Purpose

Review of Tenant and Residents Association
(TARA) Levy. Several options to be presented to Committee based on
outcomes of consultation with tenants and TARAs.

Content

12.1

The Committee considered a report of the
Executive Director of Neighbourhood Services, which outlined the
results of a review of the Tenant Levy, undertaken in response to a
petition presented to the Committee in September 2024.

 

 

 

 

12.2

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the
Housing Policy Committee:-

(a) 
Notes the outcome of the consultation;

(b) 
Agrees having taken into account the outcome of the consultation
and the further information detailed in the report, that no changes
to the current Tenant Levy amount and collection arrangements
should be made in advance of the wider review of tenant involvement
and engagement;

(c) 
Endorses the development of the approach to increasing the spend of
residual levy in consultation with tenants; and

(d) 
Endorses the approach to providing additional support to TARAs to
help them source additional funding from elsewhere (as detailed in
section 2.20 – 2.22 of the report).

 

 

 

 

12.3

Reasons for
Decision

 

 

12.3.1

The overarching reason for the majority of the
recommendations in this report is that they are based on the
feedback we received from tenants following a successful
consultation exercise.

 

 

12.3.2

The recommendation covering arrears payments
is based on the expected savings to the HRA of stopping these
payments versus the amount of officer time needed to administer
this change. On balance it is felt that the work required would not
justify the relatively small saving.

 

 

12.3.3

840 responses to the consultation were
received, which is a relatively high number (in comparison with
other housing consultations), and from the demographic data
collected we are confident that the sample was broadly
representative of our tenant base.

 

 

12.4

Alternatives
Considered and Rejected

 

 

 

 

12.4.1

Consideration was also given to stopping the
use of the HRA to pay the levy on behalf of tenants in rent
arrears. Making these payments only costs the HRA a relatively
small amount each year (around £16,000), and there would be a
significant amount of officer time involved in implementing this
change (making the manual adjustments on the system to stop the
levy payments being made, and then re-instating them once arrears
are cleared).

 

 

12.4.2

It was therefore agreed that the small
potential saving is outweighed by the amount of work that would be
involved. We recognise that this is not in line with the
consultation outcomes, but on balance it enables us to make best
use of the resources that we have. The option to discontinue paying
the levy for tenants in arrears was therefore rejected.