Committee details

The Tenants’, Leaseholders’ and Residents’ Consultative Forum has the following duties and responsibilities:

1.                  To be the overarching Residents Consultation mechanism for the Council on all policy, strategy and financial decisions affecting the management and ownership of the Council’s housing stock and its estates.

2.                  To discuss items of major significance to all, or a number of, tenant and resident associations and forums concerning the management and ownership of the Council’s housing stock.

3.                  To provide a forum to critically challenge the performance of the Housing Department in all aspects of service delivery and to make recommendations to Cabinet or the relevant Portfolio Holder regarding improvements.

4.                  To receive reports and updates from other Resident Involvement activities, particularly in relation to the setting and monitoring of service standards, resident scrutiny and inspection activities, but for all other areas of work as required.  Any tenant, leaseholder or resident of a Council managed housing estate may request an item relevant to the work of the TLRCF to be placed on the agenda, but the final agenda will be at the discretion of the Chair of the Forum.  Reports may be presented by either officers or residents, or in partnership as appropriate.  Requested items must be received in writing to Democratic Services. 

5.                  To request reports on specific areas of work in particular where they are perceived as not meeting agreed service standards/timescales etc. Requests for future reports or information on specific areas may be made at TLRCF meetings by any residents in attendance. Requested items will only be considered with the agreement of the Chair.

Meetings and Membership

6.                  The Forum shall meet at least six times in the Municipal Year, more often if the workload requires it.  One meeting each year shall include discussion of the revenue budget proposals.

7.                  Recognised Tenants and Residents Associations, HFTRA and the Leaseholder Support Group shall be entitled to send two representatives each to the meetings.  With the exception of the Leaseholder Support Group, where two representatives attend every effort should be made to send at least one Council tenant.  In the event that a vote is taken in order to gauge residents’ opinions on a particular issue, recognised groups shall be entitled to one vote each.

8.                  Residents who are recognised by HFTRA as representing an estate where there is currently no Tenant and Resident Association are eligible to attend TLRCF and have one vote each.  Only one individual can represent each estate in this way.  The Chair of the Forum has the final decision on which resident is entitled to vote. 

9.                  Voting rights may be restricted in certain areas of the work.  For example where an item only directly affects tenants voting may be restricted to tenants that are present only, and a similar restriction where the item only directly affects leaseholders.  The final decision on entitlement to vote lies with the Chair of the Forum.   

Consultation and recommendations

10.             All resident members of TLRCF have a responsibility to feed back to the group they represent the discussions that take place and decisions made at TLRCF in a timely way.  Resident Participation Officers can support representatives in providing feedback and may from time to time ask to see meeting minutes and undertake surveys of TRA members to review the effectiveness of the feedback process.

11.             The Chair of the Forum shall be appointed annually by the Cabinet.

12.             Wherever possible all reports to Cabinet, on any proposed new policies or changes to policies that directly impact on tenants and leaseholders will first be considered by TLRCF so that resident views can be incorporated into the Cabinet report.  However where an issue is either too urgent to wait for a TLRCF meeting, or is confidential the reasons why residents’ views have not been incorporated must be clearly stated in the Cabinet report.

13.             TLRCF was established as a forum to consult with residents and this is its primary purpose.  Elected members and officers must bear in mind that residents should always have priority in contributing to discussion and debates.

Note: 

1.                  Except where the views of the Consultative Forum have been requested by the Executive / another Committee, no recommendation or reference to the Executive or another Committee can be made unless it is agreed by a majority of the elected Councillors.

2.                  A proposal to establish any subsidiary body of the Forum shall be subject to the prior referral to and approval by Cabinet.

The Forum changed its name from Tenants’ and Leaseholders’ Consultative Forum following agreement at Council on 3 November 2012.

Information on how to submit a petition, deputation or public question is available on the council website.