Consultations
Enabling local authorities to contract their Anti-Social Behaviour Order functions to organisations managing their housing stock
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) has proposed that local authorities should ask organisations managing their housing stock to carry out some or all of the authorities' functions in relation to anti-social behaviour. This consultation paper seeks your views on the proposal by 1 February 2006
Title: Enabling local authorities to contract their Anti-Social Behaviour Order functions to organisations managing their housing stock
Author: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
Series: Consultation paper
Number of pages: 26
Date published: November 2005
Availability: Download full report 
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Background
For the purposes of this paper, anti-social behaviour is defined as behaviour that causes or is likely to cause harassment alarm or distress. For example, this could be nuisance noise, verbal intimidation, criminal damage or vandalism, abandoning cars, kerb-crawling, street drinking and begging, or groups of people intimidating others.
The vast majority of people behave in a way that does not cause other people to feel intimidated or unsafe but the anti-social conduct of an irresponsible minority has a disproportionate effect on communities and can hold back the regeneration of deprived areas and the safety and progress of the community as a whole.
Housing and housing management play key roles in making an area in which people are happy to live. People want to live in safe, sustainable communities. In particular, anti-social behaviour features highly among the concerns of tenants. The British Crime Survey (BCS) shows that people within local authority housing and low income areas perceive the highest levels of anti-social behaviour.
In recent years the scope of housing management has broadened to include key elements of neighbourhood management such as tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, in addition to the more traditional management of tenancies.
Many local authorities have also changed the way that housing management services are delivered. They no longer carry out the day to day management of their housing stock; instead they focus on strategic functions and delegate these day-to-day operations to other organisations who manage housing stock on their behalf. This is in line with the Government's belief that local authorities should try to improve the delivery of their housing services by separating their housing management functions from their strategic housing function.
Delegated housing management functions are governed by section 27 of the Housing Act 1985. This legislation contains an enabling power for local authorities to delegate their housing management responsibilities to other organisations. The relationship between a local authority and the organisation to which it delegates is governed and monitored by a management agreement between the two parties, which specifies both partners' respective roles and responsibilities.
In terms of responsibilities for tackling ASB the agreement might include:
Procedures for making complaints – i.e. identification of the person/s to whom tenants should make an initial complaint
Responsibilities for processing a complaint of ASB
Responsibilities for supporting complainants and witnesses
Taking action, e.g. Acceptable Behaviour Contracts, injunctions, demotion and possession
Information exchange and data protection
Monitoring and review arrangements
Arrangements for liaison and consultation between the authority and the housing management organisation
Social landlords (local authority landlords and Registered Social Landlords) have a number of measures available to them to tackle anti-social behaviour impacting on their tenants and the wider community. These include measures like flexible housing injunctions (often known as Anti-social Behaviour Injunctions (ASBIs)) and demoted tenancies. New measures under the Housing Act 2004 are also available available for use giving landlords the right to refuse a secure tenant's request for a mutual exchange in certain cases of anti-social behaviour and measures to suspend tenants' right to buy on anti-social behaviour grounds.
All these tools are linked in some way to tenure or the landlord's housing management function but other tools are available to tackle ASB which are not linked in anyway to these factors. They include Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs) and Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs).
The proposal
ODPM proposes to make it possible for local authorities to be able to ask those managing their housing to carry out all or some of their ASBO functions on their behalf.
If this consultation exercise showed that there was support for enabling local authorities to delegate their ASBO functions to housing management bodies, the Secretary of State would need to make an Order under the Housing Act, and this would need to be approved by both Houses of Parliament. The purpose of this Order would be to entitle a local authority to ask an organisation to extend its delegated housing management functions (under s.27 of the Housing Act 1985) to carry out some or all of its ASBO functions, also by delegation. Local authorities could not make such arrangements before an Order is in place.
Once an Order is in place, local authorities would not have to seek any further consent before making contracting arrangements with their housing management bodies. However, the Secretary of State would issue guidance on how local authorities could use the power. This will be likely to include a recommendation for authorities to set clear and enforceable standards of performance which contractors will be expected to meet. In addition authorities will need to establish rigorous approaches to monitoring and reviewing those standards on an ongoing basis.
The Order could set limits on the circumstances in which all local authorities could ask an organisation to carry out these functions on its behalf, or could define how the arrangements should operate in each case. For example, an Order could state that an organisation could only carry out ASBO functions where the anti social behaviour was related to housing or committed by a secure tenant of the local authority. An Order could also specify a date by which contracting arrangements should be reviewed.
Entering into a contracting arrangement for the delivery of ASBO functions would not remove any of the local authority's responsibilities under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Any ASBO application pursued under such a delegation would be pursued in the local authority's name, and would be subject to the same consultation requirements as any other. Local authorities who have made contracting arrangements would still be able to pursue ASBOs directly.
Local authorities would be free to choose whether or not they wish to contract out their powers. Asking a housing management organisation to also carry out ASBO functions on its behalf would not diminish the accountability or legal liability of the local authority for the exercise or non-exercise of those functions.
Consultation questions
ODPM would welcome your views on the following questions:
- Do you support the proposal to make it possible for local authorities to be able to ask any organisation managing their housing under Section 27 of the Housing Act 1985 to also carry out all or some of their ASBO functions on their behalf?
- Do you agree that the Secretary of State should not attach any conditions to an Order made as part of this proposal, and that local authorities should set any conditions when making local arrangements? If not, what national conditions should be set?
- Do you have any other comments about the proposal, including any practical implications you think it might have?
Please send your response, no later than 1 February 2006 to:
Mr Yemi AtikuOffice of the Deputy Prime Minister1/J6 Eland HouseBressenden PlaceLondon SW1E 5DUE-mail responses are welcome. If you are replying by e-mail please include the words 'consultation response' in the subject or title. These and any enquiries can be sent to: asbconsult@odpm.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone number for enquiries is: 020 7944 5143
Representative groups are asked to include a summary of the people and organisations they represent in their reply.
Getting a copy
Last update: Wednesday, September 06, 2006