EARLY CAREER FEATURE

Capturing the Castle: Tenant Governance in Social Housing Companies

Tenants now occupy a third of the directorships on the boards of new social housing companies and arms-length management organisations. In this paper I argue that tenant directors have been seen as the square pegs in the round holes of housing governance; they have been criticised for acting as representatives of a constituency, instead of taking responsibility for business development, and have been seen as an obstacle to a continued drive towards the professionalisation of boards.

In order to assess the impact of tenant directors in social housing companies, I adopted a theoretical framework for this research based on the concept of hegemony articulated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (2001). In this framework, housing organisations are viewed as systems of discourse under constant construction, in which competing social groups contest meanings, and strive to create the common sense definitions that will order and limit how participants view the role of governance. This process of negotiated construction takes place through relations of power and groups with less power, such as social housing tenants, can be excluded from the consensus and become seen as problematic. While hegemonic formations aim to unify a range of subject positions, and create the opportunities for the construction of shared meanings and dialogue, the process of defining the identity of social housing governance also creates antagonism as rival meanings are excluded and exiled groups are spurred into the construction of alternative identities.

Applying this framework to interpret my research with tenant directors, I found evidence that tenants bring a set of distinct values and strategies to social housing governance but can sometimes find themselves marginalised and excluded. My research suggests that tenant directors are motivated to take places on the board of housing companies by their desire to challenge paternalist attitudes in the sector or by a desire to acquire the knowledge and contacts that will enable them to make operational improvements to housing management. Tenant ambitions for a more influential role in housing governance have been a feature of resident participation in Britain since the late 1960s and the acquisition of executive authority has been the goal for many tenants organisations, a desire that surfaced in the debacle over the Conservative’s Tenants Choice programme, emerged from the squatting and the co-operative movement, and drove forward the development of tenant management organisations. Acquiring a role on the governing board is still conflated in some resident participation literature with attaining a level of community control, as the pinnacle of aspirations for involvement in decision-making.

The research indicates that tenant directors have brought impulses of democracy and accountability into the sphere of housing governance that have resulted in changes at an operational level in some housing organisations, leading to more participatory management styles and a clearer voice for tenants. These dynamics, however, have not meshed easily with the principles of the New Public Management and while some housing companies have been able to draw strength from the values tenant directors bring to the boardroom, there has also been outright conflict. The paper applies a methodology of critical discourse analysis to chart the development of a distinct tenant identity in the board room and to outline the elements of a strategic approach to housing governance that is specific to the tenant directors. Tenant directors appear to be keenly aware of the power imbalance they face, and to see themselves as the champions of a lived experience seen as undercutting the more technical and abstract discourse of senior housing executives and other governors. While many tenant directors have adapted their values to the dominant ethos of the board, making a contribution at an operational level without challenging the overall strategic direction, and while others are content to take a long view and to develop partnerships aimed at securing distant change, some tenant directors have found themselves isolated and outvoted in board decisions. This has given rise to perceptions that housing companies exemplify an order of discourse in which commercial interests and the values of social welfare and social control dominate, and has generated an antagonism that has allowed tenants to identify themselves as a united group whose interests are not reflected in the decision-making process. The paper concludes that board membership has enabled tenants to improve their status and influence in housing decision-making but at an operational, rather than a strategic level. Tenant aspirations for greater executive power, it seems, are not easily assimilated into the current values of social housing organisations.

References
Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (2001) “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy”. London, Verso.

Quintin Bradley
Associate Lecturer, Housing Studies
Leeds Metropolitan University

The full version of this paper has been published in Housing Studies 23 (6): 879-897.