Much of our work on the ASB Case Review has focused on councils and police, mainly because they represent the lead agency across England and Wales.  However, housing associations are a key player in Community Safety and named as one of the relevant bodies in the ASB Case Review legislation.  What are housing associations doing to promote it then?

Large Housing Associations

A sample of the really large housing associations brought in disappointing results.  All of the following have no information on the ASB Case Review (also called the ASB Case Review):

  • London and Quadrant Housing
  • Clarion Housing
  • Home Group Housing
  • Sanctuary Housing
  • Guinness Partnership
  • Riverside Housing
  • Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (2 separate websites)

Clarion Housing claims on its website to be the largest housing association in the country, owning and managing 125,000 homes over 170 local authorities, representing 360,000.  That is 360,000 tenants who are not being informed about the ASB Case Review.  Housing association websites direct people to the police for some types of anti-social behaviour but miss an opportunity to let their tenants know what to do if the police do nothing about it (or the council or indeed the housing association itself).  This is concerning.

Locally Led

Some housing associations tell me they cannot put information on the ASB Case Review on their website because they have houses in more than one local authority area and of course the way it is activated differs from one area to another.  There are some easy ways around this:

Regenda Housing give information about the ASB Case Review and a link to the government website to find your nearest local authority.  Unfortunately this will fall down at the last hurdle because where the police is the lead agency, the local council tends not to publish any information about the Trigger.

A much better way can be seen in One Housing who have been wonderfully proactive in setting up a specific ASB Case Review email address for victims, explaining that they will then forward it onto the relevant local authority.  Some lead agencies don’t even bother setting up a specific email address or giving a direct telephone number so this is impressive from One Housing.

An alternative would be to link into our ASB Case Review Directory so that victims can easily search for their local area and find the exact page they need on the council or police website.  It is important that all tenants of registered providers of social housing know that this safety net is available to them.  We encourage all housing associations to look at adding this important information to their website.  Don’t forget housing associations can also activate a ASB Case Review on the victim’s behalf to push a case review and get something done about the anti-social behaviour.