The Council Tenants Charter
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Foreward by the Secretary of State
The first Tenants' Charter was introduced over ten years ago. It gave you
very important rights. These included the right to buy, the right to stay
in your home and pass it on in the family, and the right to be consulted
about what was happening on your estate. We have added to these rights over
the years, and today's tenants have full, strong legal protection.
This new Council Tenant's Charter offers much more than this. It shows how
to get better value for money and higher standards of service from your
landlord, what to do if things go wrong, and, above all, how to take a more
active role in running your housing. Tenants have responsibilities as well
as rights, and the Charter shows that you can help by taking an active
interest in your home, the area where you live, and the way your council
manages your housing.
The examples of good practice in this Charter show how the most effective
councils already operate. I want all councils to try to reach those
standards. I hope all councils will work within the Chartermark system to
produce their local Tenants' Charters. This new Council Tenant's Charter is
a framework for action by tenants and landlords for the next ten years.
The Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine, MP
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You, Your Home and Your Estate
Introduction
1 This Charter tells you about your rights as a council tenant. It
describes the services the council should provide, and how it should
provide them. It shows how you can become more involved in managing your
estate, and make a real difference in how it is run.
Some of the rights mentioned here are rights you have in law, some of them
are things your council should do as a matter of good practice and some are
things the government plans to do in the future.
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Before You Get Your Home
2 When you apply to the council for a home, it will usually put your name
on its waiting list. You will want to know how the council decides to let
the homes it has available, so that you can be sure you are treated fairly.
You have the right to be told this.
The council must publish a short version of its rules for deciding who gets
its homes. This should also cover its rules about moving people who already
have council homes to other homes that it owns.
* You have the right to look at the full rules at the housing office,
free of charge, during normal office hours.
* You have a right to a free copy of the short version.
* You have the right to a copy of the full version, but you may have to
pay for it.
* Your council should have someone specially trained to explain to you
how the rules work. It should keep copies of the rules in places like
the housing office and libraries.
3 You may want to apply to a housing association in your area. The council
housing office will have details of local housing associations. If you
become a housing association tenant, your rights will be different from
those set out in this Charter; they are set out in a booklet called "The
Tenants' Guarantee". Housing associations must publish the rules for their
waiting lists too.
The address and telephone number of your council's housing office will be
in the local telephone directory. You can get a copy of the Tenants'
Guarantee from the Information Department, The Housing Corporation, 149
Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0BN. Telephone 071-387 9466.
If you are in any doubts about your rights on your tenancy agreement,
consult your local Citizens' Advice Bureau or an advice centre. Details of
Advice Centres are in the directory mentioned on page 29.
4 Your home should be in a good condition when you take it over. If it is
not, the council may be breaking the tenancy agreement. You should ask the
council what condition it will be in. If you have to do work to it, or your
council does, a good council will agree to help towards the costs or let
you pay a lower rent for some weeks until the work is done. (See also
paragraph 6 about the tenancy agreement.
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You Should Get Good Service
5 The people who work for your council should be polite and helpful to you,
before you get your home, when you have got it, while you are buying it if
you do, and afterwards.
Good councils
* make sure all the housing officers who meet the public wear name
badges;
* have answering machines to take messages when there is nobody in the
office;
* answer letters and phone-calls promptly, and let you know the name of
the person answering.
* If a full reply can't be given at once, a good council will tell you
when you will get a full reply.
Good councils
* let you know who in the council does what job, and how you can make an
appointment to see them.
Good councils
* have a comfortable, private office for you to discuss your business,
with a no-smoking area if you do not like smoke.
* If your first language is not English, good councils will arrange for
you to know what is being done either by giving you translations of
important documents or arranging for interpreters.
Good councils
* make sure that every body is treated equally, regardless of their sex,
colour or creed. The council should do what is set out in the Code of
Practice in Rented Housing produced by the Commission for Racial
Equality;
* make it easy for people with children to see council officers. For
example, they provide some toys for the children to play with while
the parents are waiting, and they make sure the toilets are clearly
signposted.
The Code of Practice in Rented Housing by the Commission for Racial
Equality can be obtained from them at CRE, Elliott House, 10-12 Allington
Street, London SW1H 5EH. Telephone: 071-828 7022.
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Secure in Your Home
6 When you have got your home, you have very important rights as a secure
tenant. Most people who rent from the council are secure tenants. Some of
your rights are laid down by law. Some of them will be special rights
agreed by the council in your tenancy agreement.
The council
* must publish, in plain simple language, the normal rules of its
tenancy agreements, saying what it has to do, what it expects its
tenants to do and what its tenants' rights are under the law;
* must keep this information up to date;
* must give you your own written tenancy agreement (and a rent book if
you pay rent weekly) when you agree to take your home, or as soon as
possible after you move in.
Good councils have tenancy agreements written in clear language, and have
someone to explain to you what the rules in the agreement mean.
7 You will be able to live in your home for the rest of your life if you
want to, as long as you do what you agreed to do in your tenancy agreement,
and as long as you actually live there. It is very important that you do
what you have agreed to do in your tenancy agreement. You must pay the
rent, and you and your family must not annoy other tenants. If the council
wants to develop your home or part of your estate, it must offer you
another suitable home. Otherwise, it cannot make you leave if you are
keeping to the rules. If you break the rules for example, if you do not pay
the rent your landlord cannot take your home away from you without taking
you to court first. When you die, one other person in your family who has
been living in your home with you for at least twelve months will in most
circumstances be able to take over the tenancy agreement from you.
You have
* the right to security of tenure;
* the right of succession.
8 You may have some spare room in your home, and want to sub-let it (share
it) or take in a lodger. "Sharers" and "lodgers" are not quite the same,
and so the rules are slightly different.
You have
* the right to take in lodgers;
* the right to sub-let part of your home to a sharer if your council has
agreed in writing that you can.
You may not normally sub-let the whole of your home; nor can you transfer
your tenancy to someone else. It is very important to get the council's
agreement to sub-letting.
A free booklet, "The Tenants' Charter" (Housing Booklet No.1), answers some
of the questions you may have about these and your other legal rights (the
ones in red) as a secure tenant. You can get this from your local housing
office, from Citizens' Advice Bureaux, and from housing advice centres. You
can also get it by writing to Department of the Environment, PO Box 135,
Bradford, West Yorks, BD9 4HU. Sorry, we cannot take telephone orders.
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Buying Your Home
9 When you have been a secure council tenant for two years, you can buy
your home if you want to. The longer you have been a council tenant, the
less you will have to pay for it. Unless you have been made bankrupt, or
live in a particular sort of property, such as elderly people's housing,
the council must sell it to you, as long as you have kept up with the rent.
You have
* the right to buy.
10 Buying your home should be simple and straightforward. There are a
number of stages involved. These are set out in the leaflet mentioned in
the side column. If the council does not deal with your application to buy
your home as quickly as it should, you can send them a special form called
an initial notice of delay. If they do not act in the next month, you can
send them another form, the operative delay notice. After this, your rent
will be counted as an advance payment towards the purchase price of your
home.
A free booklet "Your Right to Buy Your Home", gives full details on how to
buy your home. You can get get this, and a Guidance Note on the Delay
Procedure from the Bradford address listed in the note beside paragraph 8.
They will also give you the forms you need.
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A Home To be Proud of
11 The council and you will look after your home between you. Broadly
speaking, the council must take care of
* the structure and outside
* basins, sinks, baths and toilets
* central heating, fixed fires, and water heaters.
Exactly what you have to do and what the council has to do is set out in
your tenancy agreement. When councils carry out repairs or improvements,
the best ones give you as far as possible a choice of appliance, colour,
finish and so on. A good council will have a proper appointment system for
carrying out repairs so that you can choose a suitable time.
12 The council may not do some of the repairs it is supposed to do by law.
If this happens, you can arrange in most cases for these to be done by
another contractor, or do them yourself.
You have
* a right to repair.
The government plans to introduce an improved right to repair as soon as
possible.
You can find out more about the present right to repair in a free booklet
"Right to Repair" (HB No.2); and about the right to carry out improvements
in "The Tenants' Charter" (HB No.1). You can get both these booklets, and
the new right to repair booklet when it is produced, from the addresses
opposite paragraph 8. You can find out about the statutory nuisance
procedure from Citizens' Advice Bureaux.
The new right to repair will
* make sure you can get urgent minor repairs done (like a blocked drain
or a broken water heater) when your council has not done them
promptly;
* unlike the present right, not make you pay any money upfront for the
repair, but get the council to pay direct;
* encourage all councils to have a repairs service as good as the best;
* take account of your views in setting the repairs covered and the time
it takes to do them.
13 If the state of repair of your home is very poor, and your health or
well-being is suffering, you can as a last resort take the council to
court. You must give three weeks' notice in writing that you are doing
this, to give the council a chance to do the repairs. The magistrate can
order the council to do the repairs, and fine it. This is called the
"statutory nuisance procedure". If you lose the case, you may have to pay
the council's legal costs.
14 You can also make changes and improvements to your home if you want to,
and doing this will not put up your rent.
You have
* the right to carry out improvements.
When you carry out these improvements, including fixing a TV aerial or
satellite dish, and outside painting, you must get the council to agree in
writing first. There may be some restrictions on where you can put a
satellite dish. The leaflet in the side column tells you about these. If
you move, the council can pay you back some of the cost of these
improvements if these have made your home more valuable, though it does not
have to. Good councils will advise you if you want to make improvements.
You can get a leaflet "A Householder Planning Guide for the Installation of
Satellite TV Dishes" from the address on page 11 or from your local
council.
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The Area Round Your Home
15 You, and people who have bought their homes under the right to buy
scheme, have a very strong interest in the way the council looks after
common areas. This is true of inside common areas, such as staircases and
lifts in blocks of flats, and the areas outside, such as private roads,
gardens, car parks and playgrounds. Both inside and outside areas can be
affected by problems with
* dirt and litter
* dogs that are not under control
* dog mess
* graffiti
* poor maintenance, whether of machinery (for example, lifts or
entryphones) or grounds (for example, grass).
* noise.
16 You can do something about all these problems.
* Your council should have a published statement which sets out how it
tackles environmental nuisances, such as graffiti and noisy parties.
* It should have target times for repairing lifts.
* It should regularly clean and sweep all common areas.
* You can use the statutory nuisance procedure described above.
* You can join a tenants' or residents' association and get the
association to take the matter up with your local councillor.
* You can take a more active part in running your estate (see paragraphs
32 to 35 below);
* and of course you and your family can help by taking pride in the area
round your home and keeping your own dog under control.
You can get a free booklet on the noise complaints procedure, "Bothered by
Noise?", from the Bradford address on page 11, or from Citizens' Advice
Bureaux.
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Moving To Another Home
17 If you want to move to another part of the country, but stay with a
council or housing association, and you can find someone to exchange with,
you have
* the right to exchange.
You and the tenant you exchange with must both have the written permission
of your landlords, and they can only say no for certain reasons, for
example if they think your home is too big or too small for the person who
wants it. The HOMES organisation, among other things, helps to arrange
exchanges between secure tenants who want to move to another part of the
country.
There are further details about the right to exchange in the booklet "The
Tenants' Charter" (HB No.1), mentioned on page 11. The HOMES organisation
has three offices: one for housing associations, one for local authorities
and one for the London Boroughs. You can get in touch with them through
HOMES, 26 Chapter Street, London SW1P 4ND. Telephone 071-233 7077. They can
send you a free leaflet describing what they do. Your local housing office
will tell you if your council pays removal expenses to help you move.
18 If you want to move to another property owned by the council, perhaps on
another estate, you may be able to do so.
The council should
* be able to tell you about the chances of a move to the sort of home
you want, and the rules it has about transfers, and you should be able
to inspect these (see also paragraph 2).
19 It is usually a very expensive business to move house. If your home is
too large for you, the council may be able to pay you something to help you
move to a smaller one.
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Your Council Must Keep You in Touch
20 The council must tell you if it is going to make any changes in the way
it runs your home and your estate. It must also ask your views about those
changes.
You have
* the right to be consulted.
It does not have to tell everyone about very small changes which only
affect one or two people. It must tell you about important changes,
especially if it is going to do major building work, or if it is going to
change rules which affect many or all of its tenants, like the way it
collects the rent. The law does not say it must consult you about the way
in which it fixes its rents, but your tenancy agreement may say that it
should.
The council can consult you in many ways
* by encouraging tenants' associations, and consulting them;
* by carrying out surveys and sending you questionnaires to ask your
views on changes it would like to make;
* by holding public meetings to explain the details of what it wants to
do;
* by setting up special arrangements to consult tenant representatives
in an area or on an estate.
It should make sure that the views of people who are out in the daytime or
the evening are taken into account. It should offer you as many choices as
possible, not suggest that there is only one choice. It should give you
plenty of time to reply. It should make sure you can check the results of
consultation. And if it is consulting you about something where it would be
helpful to have experts' views, it should show you how to get these. It
should make sure that everyone, old or young, with or without children,
able to speak English or not, has the chance to be consulted. Good councils
make sure that someone from the housing office sees all their tenants
personally at least once a year, even if they are not consulting on
anything.
21 Since the law was changed in 1989, councils now have to run their
housing much more like a business. This means that the council has to tell
its tenants how it is running the business, just as if they owned it.
Tenants have
* the right to information.
22 The council has a budget for each year which runs from 1 April in one
year to 31 March in the next. When the council has closed its accounts for
the year, it must give its tenants a report on how well it has managed. It
must do this by the next September.
The report must cover
* how many properties the landlord has and what types they are;
* what rent it charges for an average three- bedroom house;
* how much money it gets from the government to help with everyday
housing costs;
* how it organises its repairs;
* how much rent it should have collected, and how much it actually
collected because some people did not pay their rent;
* how much it spent on average on keeping a property in a good
condition;
* how many new tenants it took on during the year, and how many of those
had been homeless before;
* how many homeless people and other tenants it found homes for with
housing associations;
* and how many people it gave temporary homes to;
* how many properties were empty, for how long and why;
* how long on average it took to pay housing benefit to tenants who
claimed it;
* how much it cost to run the housing business;
* how many people there were in the housing office, and how much they
cost.
23 The government expects councils to give tenants more facts than this.
Good councils' reports will tell you
* how long it takes to do everyday things like answering letters;
* how it deals with things that affect your estate, like difficult
neighbours, racial harassment, noisy parties, dogs that are out of
control;
* how it looks after tenants who have special problems, like disabled
and elderly people.
24 A good report will also set targets for getting certain things done,
such as getting repairs done more quickly or cutting the number of empty
properties. You should know if the council performs better from year to
year. This will help you decide whether it is doing a good job, and if it
is doing as well as the next council. You can get reports from other
councils too. All councils' reports are free.
You can get a copy of your council's report from the housing office. You
can get a copy of any other council's report from its housing office. All
councils' addresses and phone numbers are in the Municipal Year Book, which
is in your local library.
25 The facts in the annual report, and all the other information the
council gives you, should be clearly set out and easy to understand. The
government is looking at the reports councils have sent out this year to
see which are the clearest. It will be issuing guidance to all councils in
autumn 1992 on how to make their reports as good as those of the best
councils. It plans to get councils to provide more information for tenants
in the future.
As well as giving you your annual report, a good council will
* hold meetings to explain what it is doing for tenants;
* take the same care in getting this information across as it does in
consulting its tenants.
26 You can also find out how the council makes its decisions on your
housing.
You have
* the right to go to the meetings of the housing committee;
* the right to see the records (minutes) of its meetings.
They will tell you the times and places of the meetings, and where to read
the minutes, at the Town Hall or Civic Centre.
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How Does Your Council Compare?
27 You will be able to compare your council with other councils. The
government intends to introduce new laws to make councils report on how
well they have carried out different services, and how much those services
have cost year by year. Housing will be one of the services concerned. The
Audit Commission will decide the standards to be used in the reports; those
standards will be brought in gradually. The Commission will also have the
job of comparing councils. It will publish results rather like league
tables, and you will be able to know if your council is providing value for
money.
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You Can Know What Your Council Knows About You
28 Your council will ask you for some details about yourself for its
records when it makes you one of its tenants. You can check these to make
sure that the information it holds about you is correct. The booklet in the
side column tells you how to do this and what your rights are.
You have
* the right of access to your personal housing file.
Also, if you fill in a form for housing benefit, you have
* the right to know how your benefit has been worked out if you do get
it and
* if you don't get it, why not.
There is a free booklet about your right to personal information about your
file. It is called "A Guide to Access to Personal Files (Housing)
Regulations 1989". You can get it from the places or the address opposite
paragraph 8 on page 11.
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Do You Get A Good Deal From Your Council?
29 The council must tell you what it does with the money it gets from rents
and from the government for housing. You will get some idea from its yearly
report to you of how it spends that money. But there are other checks to
make sure that your money is being well spent. Your District Auditor must
make sure that all your council's financial business has been carried out
according to the law, and that it has got value for money.
He or she must also
* answer any questions you ask about your council's accounts;
* make sure your council tries to do things as well as the best councils
do them.
30 There are some things that private contractors can do better and more
cheaply than councils. The government plans to introduce new laws so that
your council has to ask other contractors whether they can take on some of
the jobs involved in running its homes. The new laws will make sure that
you as a tenant have the chance to have a say in the sorts of services you
want. If tenants are running your estate themselves in a co-operative or
estate management board, the arrangements they have set up with the council
will not be upset by the new laws.
You can get the address of your District Auditor from your housing office;
from the Municipal Year Book in the local library; or from the Audit
Commission, 1 Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PN. Telephone 071-828 1212.
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What Happens If Things Go Wrong?
31 Many things could go wrong with the way your house and estate is run.
Some of these will be small things, to do with the way your home is looked
after by the council. Others could be more serious. You may think the
council is preventing you from using the rights described in this Charter.
You may think it has treated you wrongly or not behaved properly.
There are many ways to take action.
* First go to your local housing office and talk to the staff there.
* If the people there do not solve your problem, you use your council's
complaints procedure.
You should be able to complain to a named complaints officer if you think
something has been done wrong by someone working for the council. That
person should be properly trained to help you. Good councils have special
complaints forms which you can get easily at the local office, or with your
council newspaper. With proper complaints procedures, no one will take it
out on you for complaining. Your council should tell you about its
complaints procedure in writing when you become a tenant.
If it is a serious complaint, and the council admits that things went
wrong, it should pay you some money to compensate you.
* If you are not satisfied with the way your council deals with your
problem, you can go to your local councillor. Your housing office will
tell you when you can go to see your councillor, or you can write to
him or her at the Town Hall or Civic Centre.
Good councils have arbitration tribunals, with tenant representatives, to
sort out problems where people disagree about things; and these tribunals
can recommend that the council pays compensation when the problem is sorted
out.
* You can write to one of the Local Government Ombudsmen if you think
the council has treated you unfairly. The Ombudsman can recommend that
your council pays you compensation if he or she finds that you have
been badly treated and it is the council's fault.
There are three Local Government Ombudsmen covering England. If you have a
complaint, you should write to the one covering your area. You can get a
free leaflet "Complaint about the Council? How to complain to Your Local
Ombudsman" from your local council, or from The Secretary, The Commission
for Local Administration in England, 21 Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1H 9BU.
Telephone 071-222 5622. The Commission will also provide speakers to talk
about the ombudsman service, for example, to your tenants' group.
* As a last step, you can take the council to court. You should get
advice from a solicitor or a Citizens' Advice Bureau before you do
this. You may have to pay the council's costs if you lose as well as
your own. But the government plans to introduce a simple form of court
action specially to deal with certain housing cases. You will be able
to use it if you and the council cannot agree about your legal rights.
You will not need to use a lawyer.
You can get information on how to take your council to court from your
local county court or Citizens' Advice Bureau. The addresses and phone
numbers of all county courts are listed in the telephone directory under
"Courts".
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You Can Get More Involved
32 If you want to do more to help run your estate, you can. To start with
you can join a Tenants' Association, or ask your council to help you start
one. Many councils already support tenants' associations and consult them
regularly.
Ask your landlord for the address of your local Tenants' Association, or
contact the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) at 48 The
Crescent, Salford, Manchester, M5 4NY. Telephone 061-745 7903.
33 If you want to help run your own housing directly, you can ask an
independent advice agency to talk to you about it. The Department of the
Environment (DOE) funds about 25 advice agencies to help you find out about
getting more involved in managing your housing. They provide free advice
and training to any tenants' group which wants to know about this.
You can get a free list of the agencies funded by the Department to carry
out promotion and feasibility work on council estates from Tenant
Participation Branch, Department of the Environment. (See contacts below.
Further information about Section 16 tenant participation grants and how to
get more involved in managing your own estate is available from Tenant
Participation Branch, Room N10/05, Department of the Environment, 2 Marsham
Street, London SW1P 3EB. If it is more convenient, you can ring the member
of staff who deals with your part of the country:
North West England (excluding Merseyside), Eastern England, South West and
East London: James Gorringe, Telephone 071-276 3928
Merseyside, Yorkshire, East Midlands, South East England, South London:
Bryan Lea, Telephone 071-276 3969
North East England, West Midlands, North and West London: Siobhan Prill,
Telephone 071-276 3272
A video "Tenants' Extra" sets out some of the options for council tenants.
You can get a copy from the DOE contacts listed above. It is free to
tenants' organisations.
34 Your group can ask an advice agency to carry out a free feasibility
study to help you find the best way of getting involved. This usually takes
six to nine months and you will get free training. At the end of this, if
you have decided that you want to help manage your estate _ or run it
entirely by yourselves _ the DOE can give you a grant to develop a tenant
management organisation. This will be either an Estate Management Board or
a Tenant Management Co-operative. Working up a tenant management
organisation usually takes between eighteen months and two years, and a lot
of training is needed. You can use your grant to buy this training from
advice agencies, or you can take on your own staff to manage the
development programme.
35 At the end of this stage, your organisation and the council draw up a
management agreement. Under this you can take over some things normally
done by the council, such as the repairs service, lettings, collecting the
rent and caretaking (or you can just take over a few of these if you don't
want to be responsible for everything). You have to consult the tenants on
the estate, and your management agreement has to be approved by the
Secretary of State. It will take time and effort, but at the end of it you
could be running your whole estate.
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You Can Try for a Housing Action Trust
36 The government has provided money for Housing Action Trusts (called
HATs) to take over some of the very worst run-down estates. The HATs take
steps to improve local living conditions and the local environment. They
may provide shops, advice centres and other such things for the benefit of
the whole community in their areas. In doing this, they may also provide
jobs and training for local people. They also encourage different ways of
owning and renting homes in their area, perhaps by giving grants or making
loans.Tenants are consulted before a HAT can be set up. They sit on the HAT
Boards, and they are consulted and involved at every stage of the works.
37 Now tenants themselves can ask for HATs for their estates, even where
their council does not want one. The government looks at their proposals in
the same way as it looks at proposals made by councils themselves, to see
whether they fit in with the requirements. There are several organisations
which can help tenants' groups which want to look into the possibilities of
a HAT, or otherwise help run their estate.
A list of organisations which can help tenants' groups who are interested
in HATs is produced by the Department of the Environment. You can get a
copy from David Livingstone on 071-276 3281 or by writing to him at Room
N10/05, Department of the Environment, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 3EB
You can get a booklet called "Tenants' Choice" by writing to the address on
page 11. The Housing Corporation also produces different booklets giving
more details about it. You can get these from the Information Department,
The Housing Corporation, 149 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0BN.
Telephone. 071-387 9466.
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You Can Choose Another Landlord
38 If you want to go on renting your present home, but you and other
tenants on your estate feel you could get a better deal from another
landlord, you have
* the right to transfer to a new landlord.
This right is called Tenants' Choice. The new landlord must be approved by
the Housing Corporation. It could be a housing association, a private
company or an organisation run by the tenants. Before any transfer can go
ahead, the new landlord must tell you what rent you would pay and other
rules in the tenancy. It is up to you to decide whether this is better than
staying with the council. If you vote to stay with the council, you do not
transfer. You can get advice and help on Tenants' Choice from the Housing
Corporation.
A list of organisations which can help tenants' groups who are interested
in HATs is produced by the Department of the Environment. You can get a
copy from David Livingstone on 071-276 3281 or by writing to him at Room
N10/05, Department of the Environment, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 3EB
You can get a booklet called "Tenants' Choice" by writing to the address on
page 11. The Housing Corporation also produces different booklets giving
more details about it. You can get these from the Information Department,
The Housing Corporation, 149 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0BN.
Telephone. 071-387 9466.
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You can help your council help you
39 You can help your council and the people who live in your block or area,
or on your estate in many different ways. By helping them, you help
yourself. Some of them are described on pages 24 and 25. The government has
told councils that more money will go to the councils that can show they
will spend it in the best ways. The best ways include properly involving
and consulting their tenants. Councils are competing with each other to
prove that they are the best performers or have the best plans. The
government believes the best plans are the ones that help their tenants the
most, give tenants a role to play in managing their estates and involve
companies and businesses in improving chances for people in the area.
So you can help by
* establishing just how your council involves its tenants in its
proposals;
* insisting that you and other tenants are properly consulted;
* joining a tenants' group and making sure that your council consults
you on all its plans;
* trying to get other people on the estate to take an interest in those
plans;
* replying to the council's questionnaires about what you want;
* giving the council your ideas for improving the estate, not just
waiting for them to do something;
* training to take a bigger role in running your estate.
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The Council Tenant's Charter is for you; use it.
Further information
You can get any of the booklets mentioned in this Charter free of charge,
subject to availability. Except where there is a different address given,
write to
Department of the Environment, PO Box 135, BRADFORD, West Yorks, BD9 4HU.
You can get more information from a local Citizens' Advice Bureau or advice
centre. The names, addresses and telephone numbers of advice centres are
listed in a book called The FIAC Directory of Independent Advice Centres.
You can get this at your library.
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If you have any comments on the Charter, or want to know more about
anything described in it, write to
Mary Edmead, Department of the Environment, Room N13/09a, 2 Marsham Street,
London, SW1P 3EB.
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