NTV in Bid to Carry on Independently

The National Tenant Voice has put in a bid for £50,000 worth of funding to explore whether it can run without government help. The body, set up to give tenants the chance to influence national housing policy, was told by housing minister Grant Shapps last month it was to be scrapped as part of the government’s ‘bonfire of quangos’. Mr Shapps told NTV heads, however, that he would be willing to consider an application for funds to look into ways in which the body could run independently. Michael Gelling, chair of the NTV, explained that the four national tenants groups - the Tenant Participation Advisory Service, Tenants’ and Residents’ Organisations of England, Confederation of Co-operative Housing and National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations - still intended to set up a separate ‘joint national tenant scrutiny committee’. Read more on Inside Housing.