“Authorities’ secrecy puts staff in peril” For the 2nd week in a row, Inside Housing magazine has had a front page story on staff safety. Talk about London buses – you wait for ages then you get one after another! I posted last week on their survey that found that 73% of front line staff have feared for their safety while at work. They printed a letter from me this week on the importance of an effective safety management system. However, this week’s story actually has a wider appeal than just being of interest to hard pressed Housing association (or RSL’s) staff and their safety at work. The article claims that many Council’s deliberately withhold details of violent and dangerous applicants from housing associations, because it is feared that the RSL would turn down the application if they knew about their history.
One RSL only found out that one applicant was an arsonist “they must have known would be an absolute nightmare” by a chance warning by the local Police. Others complained that female staff are sent out by themselves with applicants to view properties, unaware that the applicant is a convicted sex offender.
Personally I would doubt that a Council would usually deliberately withhold information. Rather in my experience they will not have gathered the information properly in the first place. In most Council's you find that Housing, Education and Social work departments will not know or share information with each other about known potentially violent service users. Never mind giving this information to outside bodies such as RSL’s. This is despite the murder of staff in the past by violent offenders, who were known to pose risks, but the system did not pass the information down.
Many RSL’s do not even ask Council’s if they know of any risks and there are no guarantees that even if they are told the information that this is given to the front line staff that need to know.
The whole situation is a mess. Usually management will try to blame “Data Protection Act” (DPA) or “client confidentiality”. When there are in practice, clear exemptions in the DPA for protecting staff and providing information is securely passed over and retained, there should be no inappropriate breach of confidentiality.
Making safety an absolute priority and having in place a rigorous safety management system will resolve the issue of staff safety.
However, the “Inside Housing” article is actually based upon some very interesting research on “Problematic tenancies” by Bristol University on behalf of Shelter, the Local Government Association and the National Housing Federation. They are probably a little upset with “Inside Housing” since the report is only a “draft”. However, it is obvious that there are really serious problems to be addressed.
It appears quite clear that in many parts of the country, RSL’s are refusing to house applicants with a history of anti-social behaviour. Perhaps this is understandable, however while a Council may have transferred all its housing stock to a RSL it still retains the legal responsibility to re-house someone if they are found to be “statutory homeless”. 80,000 families in England alone last year. A tiny but not insignificant minority of whom will have members who have “challenging behaviour”.
There are other issues such as due to what’s called “section 106” agreements, residents who have paid substantial sums for their homes are living next door to RSL tenants who need support (and often won’t get it) so they will complain about them. Also, a RSL had built a new block of 12 general needs flats and found out that the Council was planning to offer 8 of them to applicants who had known alcohol abuse problems. Think about it.
If RSL’s are refusing to house people that Councils have to re-house by law then what is the answer? Do we go down the Frank Field MP route of “sin bins” under motorways?
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