Landlord and Tenant in the UK - Essay Example

 Landlord and Tenant in the uk This paper is concerned specifically with security οf tenure and housing-related empowerment, and this can be defined as any process by which people gain increased control over their housing situation. Such control can be individual or collective, over production or consumption, over investment or management. The paper is concerned mainly with collective control over housing consumption and management, but this should not be taken to imply any collectivist, consumptionist or managerial bias in the treatment οf housing empowerment. It should also be noted from the outset that it may not be possible to draw any precise distinction between a process which gives people more control over their housing and one which gives them more control over their residential environment (encompassing roads, schools, shops, parks, leisure centres, and so on, and including the regulation οf behaviour within that environment). The paper starts by distinguishing empowerment from participation, and makes a number οf comments relating to the recent literature on tenant participation in particular. It is argued that there is a need for a more rigorous examination οf empowerment processes, and in the following section an attempt is made to devise a typology οf such processes which is completely different from any typology οf tenant participation processes. This typology is then applied in the following sector to important recent developments in Britain which have involved, or have been claimed to involve, the empowerment οf residents. Specific means οf empowerment which are considered include the provision οf information, the passing οf legislation, the commitment οf resources, and the transfer οf management functions. The final section οf the paper then briefly discusses the implications οf the arguments on empowerment for the development οf communities and the changing role οf housing management. As Harrison (1995,p. 22) points out, "empowerment clearly means more than ... participation", but it may be worth considering just how much more empowerment does involve. People may participate individually or collectively in an activity without thereby experiencing any increase in their control over their lives. This can happen if those who control that activity simply want to use the participation for their own ends. For example, they may want to make themselves hefter informed on a subject οf which the participants have special knowledge, or they may merely want to go through the motions οf participation without taking seriously the participants' contributions. They may want to promote an image οf themselves as "listening to the people" but without any real commitment to the empowerment οf those people. Participation without empowerment is therefore a confidence trick performed by the controllers οf an activity on participants in that activity. To the extent to which the trick works, it must be disempowering rather than empowering. Those who take this cynical approach, however, should bear in mind the arguments οf Foucault (1980), to the effect that simply entering into discussion about what can or cannot be done is itself an empowering process, so that those who initiate participation, even with disempowering intent, may find themselves forced or influenced to act in ways which they had not originally intended. Bearing in mind the above caveat, there is in fact a good deal οf overlap between participation and empowerment. For example, mechanisms for consultation clearly involve the participation οf those consulted, but the participants are also empowered to the extent to which attention is paid to their views and concerns. This argument is obviously stronger with regard to the forms οf participation where participants can hold decision makers to account for what they do and where participants have some say in the decision making process itself. In these cases, the specificity οf participation is practically defined by the nature οf the empowerment which it creates. It is not the purpose οf this paper to conduct a detailed review οf the literature on empowerment and resident control. However, it may be worth repeating some οf the main findings οf that literature. Various researchers over the years have concluded that resident-controlled housing is both more efficient (Turner, 1982, p. 109) and more effective (Ward, 1976), but this has not been generally recognised by housing organisations and housing professionals until relatively recently. This could be in part because most οf the literature is concerned with housing provision rather than housing use or management (which is the focus οf this paper), a bias which is ironically even more pronounced in more recent writings (Mathey, 1992). It should be noted only in passing, therefore, that there is a growing literature on empowerment more generally (that is, beyond housing), and this literature tends to concentrate on issues οf individual psychology rather than collective action, although it is recognised that there is a reciprocal relationship between psychological empowerment and community involvement and participation (Zimmerman & Rappaport, 1988). On the whole, with one or two notable exceptions (for example, Cairncross et al., 1994), the debate has not really gone beyond a consideration οf what Harrison (1995) calls "therapeutic strategies" (p. 23), that is professional, or possibly self-help, practices directed at improving the quality οf life for disadvantaged citizens. Cairncross et al. (1994) posed the question directly οf whether tenant participation empowered the tenants concerned, and their answer was that "it all depends" (p. 198). Basically, there were two types οf strategy for empowering themselves which participating tenants could deploy: working within the rules οf the game set by their landlord, or contesting those rules by questioning the landlord's definition οf permissible participation and creating new points at which landlord and tenants could formally interact (Cairncross et al., 1994, p. 180) (such points were held by Clegg, 1989, to be particularly significant for power relations). Tenants' groups who followed the latter type οf strategy, however, were likely to have their legitimacy questioned by their landlord who would then use this to justify their marginalisation and exclusion (Cairncross et al., 1994, p. 190). Fortunately for tenant empowerment, then, the structure and processes οf tenant participation offer a rich variety οf opportunities for tenants to gain advantage even while ostensibly playing by the landlord's rules. I have discussed certain aspects οf the relation between tenant participation and empowerment elsewhere (Somerville & Steele, 1995a). There it was argued that increasing participation alone cannot achieve the lasting empowerment οf the participants. What is needed in addition are institutional arrangements for informing, training and educating those participants, and for securing a permanent shift in the balance οf power from landlord to tenants. The paper suggested that tenant empowerment is only one οf three criteria by which tenant participation can be assessed (the others being effectiveness and representativeness), and three different types οf institutional arrangement for tenant participation were outlined, namely internal markets, tenant-led management, and landlord-tenant partnerships. It was concluded that tenant empowerment was potentially lowest under internal market arrangements (although still higher than under many current bureaucratic arrangements), and highest under systems οf tenant control; landlord-tenant partnerships, such as those based on estate agreements (Steele et al., 1995), tended to be more empowering οf tenants than internal markets, but obviously less empowering than full tenant control. Arrangements which are potentially more empowering for tenants, however, may have disadvantages in other respects. For example, they may incur burdens οf responsibility, or they may empower only a minority οf tenants who may not be sufficiently representative οf the tenants as a whole or who may lack the necessary skills or commitment. The key goal for empowerment is that people should be in a position where they can freely choose the type οf participation arrangement into which they wish to enter, and what they need to achieve this is "the right blend οf external support, democratic selection and civic education" (Somerville & Steele, 1995a, p. 278). This paper explores a little οf what is involved in such a blend. Stewart & Taylor (1995) have recently made an important contribution to the literature on empowerment in a housing context. They argue that empowerment can be understood in terms οf four `dimensions' (which have nothing in common with those οf Lukes, 1974): process, degree, focus and ownership (Stewart & Taylor, 1995, p. 13). The basis for this typology, however, is not explained or justified, and therefore alternative typologies are possible. They also argue that "empowerment has to be seen as a cycle" (p. 18), and in their conclusion they describe what they call "a cycle οf disempowerment" (p. 66), according to which disempowerment flows through structures οf exclusion, isolation, dependency and marginalisation. The ontological status οf these structures (or `levels', as they call them), however, is not clear. They may perhaps be processes, but if they are really structures we need to know what sort οf structures they are, how they bring about the effects they do, how they relate to the dimensions outlined at the beginning, and how they fit in with the theoretical literature on power (Lukes, Clegg, etc). For these reasons, it would appear that Stewart & Taylor's analysis needs to be developed further and with greater rigour, and this task is attempted in the next section. Finally, empowerment needs to be distinguished from sustainable development, with which it overlaps (Dwelly, 1996; Fordham, 1995). Essentially, sustainability is about ensuring that the consumption οf resources by the current generation does not occur at the expense οf the next generation. It can be argued that those living in an area are those who are most concerned for the future οf the children in that area. If this is correct, then it follows that the empowerment οf residents in that area will be most conducive to its sustainable development, and that improvements in the area, including such things as resident participation, are unlikely to be sustainable without such empowerment. Typologies οf Empowerment Processes If we think οf empowerment primarily as a process, then it is possible to classify such processes in a number οf different ways. A useful starting point here is Stewart & Taylor's two-dimensional model οf empowerment processes, which is reproduced in Figure 1 (Stewart & Taylor, 1995, p. 15). Essentially, this model interprets empowerment in terms οf the strategic options available to individuals or groups οf people in dealing with powerful organisations. The first dimension οf the model indicates that people can exercise active options such as voice and exit, or passive options such as loyalty or alienation. The second dimension, by contrast, sets out options as either constructive, like voice or loyalty, or destructor, like exit or alienation. This is an interesting model, but it has its problems. It is difficult to see, for example, how alienation can be represented as a process οf empowerment: rather, it looks like disempowerment. This thought then raises the question οf what exactly is the nature οf the empowerment involved in each strategic option. For the exit option, for example, it could be argued that empowerment results not so much from the actual exercise οf the option as from being given the power so to do it. This is because the reality οf exit could be destructive and therefore disempowering for the people who follow this route, whereas the potential to exit can in some situations be used as a weapon to achieve improvements in their living or working conditions. Again, in the case οf the loyalty option, it is difficult to see how such a passive strategy can involve empowerment, but on the other hand it is not necessarily disempowering either: it all depends on the nature οf the relationship with the organisation to which loyalty is being pledged. Finally, even the exercise οf the voice option is not a straightforward empowering process, because, as mentioned in the previous section, participation in itself does not necessarily change anything (Foucault notwithstanding). The link between the model and the reality οf empowerment processes therefore appears tenuous. In order to develop improved typologies οf empowerment processes, it is necessary to look behind the model οf voice/exit/loyalty/alienation and consider how the people-organisation relation is structured and how it is changing through time. Such a consideration suggests that empowerment processes can be classified according to the source οf empowerment activity (those with power or those without power), the change in dependency relations between the two parties (increased dependence or increased independence), and the general effect on the organisations and institutions involved (conserving, restructuring or fragmenting). Stewart & Taylor's model applies only to the last οf these classificatory criteria, and even then only in a modified form. In addition, the concerns which Stewart & Taylor have with the focus and ownership οf empowerment could be covered by means οf a classification in terms οf the population which is the recipient or beneficiary οf the empowerment flows (in general terms, selected individuals or groups οf people, in a variety οf roles). In the case οf the first classification criterion, namely that οf the source οf empowerment, the process οf empowerment can either originate from those who have the power and move towards those who are to be empowered, or it can start with those seeking to be empowered and move towards those who already have the power. Empowerment processes οf the former orientation can be described as moving in a `top-down' direction, while those οf the latter orientation can be labelled as `bottom-up' processes. This is an important distinction, which has been prefigured in Turner's (1990) distinction between citizenship developed from above (so-called `passive' citizenship) and that developed from below (`active' citizenship). In practice, it is often assumed that empowerment is led from the top, as in so-called `top-down' approaches to the analysis οf policy implementation (Sabatier, 1986). In the case οf Stewart & Taylor (1995), however, as pointed out above, empowerment is characterised in terms οf fundamental strategic choices made at the `bottom' (although such choices are perhaps enabled and shaped by decisions made at the `top'?). Second, power can flow in such a way as either to increase the independence οf those affected, or to make them more dependent on others, or to leave dependency relations more or less unchanged. There is a tendency to assume that empowerment must involve increasing independence, but this is not the case (for example, partnerships between organisations will increase their dependence upon each other but may also at the same time widen their overall sphere οf action and influence). The assumption arises because empowerment is identified with enabling while dependence is commonly (and wrongly) associated with impairment, and impairment is in turn assumed to be disempowering (which it often is but does not have to be). The reality is that we are all interdependent, but some are more interdependent than others, and the degree οf interdependence is not necessarily related to the capacity for reciprocity (which is a function οf the power that can be exercised in the context οf interdependence). This point is explained further below. Third, there is an issue concerning whether empowerment involves deregulation or improved regulation. Both can be liberating, but in quite different ways. For example, for housing tenants, the goal could be that οf freedom from landlords (which would οf course mean the end οf rented housing), expressed through exercise οf the exit option, or it could be a more equal partnership with their landlord and with landlords generally (involving mutual dependency), achieved through the voice option. Alternatively, tenants may not seek to change their power relation with their landlord at all, but only to receive better services from that landlord, which may have the effect οf empowering them in other ways (for example, an improved repairs service may save the tenant time and trouble which can then be devoted to more productive activities). Such tenants, whether they know it or not, are exercising the loyalty option. All three goals therefore involve empowerment, but the institutional outcomes are completely different. Empowerment processes can therefore be characterised as `conservative', in the sense that they tend to conserve, and possibly enhance and expand, existing institutional structures, or `radical', in the sense that they tend to break up existing institutional structures and create separate new power bases, untrammelled by the old systems οf regulation, or they could be `egalitarian' or `reformist', in the sense that they tend to reform existing institutions into structures within which power is more equally distributed. In the case οf radical empowerment, if the new power bases were actually to supplant the old ones, the effect could be described as `revolutionary' change. The distinction between `conservative', `reformist' end `radical' empowerment cuts across the other two distinctions, between `top-down' and `bottom-up' empowerment orientations and between increasing and decreasing dependency effects. For example, the right to manage conferred on council tenants by the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 is a `radical' empowerment measure because it enables tenants to free themselves from local authority managerial control, and it is `top-down' empowerment because the initiative was driven entirely by central government with little support or even interest from tenants themselves. As for dependency effects, it might seem that the exercise οf the right to manage by a tenants' group would increase the independence οf that group because it would no longer have to rely on the local authority. In practice, however, the independence οf the new tenant management organisation could prove illusory, as it would continue to be dependent on other organisations, especially for funding, and these organisations would include, inevitably, the local authority itself. A final way to classify empowerment processes is in terms οf the intended or actual recipients or beneficiaries οf empowerment flows, and in particular whether they empower separate individual persons and elites, or broad collectivities and the mass οf people generally. This is primarily an issue οf the ownership οf the empowerment which takes place, although in practice ownership is inseparable from the specific content οf the empowering mechanisms (which Stewart & Taylor call the `focus' οf empowerment--Stewart & Taylor, 1995, p. 17). An estate agreement, for example, could be jointly owned by the collectivity οf estate residents and estate office staff, and this joint ownership would be inextricable from the specific focus οf the agreement on standards for housing service delivery and priorities for dealing with the estate's problems. On the other hand, however, the agreement might be seen as being owned by the housing organisation or its intermediaries, with the result that the agreement differs little from an orthodox individual tenancy agreement (Steele et al., 1995). Alternatively, it is possible that the agreement might be seen as owned by an elite group οf tenants, so that the focus οf the agreement is partial and insufficiently inclusive. There are some rights, such as the Right to Buy, whose exercise leads to the empowerment only οf individuals. In terms οf the distinctions drawn above, the Right to Buy is a `top-down' `radical' policy which creates independence to the extent that the purchasers become responsible for the maintenance and management, and possible improvement, οf their own home, and are no longer dependent on a landlord for the provision οf such services. The `radical' nature οf the policy can be clearly grasped from the fact that the Right to Buy is a right not just to exit from landlord control but to take one's residence with one, thereby undermining, if only slightly, the landlord's asset base. Empowerment processes can be further distinguished according to their spatial focus or level οf operation, for example empowerment at the level οf a neighbourhood or housing estate, empowerment at the level οf a local authority area, or empowerment at a national level. In practice, however, these different levels are intertwined in complex ways, and some illustrations οf this are discussed below. Discussion οf empowerment has in recent years been unnecessarily complicated by the introduction οf terms such as `social exclusion' and `underclass'. As Room has pointed out, notions οf social exclusion derive from conservative types οf welfare regime (Room, 1995, p. 106), and indeed strategies οf social inclusion can be identified with the conservative processes οf empowerment referred to above. In contrast, strategies for equality in power and resources which derive from social democratic welfare regimes can be identified with reformist or egalitarian empowerment processes. Some Applications οf Empowerment Typologies So far, the argument has been conducted at a fairly abstract level. The typologies developed above now need to be tested in relation to real housing policy processes. This paper concentrates primarily on issues οf tenant participation. Ultimately, the aim is to show how an empowerment-focused approach can provide a means for the evaluation οf housing and housing-related policy which will be οf benefit to all. Provisionally, for the purposes οf evaluation, `top-down' processes οf empowerment can be analysed under four headings: (1) the communication οf appropriate information, training and education; (2) the conferral οf specific individual and collective rights; (3) the provision οf appropriate financial and other resources; and (4) the transfer or recognition οf specific powers οf negotiation, decision-making and monitoring. Similarly, `bottom-up' processes οf empowerment fall into four main types: (1) increasing informal and formal participation in collective activity; (2) increasing exercise οf rights conferred through `top-down' processes; (3) increasing assertiveness in access to resources required for participation and for the exercise οf conferred rights; and (4) increasing pressure for participation in decision-making processes. In this section, some examples are considered οf these types οf empowerment processes. It should be noted that in each case what is occurring is a specific flow οf power or influence to tenants, either as individuals or as members οf specific groups (or in specific official positions) or as tenants in general. The main difference between `top-down' and `bottom-up' processes is simply that in the former case the flow οf power is initiated by the landlord, while in the latter case it is activated by the tenants. It is important to realise that this does not mean in either case that the power is actually flowing from the landlord, although this may well be happening in some situations (for example, with regard to the resourcing οf tenants' organisations). Instead, it could be the result οf growing co-operation and understanding between landlord and tenant, which work to the benefit οf both parties: mutual growth enhances the power οf the partnership between them, and thereby increases their power both jointly and separately. In this section, each οf the provisional headings for `top-down' or `bottom-up' actions is used as means for structuring the discussion οf resident empowerment processes. The classification οf methods οf empowerment under the various headings (knowledge acquisition, statute, resourcing, agreement and power transfer) is for convenience only, and is not intended to have any theoretical significance. The material discussed under each heading is then evaluated by reference to the typologies outlined in the previous section, and conclusions drawn wherever appropriate. As has been noted by Sabatier (1986) and others, `top-down' processes tend to predominate over `bottom-up ones, but this is no more than one would expect in `normal' (that is, non-revolutionary) situations. Empowerment through Knowledge Considering the eight headings listed above, the first issue concerns what is to count as appropriate information for the purposes οf empowerment. `Knowledge is power', so the cliche goes, but in reality much depends upon the nature οf the knowledge and how it is communicated. For example, owner occupiers may enjoy property rights over their home which empower them to a significant degree, but they may lack reliable information about the operation οf the housing market and the practices οf mortgage lenders, and this can leave them to some extent at the mercy οf the housing market professionals and οf the housing market itself (ending up, if unlucky, with negative equity and unsellable property). This οf course is a universal feature οf markets, namely that they are unpredictable, so it can be concluded straightaway that markets are disempowering to the extent that information about how they operate is never adequate. For many, perhaps most, owner occupiers, however, this disempowering quality οf markets is obscured by the fact that for most οf the time they are not thinking about moving home and are therefore not actively participating in the business οf house purchase and sale. For tenants, the situation is quite different. What they need most οf all is information about the landlord's policies and practices, and explanations and justifications οf these. They need regular and detailed information on what is happening in their home area, including reports on the performance οf landlord's representatives and agents in the area. For secure tenants οf local authorities and housing associations, empowerment through the provision οf such appropriate information has been stimulated by legislation. For example, the Housing Act 1980 conferred on them rights to be informed about their landlord's allocation policy and to be consulted about proposed changes in management practice (except on rent levels). 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(1988) Citizen participation, perceived control and psychological empowerment, American Journal οf Community Psychology, 16(5), pp. 725-750. Read More