cent of all projects having the support of both from start to finish. From the outset the programme has been a major source of support for innovation including projects which deliver:
- estate level and landlord-wide involvement in housing management collaboration between tenants of a number of landlords
- increased engagement and involvement of minority ethnic groups
- improved participation by disabled tenants
- tenant driven inspection, review and service design
- options for involvement by young people.
The programme always had a focus on sharing good practice through, for example, the TEG website, articles in WHQ etc. TEG projects also featured regularly at workshops, seminars and conferences and a number of projects won housing and related awards. In the early days there was also a programme of good practice showcase events and a number of good practice guides.
The need to disseminate good practice was identified as key objective for the programme. This includes ensuring that tenants and landlords across Wales were able to draw on examples and adapt them in their local communities so as not to have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ and ensure value for money.
There have been some criticisms of the programme, for example, the diversion of funds to support the development of tenant management organisations and the occasional suspicion that landlords were encouraging tenants to apply for funding that they would have supported anyway. Nevertheless feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with individuals and communities benefiting from the most innovative and accessible resources that have been available over the past decade.
What happens next?
The famous American union activist Joe Hill left as his epitaph the phrase ‘don’t mourn, organise’ and in that spirit we think the challenges should be not to shed tears over TEG’s demise but to work out how we can build on its success and support tenant empowerment going forward. The legacy includes an invaluable source of good practice in participation in different communities, with groups with a range of support needs and on an amazing range of topics and themes. CIH Cymru will be working with Welsh Government to capture all of this and explore ways that this can be added to in the future with other partners in the tenants movement and beyond. Our aim is to establish a legacy project that will:
- review the existing projects and make them available by category and theme
- identify lessons from the programme over 13 years
- capture emerging themes
- explore options for supporting innovation in tenant participation in the future
- establish means to refresh and update good practice developed after the programme ends.
We would like to hear from you!
We would particularly like to hear the views of WHQ readers on what the legacy of the TEG programme should be and how we should support innovation in the future. It would be really helpful to know:
We would like to hear from you!
We would particularly like to hear the views of WHQ readers on what the legacy of the TEG programme should be and how we should support innovation in the future. It would be really helpful to know:
- what your reflections are on the TEG programme.
- how we should capture the lessons over 13 years.
- what ideas you have for supporting innovation in TP in the future.
Please send your comments to michelle.glavin@cih.org
Important notice
To achieve an orderly rundown of the programme it has been agreed that all outstanding projects will be completed by the agreed deadlines and no later than 31 December 2014.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me: Michelle Glavin, support co-ordinator, michelle.glavin@cih.org.