Compacts are agreements between councils and tenants on how tenants will be involved in decisions affecting their homes and communities.

Launching the National Framework for Tenant Participation Compacts in 1999, then-Housing Minister, Hilary Armstrong said it would "bring tenants into the heart of decision-making."

Every council was expected to agree a Compact with its tenants by April 2000. Although there was nothing in law that said they had to, councils were inspected under the Best Value regime and Compacts were enforced by the inspection teams.

Research in 2003 found that the Compact had raised the profile of tenant participation in many councils and given a more central role to tenants. But it had also encouraged some councils to de-recognise existing tenants organisations claiming they did not meet the new standards. Many councils had put the Compact on the back-burner faced with more pressing issues like transfer or setting up ALMOs.

Duties of councils and tenants under the Compact

Councils should:

# Actively promote tenant participation
# Make tenants aware of opportunities to get involved
# Enable tenant participation in all parts of the housing service
# Provide accessible tenant training
# Ensure financial help available for tenant involvement
# Make office space, photocopying etc available to tenants groups
# Develop new approaches to allow everyone to get involved
# Set targets and measure performance on tenant involvement

Tenants groups involved in decision-making should have:

§ Written constitution and equal opportunities policy
§ Regular elections
§ Open financial records
§ Regular meetings, including AGM
§ An open and active membership
§ Information available to all tenants
§ Regular newsletters, leaflets etc
§ Action plans and reporting back on achievements

A revised National Framework was launched in March 2005. This gave more emphasis to consumer forms of involvement and gave guidance on compacts and ALMOs.

Resident involvement for Registered Social Landlords

The Housing Corporation's resident involvement strategy, agreed in 2004, sets out its belief that "involving residents is an essential ingredient of a quality housing service." This strategy applies to all registered social landlords, including transfer organisations. The Housing Corporation's Regulatory Code sets out minimum standards for resident involvement which registered social landlords are expected to build on. It insists that residents have the opportunity to comment on performance and are enabled to take part in decision-making. The Housing Corporation strategy appears to favour consumerist models of involvement to an even greater extent than the Compact guidance. Practice on tenant participation still varies widely among Registered Social Landlords although the Regulatory Code is enforced by the Audit Commission through the same inspection framework as local authorities.