Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, 04 Jul 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, July 4, 2000

Official Report 156KB pdf

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Petition

Item 3 is the petition. We will further consider petition PE38 by Glen Oaks Tenant and Resident Association, which members will recall we looked at before. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to request that Scottish Homes take a number of steps in relation to the organisation and improvement of tenant and resident organisations. Members have had the paper on this petition for some time, so I will continue. We have done some work on this already. The recommendation is:

"The committee is invited to note the comments made by Scottish Homes and to consider the general issues raised by the petition (as opposed to the specific circumstances highlighted by the petitioners) in the autumn in the context of the proposed housing bill."

We will look at the generalities of the petition, which is accepted practice.

I have a couple of points. The first is procedural. Scottish Homes said that it had not seen the petition that it was asked to comment on. In future, we should send a copy of the petition when we write to people.

I agree with the general points. Margaret Curran and I addressed the tenants information service conference. The general issue about who are recognised as tenants' representatives in consultation and participation is a huge area that we will have to address as part of our consideration of the housing bill.

We have a responsibility to the petitioners. One of the key points to emerge from Scottish Homes is that there would be an audit on performance standards, which would address whether the association is meeting its duty on tenant participation. We should ask Scottish Homes whether it is satisfied that the association met the performance standards that were being investigated in February.

To sum up, the first point is that we should check that the association has performed to the satisfaction of Scottish Homes; the second is that we should take on board the representations on the right of tenants to organise as they want to organise, as opposed to doing so prescriptively. That is a huge area that we can address as part of our consideration of the housing bill.

Tenant participation is bound to be flagged up, whether we like it or not. I am sure that there will be a drive in the committee to flag it up—Fiona Hyslop and I gave a personal commitment to do that. I hope that there is no disagreement on that.

The point about sending copies of the petition is important. I take it that that can be dealt with. Can we agree the recommendation?

Members indicated agreement.

We agree the recommendation with the proviso—

I am not against agreeing the recommendation, but the Glen Oaks Tenant and Resident Association does not believe that there is proper representation of tenants' views in the housing association. It is not for the Parliament to address an issue as specific as that, but I am not entirely happy with the response from Scottish Homes, which seems to have sided with the housing association.

Tenants must have what they regard as fair and proper representation. That is clearly not the case in this instance. While I agree that we note the recommendation, we should write to Glen Oaks Tenant and Resident Association making it clear that the problems it raises will be part of our consideration later in the year and that we are not just kicking the matter into the long grass.

We recognise the seriousness of what it is flagging up, but we are considering the matter at a more general level.

I support what Mike Watson says. I know other cases, in Lanarkshire and elsewhere, where Scottish Homes has not treated tenants organisations respectfully. When we write to Glen Oaks, we should offer it the opportunity to give evidence when we discuss the general principles of the bill.

I do not want to be unhelpful to any tenants associations, but can we hold on that one—we have to consider a wide range of evidence relating to the housing bill. We shall put that on the agenda but make no specific commitments. It would be unfair if something went wrong

Point out to it that it is entitled to request to give evidence.

It can certainly submit evidence to us. Whether we hear it give evidence is another matter. I would not want to give anybody a definite indication that we will hear them. We will write to Glen Oaks and to Scottish Homes. Is there anything else on that? If members do not disagree, I assume general agreement.

Members indicated agreement.

Meeting continued in private until 12:17.