Events and debates

Housing action trusts and communications structures: a study of state-tenant negotiations in a Manchester housing estate by Haydn Shaughnessy

This article is based on the author’s involvement in negotiations between tenants of a large inner city estate in northern England and the UK Department of the Environment (DOE). The purpose of the article is to draw attention to a worrying but avoidable consequence of the continuing centralization of power in UK urban policy. In particular the article raises questions about the communications competence of central government bodies engaged in local redevelopment. Equally important is the restructuring of communications amongst inner-city residents. As power is centralized, many local democratic channels of communi- cations in the UK are becoming redundant. The process is a slow one and involves significant moments of disillusionment, an additional harsh experience for inner- city residents. This article therefore focuses on the ‘structure’ and ‘style’ of communications within new, emerging relationships which are redefining the course of inner city life.

I UKurban pdky

One of the main instruments proposed for future UK policy in the inner city is the government’s new housing action trust (or HAT). The HAT has been devised by the government as a means of bringing private enterprise initiative and money, backed by substantial government investment, into the worst of the UK’s inner

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city areas. It is on the one hand the latest in a number of policies designed to take control of urban policy away from local authorities (in the UK, most inner city housing estates are run by the relevant local authority); and on the other hand it is a belated recognition that inner city decay in the UK might well be beyond the competence and resources of conventional inner city agencies. The H A T policy then, is both a means of focusing resources on key pockets of decay and a means also of circumventing traditional, local democratic channels of control. For tenants it presents the enticement of redevelopment money, but at the cost of doing business with a government which they perceive to be responsible for the extent and seventy of inner city problems.

This is one of the main problems facing those tenants and government officials who meet monthly to discuss the future of one of the UK’s most notorious housing areas -the Hulme estate in Manchester. In the words of the last Housing Minister, William Waldegrave, a communications gap separates the two sides. The government’s own policies, or at least the means by which they are choosing to implement the new H A T policy, threaten to turn the gap into a gulf.

A housing action trust is a government-appointed body to which responsibility for a particular housing estate may be transferred from the relevant local authority. It is accountable to the Secretary of State for the Environment, the most senior minister responsible for housing and urban policy, and is run by a board made up of property, redevelopment, and possibly tenant, interests.’ The government plan to appoint a separate trust for each estate deemed to be in need of highly targeted government resources. The mechanism for appointing a board and transferring responsibility to a H A T is left very much at the discretion of the Secretary of State.

After the transfer, the trusts will take responsibility for the day to day running of estates and for government-backed redevelopment schemes. The ultimate aim is that the estates become able to sustain themselves as economic entities, i.e.. that they will be economically viable. This implies charging market rents, and an end to the local subsidy typical of local authority housing; but almost by definition the areas which will fall under the H A T remit are areas of high unemployment and high rent arrears. In Hulme, with a male unemployment rate of 65%. endemic rent arrears have already eroded the economic base of the estate. Hence the introduction of market rents is incompatible with existing residents continuing to live in the area.

Once its redevelopment work is completed the H A T is entitled to sell off its housing stock: either to housing associations, private landlords, or even back to local authorities, if they can afford to pay. Though this latter course of action is theoretically an option, the H A T mechanism appears disposed towards housing

’ Some excitement was provoked by an announcement in November 1988 that tenants would be able to vote for or against housing action trusts, and vote its own members on to a HAT board. However. the only change to the Housing Act in this area (section 7) is that the definition of who might be co opted onto HAT boards has been broadened from ‘people with a knowledge of the area’ to ’people with a knowledge of or who live in the area’.

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estate privatization. At least that is the fear expressed by many tenants groups. The fact that the present Secretary of State for the Environment, Nicholas Ridley, is perceived as a hardline Thatcherite means that HAT policy is inevitably, in the minds of tenants, associated with a hardline free market attitude.

Other aspects of the HAT legislation seem to support tenants’ fears. For example, one requirement of the HAT legislation is that the HAT should create a new social mix in the inner city, by selling off parts of local authority rented stock to owner occupiers. The combination of ‘the new social mix’ and ‘market rents’ adds up in some tenants’ minds to large scale displacement of the resident population which, after all, contains substantial proportions of unemployed people unable to meet market rents and unable to buy their homes. Tenants fears feed on the experience of housing estate privatization in nearby Trinity, in Salford. There tenants were dispersed arbitrarily across Salford over a two-year period. Many failed to settle into their new environments because of Trinity’s reputation - a reputation for toughness and criminality earned largely during the run down of the estate prior to privatization. In fact, in one area ex-Trinity residents are known as ‘Trinity scum’. Displacement therefore carries the fear of both alienation and stigmatism.

However, the government believes that by encouraging pockets of owner occupation it can create social conditions which will foster pride in the environment and therefore prevent what it sees as a self-imposed spiral of decay. The logic is, of course, that inner city residents are in part responsible for their poor housing conditions. Owner occupation will be used as a social engineering mechanism, a way of importing middle class personnel and ideals and thereby creating new standards of behaviour in working class areas. But the move towards owner occupation is motivated by another factor. Many inner city areas in provincial cities are now ripe for private redevelopment. The property boom in London has reached its peak; prices are being heavily discounted, and capital is on the lookout for new opportunities.

Whatever its merits, the new legislation is expressly ideological in the context of UK class politics, taking housing out of the hands of local authorities and passing responsibility for redevelopment on to private investors, and at the same time creating the opportunity for middle class owner occupation close to the booming city centres.

I1 Hulme

Hulme and adjacent Moss Side together formed one of the main locations of violent, large-scale urban unrest in the UK in 1981. Although there has been relative calm since, first-hand accounts from residents suggest that the lack of outward aggression has been compensated for by increasing internal tension, expressed in street skirmishes, violent crime, and drug addiction.

The Hulme estate was built in the 1960s and 1970s and consists of 2864 system

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built deck access family flats and about 900 tower block dwellings. The 1985 Local Census suggests that the population is 11,971 though

population turnover is very high. There is a large student population, contributing to an unusually large proportion of young people on the estate. The proportion of people aged 20-24 is 24.9%, twice that of the city as a whole; 9% of the population are lone parent families, again twice that for the city as a whole; 40% of children in the area belong to one parent households. Unemployment amongst males in 1986 was 65%; amongst females, 31.6%. The population is multiracial and includes Irish, Chinese and far eastern groups, Afro-Caribbean and Asians.

Despite its sizeable employed and conventional population, Hulme is now perceived as a reserve of young, hopeless people who are potential victims of casual violence and organized crime and who are susceptible to drug addiction.

Just as critical, Hulme is a reserve to which many mentally-ill people are sent after brief spells in hospital. Difficulties in letting council housing mean that anybody can claim a home in Hulme; therefore many people who are desperate for homes arrive there sooner or later. At a time when health policy determines that mentally-ill people should be treated in the community, many mentally-ill people are forced to take advantage of the ease of entry to a bleak and lonely future in Hulme.

A remedy for these acute social problems is what is at stake in discussions over the estate’s future.

So much for the downside of Hulme. On the positive side, there is Hulme’s strategic location. It lies immediately adjacent to Manchester city centre, which is belatedly beginning some kind of economic rejuvenation, based on the exploitation of Manchester as an historic city and as a regional centre for the northwest industrial conurbation.

This rejuvenation is limited in its character. There are still many signs of dereliction in Manchester, not least in and around Hulme but also on many of the main thoroughfares into the city. The reasons for economic decline are not difficult to find, given Manchester’s former status as the commercial centre of the textile trade and as a centre of mechanical engineering. What has yet to be isolated is the reason for Manchester’s slow recovery. A city built on enterprise, it seems to have lost the innovative touch.

Rejuvenation is based on familiar mechanisms: tourist promotion and leisure; the financial services sector is expanding as elsewhere; and the London ‘ripple’ effect is beginning to be felt in rapidly rising commercial property rates.

Much of what is happening, however might be termed ‘image based’; the term is not meant to imply that behind the image is a vacuum. However, in the city’s ‘heritage area’, the central shopping mall, a new piazza, there is an essential morale boosting aspect. There is an attempt to ‘talk up’ the city (the importance of image is stressed in a new advertising campaign aimed at ‘changing people’s view of the North West’, launched by the regional television franchise holder, Granada TV). This talking up, a new form of boosterism, has its effect on the way Hulme people interpret events around them.

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Hulme is adjacent to the historic Castlefield area of Manchester. It also adjoins the new Trafford Park Development Corporation (a $160 million government industrial redevelopment scheme). Therefore most of the development money in the city is being spent on Hulme’s doorstep. As much of this development is image-based, the image of Hulme becomes an important, but as yet non explicit, part of the debate about the future of the city as a whole.

On the one hand Hulme is a problem inner city estate. Viewed from a different perspective it is a strategic location, close to the commercial centre and desirable from a development point of view; at present it is a serious eyesore alongside areas upon which the new Manchester tourist trade is based; and alongside other areas which are in the process of being redeveloped as prestige projects. Presently a ‘dreadful enclosure’, its potential is clear, especially to the tenants.

111 The Hulrne initiative

Hulme’s housing and social problems are so acute that a redevelopment initiative emerged well in advance of the new government legislation. In 1985 the then Housing Minister, John Patten, wrote to Manchester City Council suggesting the possibility of tripartite discussions to decide the estate’s future. The city council and tenants’ representatives were invited to meet with Department of Environ- ment officials. One result of this initiative was an offer by Mr Patten to fund a special feasibility study into how best to resolve the estate’s problems. A supervisory group was set up to design and implement the feasibility study. However before the study could begin, the regime at the Department of Environment changed and the government introduced its new Housing Bill. One of the main action lines proposed by the new Bill was the setting up of housing action trusts in the most deprived areas of UK cities.

In January 1988, the new Minister, William Waldegrave, instructed the Hulme supervisory group to look at how the feasibility study might take advantage of the new Bill, indicating at the same time that substantial funds ($50 - f60 million is a figure often quoted) would be made available to redevelop Hulme. However, he also indicated that the feasibility study would have to work within the framework of the proposed housing action trusts. In fact the supervisory group was instructed (in a letter to the group’s independent chair, Professor Valerie Karn, dated January 24 1988) to look at how Hulme might be redeveloped under the control of a housing action trust. The promised money would be made available only via a HAT (a point underlined by Waldegrave in his meeting with tenants on 12 May 1988).

The Ministerial instruction demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of the social dynamics of inner city estates. Here was a Minister instructing tenants’ representatives to endorse government policies in inner city areas blighted by years of government neglect. This meant, in concrete terms, that the tenants’ representatives (or ‘reps’) were being asked to participate in a study whose

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recommendations would have meant the estate passing into the hands of private landlords and, in addition, would make way for an, as yet, undefined and uncontrollable amount of gentrification.

The instruction was a mistake for two reasons. First, the tripartite talks had persuaded tenants that they were to be given control over the estate and their own futures. The Minister was now threatening to crush what had become a potent aspiration. Secondly, the tenants reps could not be seen to negotiate away that control; nor could they be seen to endorse government policy. In both cases the reps believed that their own personal safety was at risk if they were seen to betray their constituency. Personal risk was a prominent feature of tenant story telling throughout the eight months in which this author was involved with them. Hulme is a reputedly violent area, and it is also unpredictable.

One story may illustrate this. In the middle of the year a local doctor appeared before a medical disciplinary committee for misprescribing drugs. In fact he had been supplying generous quantities of a heroin substitute to drug addicts in return, it is alleged, for a variety of sexual and monetary rewards. At a prehearing a young woman gave evidence against the doctor. She was subsequently set upon by a gang armed with baseball bats, who beat her up. Apparently she was being punished for reducing the local supply of drugs. The story is probably true, and is one of many accounts of perverse reprisals which tenants ‘reps’ can tell to illustrate their grounds for fear. In Hulme it is risky to deal with authority. To deal badly is quite simply dangerous.

The Minister’s actions put tenants reps in a kind of ‘collaborator’ position. The reps reacted immediately by launching a campaign against HATs, and putting the tenants on an antigovernment alert.

Fortunately the supervisory group forum remained in place and through it the tenants were able to ask for a meeting with the Minister. The meeting was granted and took place on 12 May 1988. The Department of Environment prefaced the meeting by threatening to withdraw funding for the feasibility study (which had still not begun, two and a half years after first being announced) if the tenants would not concede ground on the HATs. The tenants made it their aim to use the meeting to retain the feasibility study as a vehicle for tenant control, having already fuelled the estate up to resist HATs. The first round of distorted negotiations was already complete.

The remainder of the article will explore how the two sides chose to address each other at the meeting, and what this implies about the possibility of real progress in Hulme. Before doing so it is necessary to give some background information on the tenants’ organizational structure.

IV Hulme tenants’ organization

The job of representing Hulme at tripartite meetings has fallen on the shoulders of about 12 people, known locally as the Hulme ‘reps’. The reps are not a static

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group - new representatives and substitute representatives are used with some frequency. They are elected by delegates to the Hulme Tenants Alliance, a forum for the various tenant groups on the estate.

As the tenants have developed their relationship with the DOE, their own organization has broadened and embraced more tenants’ groups (there are currently 12 of these). However, as the ‘reps’ are unpaid, under-resourced and overworked (many sit on a variety of local bodies such as the City Action Team and Business in the Community) the organization has failed to take on structural characteristics such as hierarchical delegation of responsibility, and upward and downward channels of communication.

Indeed the tenants have encountered considerable communications problems. They are not only under-resourced, but are also unskilled and therefore cannot produce or distribute newsletters, or arrange meetings, frequently enough. The city council has not helped them in these tasks, apparently taking the view that Hulme is fast becoming the DOE’S responsibility and is therefore a place for them to save money rather than spend it.

Yet negotiations with the DOE necessitate a structure which allows efficient communications around the estate’s 11 000 residents. It is worthwhile pausing to consider what this means. By efficient we mean that communications should permit flexible decision-making at the point of negotiation, that is the reps should be able to use their discretion so that they can respond creatively in discussions. In Hulme this is impossible. The ‘reps’ are locked into - having partly created - the prevailing mood of opposition on the estate. To have flexibility at the point of negotiation they need the resources to create flexible attitudes amongst their constituency. At present, being seen to d o business over HATs is tantamount to betrayal. On the other hand the government is adamant that resources can only be made available through HATs. The reps and the tenants may well have to say goodbye to f60 million pounds worth of redevelopment. The government may well be provoking another round of violent protest.

The position for the reps, then, is that the tripartite talks at first appeared to offer them a good deal, but gradually it has become clear that the local democratic process has ground to a halt. (In September 1988 the tenants mounted a lengthy occupation of council premises to protest against the withdrawal of council resources). The city council has deferred to the DOE; the DOE are unaccountable. And meanwhile the ‘reps’ are struggling with the difficulty of making themselves accountable to 11 000 suspicious residents.

In terms of the evolution of UK urban policy, the Hulme case is pivotal. After its ‘successful’ campaign against the HAT, Hulme tenants are now called upon by tenants’ groups in various parts of Britain to talk about their campaign and to advise on how to oppose the government. In its dealings with Hulme, therefore, the government has created an exemplary opponent. ‘Success’ has to be understood in these qualified terms. The tenants have no redevelopment; the government has credible opponents serving as an example to the six areas of the UK for which HATs have already been announced.

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V The two accounts of the 12 May meeting

The rest of this article provides an insider view of one crucial meeting between the DOE and Hulme tenants. The meeting took place on 12 May 1988 at the DoE’s Manchester offices. At the meeting the tenants met the then Housing Minister, William Waldegrave, and put the case to him for postponing a decision about a Hulme H A T and continuing with a proposed feasibility study into the estate’s future.

The tenants and the DOE kept separate minutes of the meeting. When the DOE sent a copy of their minutes to the tenants, it was immediately apparent that the DoE’s record of the meeting was at odds with the minutes taken by the tenants. In fact, the reps felt that the DOE had deliberately misinterpreted what the tenants were trying to say (adding further to the suspicion). This article deals with some of the disparities in those two sets of minutes. The author attended the meeting as part of the tenant’s secretariat. I minuted the middle part of the meeting and can confirm that this section of the minutes is almost a verbatim account of what was said.

What I tentatively conclude after observing the DOE and the tenants for an eight month period, is that the minutes reflect the differing internal communica- tions structures, and hence communications styles, of the two organizations. When each attempts to communicate with the other, it is actually fulfilling internal requirements. In other words, the priority of each is to send oblique messages around its own organization, assuring the relevant constituency that it is complying with internal values. This is done at the expense of talking openly to the other.

Such a phenomenon is part and parcel of any set of negotiations. It is not necessarily detrimental to the overall objectives of each party. However in the case of Hulme tenants, the DOE are dealing with an organization which, because of its underdevelopment, lacks the flexibility and the skill even to enter such a contest. I will argue below that the different organizational structures of the two make a compatible pairing impossible. The organizational structure of the tenants forces them to opt out of the negotiations game and to adopt a ‘presentational’ approach to the DOE. The DOE, on the other hand, are organizationally disposed to a ‘negotiations’ approach.

To serve internal requirements, to operate within the codes of their own organizations, the two adopt communications styles which are incompatible. Even when discussions are at their most cordial, there is a tendency for the two to talk past each other - or to demonstrate a tendency not to hear the right messages. Hence a very cordial and constructive meeting held on 12 May can lead to the paradox of increased opposition and distrust.

The meeting

The meeting with Minister William Waldegrave was first suggested by the

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tenants, who wanted an opportunity to put the case against HATs and for an alternative solution for Hulme directly to the Minister. From the outset the tenants reps saw their job in terms of ‘presenting’ the right case, with as much moral force as they could manage.

In two preparatory meeting the ‘reps’ allocated tasks amongst themselves. All 12 of the ‘reps’ were to have their say on a particular aspect of life on the estate.

They decided to make three major presentations. The first was an emotive account of life on the estate, after the break up of the ‘old Hulme’ in the 1960s and then the creation of the modern ghetto. The second was a presentation of arguments for the continuation of the feasibility study. Integral to this was the argument that a feasibility study might, and should be allowed to, conclude that a H A T was inappropriate for Hulme. The final presentation was of the tenants’ charter, a document which had been drawn up in the course of 17 public meetings held on the estate, and which consisted of a set of demands which extended from basic repair work, through the need to create jobs and proper welfare services on the estate, to the need for tenant control. The overall package presented by the tenants was a comprehensive argument against HATs, for the feasibility study, and for tenant control. This latter term appears vague and indeed this is one of the problems the reps have yet to face. There has been littk discussion of what ‘control’ implies for them in organizational terms.

The middle part of the meeting is the focus of the rest of this article. We shall compare the minutes drawn up by the DOE, with our own near verbatim account in order to illustrate the differing communication styles of the two bodies, and the relationship between style and structure. It will be shown that the tenants frequently brought the meeting back to the issue of ‘control’. As vague as the term may be, it is a leitmotif of tenant aspirations. However the term, and the aspiration, is wholly absent from the DoE’s version of events. We focus now on three excerpts.

We begin with a quote from our own record:

JM (John Mitchell, a Hulme rep) stresses again that the issue of housing in Hulme is entirely non-political. He also stresses the massive tenant involvement and the effort put into establishing the (Hulme) supervisory group. He says that tenants feel comfortable with present arrangements. They feel in control for the first time in their history. It would be a tragedy to relinquish this.

This part of the presentation, clearly underlining the tenants’ need for control,

Here is another excerpt from our own record:

JM began this section of the meeting by reminding the Minister of the experience of the ’60s (slum clearance). The point he wished to make was that the tenant’s campaign against government policy had not begun recently; it began during the last redevelopment 20 years ago. It has been clear ever since then that imposed solutions do nothing for people. The worry of the tenants is that they campaigned against the last redevelopment and that did no good. The only way for them to be sure is to be in control.

is entirely omitted from the DoE’s minutes.

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The minuting of JM continues for another paragraph. The DOE minutes compress both paragraphs into one short account. Once again the essential point - that tenants need control for historically specific reasons is omitted.

As well as this omission of what the tenants regard as the most important part of their cause, and which is after all most at issue, a statement is included in the DOE minutes, which in fact was not made at the meeting. First, however, we reproduce a minute which is reasonably accurate from the DOE account. The comments in parenthesis are mine.

The Minister outlines two options for the tenants: either to have a leasibility study with no guarantee that its finding would be implemented (i.e., consultation without control); or accept that a feasibility study would lay the basis for a housing action trust (the government’s real objective).

The DOE minutes then go on to say that the Minister:

. . . concluded that the tenants would need to decide where the balance of their interests lay.

This latter statement was not made and its inclusion angered the tenants reps. It is worthwhile dwelling on it for a moment. The first part of the DOE minute makes it reasonably clear that the tenants have been invited to choose between (a) a feasibility study without teeth, and (b) a HAT and instant redevelopment money. This was the bargaining position of the DOE throughout the meeting, as it had been from January 1988 onwards. The only function of the additional sentence is to underline this point. However the net effect is to present the tenants reps with a pair of options which they refuse to see as exhaustive: consultation without control, or a HAT. Trivial though it may seem, the extra minute forced the reps to face, once again, the intransigence of the government.

There is one final example of misperception which I want to give before drawing inferences from these minutes. The DOE minutes make it clear that in their view the way forward for Hulme is a feasibility study which outlines some of the prerequisites for a HAT. They show some awareness of tenants’ opposition, but the following extracts show how they chose to ignore the procedure for accountability which the tenants’ reps must defer to. The following is taken from the DOE minutes:

In discussion Mr Darroch (Hulme rep) and Mr Mitchell (Hulme rep) said that tenants clearly wished to proceed with the feasibility study. They saw the risk of a H A T - and in particular what would happen when the H A T was wound up - as too great a risk. It did not appear that the statutory framework laid down for a H A T could maintain the spirit of the community. Both emphasised in their view that the findings of the study were necessary before it would be clear what kind of agency could best solve the problems of Hulme.

These DOE minutes once again compress a whole series of transactions each of which makes important points for the tenants. I will summarize these.

First, note that Darroch does not say that a H A T might not maintain the spirit of the community. In fact he says he sees no way a H A T could go ahead and still retain the support of the community. This was, in fact, a warning. What Darroch is trying to emphasize at this point is that even a negotiated H A T would cause

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considerable unrest, and possibly provoke violence, in Hulme. The message is that the reps have no control over this. If they were to walk out of a meeting having negotiated a HAT, they would expect the community reaction to be immediate, hostile and most probably violent. The DOE rather complacently sees it as a problem of maintaining community spirit. The DoE’s minute is also, of course, a means of denying the validity of the reps only bargaining counter - that Hulme could erupt.

Secondly, another tenant makes the point that they do not want to be involved in a feasibility study which, eventually, is taken no account of; i.e., they want the feasibility study to give them some measure of control. Again this is omitted from the DoE’s minutes. They also omit the comments of HS (Harry Sherwood) that tenants are ‘hostile’ to HATs. HS goes on to say that at the end of the feasibility study there might be a socially steered HAT, but even this would have serious drawbacks.

The DOE render this as ‘only a socially steered H A T would be acceptable’ to tenants. This statement was not only not made, but it could not be said without risking a reaction on the estate. Its inclusion caused some concern because it implied that reps were in the business of negotiating particular kinds of HATs, precisely the kind of message reps would not want transmitted around the estate.

VI Analysis and conclusions

What can be said about these differing accounts of a very important meeting - one which may well determine important elements of inner city policy in the IJK?

The first thing to note is that the DOE got the factual account of the meeting wrong. On receiving the minutes the tenants’ reps were incensed. They moved that the DOE change the minutes to reflect proceedings more accurately. The DOE refused. The tenants reps interpreted this as a denial of the meaning of a whole range of events and interactions inside and outside of the meeting.

However, unless they are perverse, the DOE officials interpreted the meeting in a way which had significant meaning for them, and which will influence their action. What, then, do the mintues indicate about the way the DOE are proceeding in Hulme?

For them the meeting appears to have been the first stage in negotiating a H A T with the Hulme tenants. They omit references to hostile opposition (the tenant bargaining counter); they omit the issue of tenant control (the tenants’ demand); and they set the parameters within which future ‘negotiations’ will take place: the best form of HAT.

It is clear that nothing in the meeting dissuaded them from imposing their objectives. But it is through a reading of internal requirements that we learn most about the DoE’s position within the meeting. It is clear from the minutes that the DOE intend to conform to the initial requirement, that redevelopment in the inner cities must take place through the H A T mechanism. If this is the initial

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requirement, the secondary requirements are that the DOE do not give way to demands; and that they are not intimidated by threats. Having said that, the Minister decided to go ahead with a feasibility study for Hulme, with no guarantee that its findings will be implemented.

Although this may seem like a concession, it actually means that the position in Hulme at the end of 1988, is exactly the same as it was at the beginning. The feasibility study has to take account of the fact that the only substantial funds available for Hulme are those available through the H A T legislation. Behind the appearance of a concession, nothing much has changed.

But the DOE has in effect put the tenants under a moral obligation at least to consider the possibility of what might be possible through a HAT. They have achieved an interim success, and they have done it through conventional negotiation tactics, the most potent of which has been to create a set of dual standards: on the one hand the meeting and the minutes impose upon reps an obligation to make decisions about their interests; on the other hand all decisions, guarantees and obligations which fall to the DOE are taken out of the meeting and ‘referred upwards’.

Throughout their meetings with the tenants reps DOE officials have con- tinuously distanced themselves from real obligations and ‘referred upwards’. The local DOE official has consistently refused to make commitments, because he has to refer to the Minister. The Minister, in his meeting with tenants, ‘refers upwards’ to the Secretary of State and to Parliament.

The effect of the upward referral process is to remove from the meetings the potential to &:hieve the very things which the tenants want: guarantees, assurances, control. This may be a general feature of bureaucratic negotiating procedures, but one of its effects is to accentuate the feeling among tenants that they are in the lap of the gods, rather than being in a direct relationship with the human powers that be. Decision making power is never laid bare in front of them so that it can be inquired of, or challenged, or reasoned with. As a result of this, the ‘reps’ have accepted the feasibility study, without guarantees, knowing that they are taking a risk on what might happen later, but feeling they have no real option.

This predicament may be a familiar aspect of unequal bargaining encounters, but surely it is not the right way to spend f60 million, and to reorganize the lives of 11 000 people?

Why did the DOE not offer tenants concrete assurances about their future? The answer is that they neither wanted nor needed to do so. Their account of the meeting signalled their success to their own organization. The tenants’ organiza- tion and its style of communications was incapable of formulating the appropriate demands.

To understand why assurances did not become an important part of this agenda, we have to turn to the tenants’ performance on the day.

If the DOE approached this meeting with a ‘negotiation’ style of discourse, the tenants arrived solely with the intention and only with the ability to make a

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presentation. Part of that presentation was a veiled threat that an unsatisfactory outcome might lead to violence, but for the most part the tenants relied on the moral force of their case to get results.

This ‘presentational’ style left them unprepared, perhaps incapable, of recognizing and dealing with a set of experienced negotiators mindful of a long- term objective - to get the tenants to agree to things which they do not want. At one crucial point in the meeting the Minister gave the tenants a cue to enter substantive negotations:

Imagine a HAT (said the Minister) under the control of central government and with reassurances which are believable and unbreakable . . . .

The tenants presentational style left them with no means of capitalizing on the offer of unbreakable promises. The offer was not even taken up, as if tenants were fearful of entering any kind of deal. Sadly, the idea of unbreakable promises is omitted from the DOE’S minutes, and one suspects that such promises will not resurface.

As with the DOE, the tenants’ style of discourse is closely related to their internal communications structure (in this case the lack of structure is also significant). The ‘reps’ are supposed to take their cue from a constituency of over 11 OOO tenants. They do not refer upwards to a single or hidden authority. They refer outwards to their neighbours. In such an environment no authority to negotiate exists. And the procedure of consultation, of informing and persuading, is too inadequate to allow a sense of authority to grow. The only ‘authority’ the reps had was the militant feeling on the estate which they had helped to generate. A major priority for the reps was to signal to this militancy that no transgression was taking place.

Under the circumstances the only line of action for the reps is to argue a moral case as powerfully as possible, without entering negotiations. In other words all they can do is present their frustration. There will come a point when that frustration is presented in a more aggressive manner.

Apart from being a triumph for the DOE, the meeting was also, in presentational terms, a triumph for the tenants reps. Each rep performed his or her part, and at the end the feasibility study had been given the go ahead. But the consequence, as we said above, is that though everybody was able to announce that they had acquitted themselves well, not much has changed. The DOE is still pursuing an objective which may be met with violent hostility. The tenants reps still represent a body of people which has no means of communicat- ing other than through the presentation of its hostility and frustration.

In the UK the central authorities are playing an increasingly direct role in the rejuvenation of the inner cities. Though this is a long-term trend, the pace of centralization is accelerating. Inevitably communications problems arise, espe- cially as the traditional channels of democratic expression are being circum- vented.

In the case of Hulme the main problem is a structural one. Tenants are not

352 Events and debates

being encouraged to develop their representative system to the point where it can deal adequately with government. On the face of things this might appear advantageous to the government and the DOE. One has to consider, however, what the long-term implications of a lack of democratic expression might be. It does not augur well that the only bargaining counter available to Hulme tenants is the threat of violence.

For their part, government officials have a relatively easy time of tieing up their discussions with tenants within the canons of good negotiating practice. What this efficiency will eventually produce is another matter. It would seem wiser to recognize that as the location of social conflict moves from the workplace to the inner city, new, well funded and democratic communications structures are necessary.

VII References

Cmd. 214 1987: Housing: the government’s proposals. London: H.M.S.O. Hulme Project Office 1987: Area renewal in Hulme. Report by the Hulme Project

Manchester City Council 1987a: Who lives in Hulme: a report on Hulme’s population.

1987b: Hulrne workshops: proceedings. Manchester: Manchester City Council.

Office for Manchester City Council.

Manchester: Manchester City Council.

VIII Appendix - Extract of minutes taken by the author at the meeting between Housing Minister William Waldegrave, Manchester City Council and Hulme tenants, 12 May 1988

JM began this section of the meeting by reminding the Minister of the experience of the ’60s. The point he wished to make was that the tenants’ campaign did not begin recently; it began during the last redevelopment 20 years ago. It has been clear ever since then that imposed solutions do nothing for people. The worry of the tenants is that they campaigned against the last redevelopment and that did no good. The only way for them to be sure is to be in control.

JM then gave the background to the FS (feasibility study). He reminded (William Waldegrave) that John Patten had offered the City Council the opportunity for the FS paid for by the DOE. The City Council then approached the tenants. After much discussion the tenants agreed to be involved. After many further meetings the terms of reference for the FS were agreed. Then the tenants sat down for tripartite talks. JM emphasised the amount of effort put into these talks by all three parties. Stressed that terms of reference were agreed by all three parties.

Copies of Terms were handed to DOE officials and WW. SD said the aim of the study was to seek ways of solving the problems of the area

for the benefit of locals. The Minister had to reassure people that this was still the

Debate 353

intention. If reassurance cannot be given then the credibility gap becomes a credibility

SD lists the range of problems which the FS would have to look at. Also stresses that the problems have to be taken together. They can’t be broken down simply into a housing problem. The solution has to take account of all the problems. It is the job of the FS to make recommendations on these issues.

SD says the job of FS is wide ranging and would include producing a business plan for the estate; and would look at the composition and the status of an agency which might deal with the problems of Hulme.

He also stressed that the FS had the support of all the community - a rarity in Hulme .

HS says there are many positive things in Hulme and that there is a danger of always stressing the negative. The tenants’ groups were one positive thing. The tenants needed a forum and the FS has come to act as that forum.

The good thing about the FS is that it has turned into a proposal for a study of buildings which will prevent the mistakes of the last redevelopment.

Issue was no longer one of politics. It is one of people. A human issue. The HAT represents money for the city and the people want that money but not

in such a way that it will be spent on buildings which will then be vandalised; or in such a way that it will be used to shunt people off to other estates.

The FS is a springboard. The tenants want W W s support in order to move forward. JM stresses again that the issue is entirely non-political. He also stresses the massive

tenant involvement and the effort put into establishing the supervisory group. He says that tenants feel comfortable with this arrangement. They feel partially in control for the first time in their history. It would be a tragedy to relinquish this.

JM asks for concrete assurances or at the least some indication of where the FS could go - (adds ‘without strings attached’).

WW agrees with many of the things said. In fact says he is astonished by the range of agreement, having looked forward to the meeting with some forboding. Comparing Hulme with some other estates he says other estates are dead, have no leadership and cannot come together to discuss their needs.

In Hulme the tenants are half way towards the recreation of the community they want. (Gives Glasgow as an example of a similar area with a scheme which eventually went wrong).

WW says there is a commitment to the FS. But then there is the HAT. He asks can the HAT be used in a way which does not destroy the community spirit and doesn’t make the mistakes of the ’60s.

He agrees this is not just a bricks and mortar issue. Stresses that he knows that. The days of the bricks and mortar approach have gone.

He says the choices are (a) to go ahead with the FS - carry on for eight months or so and see what happens. The difficulty is that the government has not committed itself to implementing recommendations of the FS. Therefore there is a risk.

(b) imagine a HAT - under the control of central government and with reassurances which are believable and unbreakable. Says that he sees a HAT as temporary, and that even if unpopular it will bring resources - not in the way that tenants want or in the ways a FS would recommend.

Emphasises the risk of choice (a): if FS goes ahead WW may not be able to deliver the resources to meet the FS. BUT he can deliver under the HAT.

gulf.

354 Events and debates

Asks what is the balance of risk? FS could leave us still talking in a year’s time. SD The reps have gone back to the tenants. The message is clear. Unanimous!

Tenants want to go ahead with the FS. Sees no way a HAT could go ahead and still retain the support of the community.

GF agrees with SD. Says if WW is saying we can have a FS but then it would have to feed into a HAT, that would be no good. Tenants need to know that a FS will be of use to us. They can’t go through all the work of a FS and then be let down.

WW says that you could take the outcome of the FS as the terms of reference for a HAT - it could happen but again would be risky.

PM says - as the DOE has the money for the FS why not continue FS and then the Secretary of State can direct a HAT to implement its findings.

WW. Yes. An option. But again it has its risks. JM reminds WW that tenants see the risk of the HAT as too great. They fear a

HAT greatly. The point of the FS is it will look at whole host of options. FS will look at HAT as an option BUT only one option or one of a combination of options. Says it is imperative the FS goes ahead in order to identify solutions to all the problems. A HAT does not have that remit.

WW says it could have, though that may not have been the original idea. Its origins were in bricks and mortar solutions. It’s increasingly clear that estates are not about bricks and mortar.

P. Owen (DOE) . . . responds to the ideas that the DOE is trying to take things away from tenants. Asks how HATs have got their suspicious image?

MM says HATs give us no security. Housing legislation is against Christian teaching.

P. Owen Says tenants would have some security with HATs. MM But not with private landlords. It’s not the HAT we’re frightened of but what

comes afterwards? MH reinforces the point that FS has to go ahead. Says the DOE have to take this

on board. There must be an alternative to a HAT. HS says that when reps knock on doors and talk about HATs people are hostile to

it. It might be that at the end of a FS there is a socially steered HAT, but you would still end up with businessmen who know nothing about social problems in charge.

Says the FS is now late. The council are beginning to withdraw resources. The Trinity syndrome is beginning to appear. There needs to be a FS which is action oriented, which can implement measures now to stop the estate deteriorating.

CP stresses the point that nobody yet has the information to discuss what should happen in Hulme.