Phil Morgan is the former TSA Executive Director for Tenant Services who now works as an independent consultant, speaker and commentator on social housing issues.
Blog posts by Phil Morgan
Yes to Homes, No to Homes?
November 22nd, 2013 by Phil Morgan
Recently I took part in a BBC Three Counties interview about Yes to Homes. They had already interviewed someone from the National Housing Federation and I was happy to chip in with broadly supportive comments. Feeling faintly smug I was driving later that day through Staffordshire and passing through a ...
How joining Scrutiny Panels can help tenants into work
September 27th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
Every now and then we learn something new. Recently I was expounding the merits of resident scrutiny to a mildly sceptical audience and highlighted the benefits to potential members including tenants seeking work (or improved work). This is of particular interest to landlords given the impact of welfare re...
Extending Help to Buy โ have we learned nothing?
July 25th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
Today the Chancellor will meet with house builders and lenders to discuss Help to Buy. He does so against a situation where house prices remain high and access to money for houses for first time buyers remain tight. So what is wrong with helping this group become home owners?
I’ve always been scep...
Why tenant participation supports value for money
July 8th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
About 10 years ago I ran a workshop on resident involvement at a Local Government Conference. My audience was made up of councillors and staff and were decidedly grumpy, didn’t want to hear about empowerment (except for councillors) and decided to pick a couple of arguments with me. The clincher wa...
Joining up health and social care
April 15th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
I recently listened to Andy Burnham, Labour's Health Spokesperson, outline his thinking on having a joint approach to health and social care. The event, hosted by the Smith Institute, was one of a number which saw Burnham setting out questions about integration.
His starting point was that the separ...
The Dignity of Labour
April 8th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
I have watched with some amusement the recent furore caused when Iain Duncan Smith said he could live on £53/week. I have resisted the temptation to add my name to the petition calling for him to do precisely that as it would just be a stunt.
One slight area of fuzziness on my own CV was between l...
Let social landlords run the Work Programme
March 11th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
Two years ago I blogged about the failure of successive governments to tackle unemployment in social housing as “Tragedy repeated as farce”.
Following the Hills report there was an opportunity to tackle the much higher levels of unemployment of worklessness for social housing tenants. The...
Direct payments โ time for a u-turn?
February 26th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
The results of the recent pilots of direct payment of benefits to tenants makes sobering reading. These benefits, currently paid to social landlords, have been paid to tenants in six different landlords. And these pilots show that something is truly rotten in the state of Direct Payment.
Unsurprisingly arrears r...
Virtual Shelter
February 13th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
The announcement that Shelter are to close 10 offices offering face-to-face advice is an indictment of the cuts to the legal aid budget.
Given the 50% cuts that they have faced Shelter have done a sterling job in minimising the impact on their services and their staff. There are three debateabl...
Tenants only?
January 25th, 2013 by Phil Morgan
Octavia Housing have just announced a new apprentices scheme for four young people. They rightly talk up the benefits of apprenticeships and the benefits for the wider community. Octavia also talk up the costs generated for each pound invested – a return of £4.12. Good stuff.
But the reall...