Officers of the law

Last month, Charter Housing Association in Newport hit the headlines with a novel solution to a very common problem. Instead of paying solicitors to help housing officers secure injunctions on antisocial tenants, it has decided to train those staff to go to court themselves.

Since October 2003, Charter’s legal costs have shrunk dramatically. They now stand at about £4500 a year, 95% less than the £108,000 the association calculates it would spend if it employed solicitors to get injunctions. It’s a saving that was big enough to catch the eye of the Home Office, which said the housing sector could save “millions of pounds” in legal fees if other associations followed their lead.

The government is keen to put associations on the frontline of dealing with antisocial behaviour, as the home secretary emphasises on page 18, but the rising costs of legal action have proved one of the greatest barriers. As Charter’s corporate director Kathryn Edwards explains: “When we started taking action we realised how expensive it was – the first injunction we did went back and forth to court and the total bill was £7000, and we didn’t have that kind of money.”

Charter’s staff had become increasingly frustrated and felt powerless to protect tenants complaining of loud noise and violence. “We were constantly getting complaints but weren’t clear about what we could do to resolve them – we couldn’t say to someone we’ll get an injunction because we knew they cost so much,” Edwards says.

So, in October 2003, after consulting legal experts, Charter trained three of its staff to go to court and apply for housing injunctions and antisocial behaviour orders themselves, rather than employing solicitors.

John Priday, Charter’s nuisance prevention manager, admits that at the outset he doubted whether housing staff would be allowed to appear in court. But speaking to a senior judge in Newport changed his mind. “The judge said it was acceptable as long as we presented cases properly,” Priday says.

Courts are able to grant people the right to act as a “litigant in person”, someone who is not represented in court proceedings by a solicitor. Though the decision lies with the court as to whether someone will be granted such status, judges in Newport encouraged Charter to go ahead. “The courts don’t have to give you the right to act as a litigant in person, they can refuse it, but from the start the judges were very supportive,” Priday says. “They didn’t expect us to know all the technical jargon, they understood we weren’t trained lawyers and they helped us in the process.”

Priday won admiration from his colleagues who were impressed by the courage he showed in being prepared to take on trained solicitors in court. “I think it’s a scary thing to do, to step into a court and say: ‘I am responsible for this and I am going to present this,’” Edwards says. “The court room is quite an intimidating place. There were staff who thought ‘it’s great if we can do this but I wouldn’t want to do it personally’, but we had other people like John [Priday] who thought this was a way of providing a solution and getting over the problems we’ve got.”

The first case Priday took to court concerned a van that had been left parked on an estate and had become an eyesore. It was a case that had been rumbling on for years, but Charter got the injunction and within five weeks of the order the vehicle had been moved. “We chose it because it should have been quite simple, and it is often the simple cases that take up staff time,” Priday says. “When we got the injunction, it sent out ripples across the organisation. The housing officer who had been dealing with the case was obviously delighted, and others were really impressed and surprised by the speed with which it had been resolved.”

Buoyed by the success, Charter moved on to more serious cases involving noise and violence. Again, they found long-running problems could be quickly resolved. Charter has now taken about 35 cases to court and has triumphed on every occasion.

“I find it patronising when I hear people say housing staff cannot or should not deal with antisocial behaviour cases themselves in court, because we’re the living proof that you can,” Priday says. “We are generally quicker at getting cases into court than solicitors, we don’t have the constraints they have – they may have four or five other cases to deal with.” Priday also feels that Charter staff have an advantage over solicitors in that they are familiar with the tenants involved in cases. “The fact that our tenants know us often makes it easier for people to talk about a case to us rather than to a solicitor.” He adds that Charter expects to do its own possession cases and ASBOs by the end of 2005.

Edwards says the scheme has lifted morale among Charter’s staff and its tenants. “It’s fundamentally shifted our staff’s perception of antisocial behaviour – now they think ‘yes, we can deal with it’. We also know that it gives our customers much more confidence. They know if something happens, something will be done about it.”

The initiative has impressed other onlookers, too. Manchester council – which has secured 750 ASBOs, more than any other council – is considering a similar scheme. And the Home Office antisocial behaviour unit is discussing with Charter whether similar schemes could be rolled out across England and Wales. No decision has yet been made, but, last month, Louise Casey, head of the Home Office antisocial behaviour unit, enthused: “Charter is a leader in tackling antisocial behaviour and we are interested in any scheme that can reduce costs.”