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housing trust invites views on restructure plans
26 January 2006
Tenants of Bradford Community Housing Trust were invited to give their views on proposals for it’s restructure aimed at creating a more responsive service and greater ‘grass roots’ involvement from tenants.
Under the proposals the six existing Local Area Trusts – Aire-Wharfe, Bradford West City, East Bradford, North Bradford, Shipley and South Bradford – would become Local Management Trusts (LMTs) who would oversee housing management services within their own areas.
Each new LMT would keep their existing names. The only difference would be that the LMT’s would not be Registered Social Landlords as the Area Trusts are now.
There would be one new Registered Social Landlord, which would be called Bradford Community Housing Trust
The current structure of a parent, Bradford Community Housing Trust Ltd and the six subsidiaries was set up in 2003 at the time of the Stock Transfer of thousands of Council homes to the new organisation.
Following approval by all the Trust’s boards the consultation of tenants into the proposed restructure started on 3 January 2006 with a mailing of a letter to every Trust property. It outlined the proposal and asked for comments back by February 17.
A special newsletter was sent out to every tenant in January to encourage feedback from tenants.
The proposed changes will not affect in any way the rights of Trust tenants or leaseholders or their entitlement to Housing Benefit.
Martin Smith, BCHT Group Chairman said: “Our proposals aim to create one single property-owning landlord that will be more responsive, encourage a ‘grass roots’ approach of tenant involvement in our work and also make savings that can be invested in new and better services for all our customers.
“Currently we have 115 board members across the Group, which can make decision making unwieldy. The changes we plan would mean that the overall governance structure for running, changing and growing the business would be streamlined without losing the valuable local input. This would be achieved by representation from the Local Management Trusts on one new Registered Social Landlord Board.”
Under the plans, membership of boards of each of the new Local Management Trusts would be made up of tenants, councillors and independents and the proposal is that they would have delegated powers to monitor local housing services provision and prioritise local investment decisions. They would have delegated authority and resources to run their part of BCHT effectively and efficiently within a corporate framework.
Geraldine Howley, BCHT Group Chief Executive said: “We have been consulting for some time with all our stakeholders including the Council, our funders, board members, staff and the trade unions into ways of simplifying our structures. Importantly, these proposals aim to encourage a ‘grass roots’ approach aimed at bringing BCHT closer to our tenants.”