7. What support does the Welsh Government offer to housing associations in Torfaen when dealing with anti-social behaviour? OAQ51575

Welsh Government is working with Community Housing Cymru, the police, police and crime commissioners and other stakeholders to develop a national approach to tackling anti-social behaviour for use by all social housing providers in Wales.  

Thank you, Minister. Unfortunately, I've seen a big increase recently in complaints from tenants about anti-social behaviour, and in some cases they've been very serious and even life-threatening cases. One of the things that appears to be consistent is a reluctance to give evidence because of fear of reprisals, and whilst in recent years there's been an increase in the use of professional witnesses to support cases, it is inevitable that they will not witness or experience the same issue as someone who is living with a situation 24/7. What further support can the Welsh Government offer to ensure that social landlords and tenants in Torfaen are better protected to ensure that such cases are dealt with more effectively, and even to prevent them from happening in the first place? 

I thank you for raising this important issue, and I'm sorry to hear about the serious anti-social behaviour issues that your constituents have been facing. I met with police and crime commissioner Alun Michael earlier in the week, and his deputy, and they're working together to lead that piece of work, which is developing a resource for all social housing providers, hopefully, subject to the successful evaluation of that pilot scheme. And my intention would be for it to be rolled out as soon as possible after the evaluation. I expect to have the full report by the end of March, and I'm keen to establish which local authorities and which social landlords in particular would benefit most from the use of the resource. So, perhaps if we could have a conversation and pinpoint some particular registered social landlords in Torfaen, that might be a good area where we could start making some progress. Obviously, there are issues of confidentiality here, so if you would like to me to ask my officials to speak to any specific landlords about issues that your constituents are facing, I'd be very happy to do so.    

Thank you very much, Minister.