Appeal to win
An extraordinary thing happened the other day. Tenants under a broad-based coalition of anti-bedroom tax campaigners brought together landlords and sector representatives to debate a bedroom tax ‘appeal to win’ strategy
Under the chairmanship of Keith Edwards, director of CIH Cymru, the ‘working together Better’ event listened to the argument that landlords in partnership with tenant volunteers should develop an appeal to win strategy that’s producing results elsewhere in the UK.
The event occurred hot on the heels of the Plaid Cymru motion calling on the Senedd to support the repeal of the bedroom tax in Westminster and Labour AM Rebecca Evans pledging to live off the average job seeker allowance payment of £72.40 to raise awareness of the ongoing cost of living crisis for welfare claimants.
Jamie Insole, coordinator of the Cardiff & South Wales Against the Bedroom Tax federation (C&SWABT), who organised the event, said landlords in Liverpool were working in a co-ordinated approach to support tenants to appeal. The combined effort has produced a 58 per cent success rate by providing one-to-one support to appeal cases via Her Majesties Court Tribunal (HMCT) service.
Demonstrating that the approach has merit for both landlord and tenant, evidence was also presented by video link from Iain Sim, chief executive of Coast and Country based in Middlesborough. The social landlord has 78 per cent of its 10,000 working and non-working tenants on welfare, with more than 1,700 impacted by the bedroom tax. He argued that a multi-dimensional strategy is required to stave off the paralysis from over analysis that can arise from overly complex approaches. Sim stated that the association took the decision to support tenants to appeal DLA decisions with the replacement Personal Independence Payment (PIP) with some success.
Welsh Tenants argued that, while landlords have by and large focused on income optimisation for their tenant with good results, better information around appeals needs to be promoted via the Your Benefits Are Changing (YBAC) campaign managed by Community Housing Cymru. Income optimisation does not benefit everyone, with increasing numbers of tenants feeling the pressures of austerity and debt levels steadily rising with job seekers living on less than £14 per week after priority payments and essential items are deducted.
Campaign groups
Bedroom tax campaign groups across south Wales federating around Cardiff, Caerphilly and Merthyr Tydfil argued that Wales has been slow in taking up the appeal route
as a means of bedroom tax mitigation. These groups with the support of trade unions have enlisted the support of Michael Imperato of Watkins and Gunn solicitors. Mike concluded that overly complicated human rights appeal cases have had limited success in the high courts and that by and large the most successful appeals stem from decisions at the First Tier Tribunal driven by tenants.
Between Welsh Tenants, Cardiff, Caerphilly, Vale of Glamorgan, Newport, Merthyr Tydfil and other areas where bedroom tax campaign groups are joining forces, a body of 50 tenant volunteers are ready to support fellow tenants to prepare cases for appeal with the Cardiff group alone having dozens of cases ready to go to tribunal.
Housing association representatives at the summit broadly accepted the need to reach hard to access tenants who are not generally coming forward. The summit reached a broad consensus that the YBAC partnership needed to have more focus on the tenant’s right to appeal decisions they disagree with. Associations present also saw merit in working with organised tenants to support fellow tenants to take on appeals.
Jamie Insole said: ‘Following a hard fought campaign, there is now a very real prospect that social-landlords will provide tenants with the information necessary to take forward successful appeals. C&SWABT will work with Welsh Tenants, TPAS and others to ensure that the requisite support is available.’
However, tenants argued that sector- wide resource support is required to sustain the approach if they are to continue to support fellow tenants to appeal to win across Wales.
For further information about ‘appeal to win’ email info@welshtenants.org.uk
WHQS: Focus on Delivery Charter
Social landlords seeking to involve their tenants in monitoring WHQS planning and delivery have a helpful tool in the form of guidance to help them agree participation arrangements. The approach, which requires them to publish a charter that commits them to some core principles, has received widespread endorsement by the wider body of tenants in Wales.
Tenants who have transferred their stock have the benefit of an in-depth offer document and operational programme that they can use to monitor the promises made. That is not always the case with non-transfer tenants or traditional housing associations or indeed organisations planning mergers.
The basic premise of the charter is to develop a route map for landlords and tenants to document delivery programmes setting out in plain terms the resources, timescales, commitments and processes required to enable tenants to monitor progress towards delivery in line with corporate business plans.
The charter will be even more helpful when local authorities move to self- financing and the requirement to develop a WHQS compliance policy.
A copy of the guidance can be available from the Welsh tenants by contacting steve@welshtenants.org.uk. The WHQS FOD charter was supported by tenant empowerment grant (TEG) scheme and is a collaborative project between the Caerphilly tenants information exchange, Caerphilly CBC, Welsh Tenants and Arnold Philips Associates.