ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role of housing managers, their relationship with tenants, and their attitudes to tenants and tenants’ groups. The chapter starts by exploring the concept of professionalism in housing management, which in its traditional form may be expected to reject tenant participation. It continues with an outline of the development of housing management in local government, reviewing the scope of the housing managers role, and the training and educational background of housing managers. The chapter continues by exploring the attitudes and views of housing managers to tenants, tenants’ groups and tenant participation using the evidence from our case studies. Subsequent chapters will show that tenants and councillors often have very different views of the motivations and attitudes of housing managers. The chapter finally draws conclusions about the role of housing managers, the nature of the relationship with tenants and councillors, and how different views of the role of housing managers accord with our framework of ideal type authorities.
