THE number of tenants sitting as members of a housing association board is set to be halved.

Previously, the division of the Bron Afon board was split equally between the tenants, Torfaen councillors and independent members with four apiece.

On Tuesday, Torfaen council voted in favour of changing the arrangement, which will consist of two tenants, two councillors and eight independent board members.

Dave Congreve, the assistant chief executive (communities) with Torfaen council said the changes were due to “three major strategic issues”.

The issues were listed as an organisational reclassification by the Office of National Statistics, an independent review by Bron Afon and regulatory reform from the Welsh Government.

He described the report as setting out “how UK Government are now seeing registered social landlords for the purposes of public accounts and public accountability”.

Mr Congreve added that the reclassification of registered social landlords, such as Bron Afon, was seen different by the government in Westminster and Cardiff.

“The reclassification means that we ourselves are really being seen across the UK Government as a public sector organisation, which is slightly different to the approach that the Welsh Government wants to take in seeing them returned, if you like, almost to the private sector,” he said.

As outlined in the report however. tenants will be able to apply to sit as independent members.

The plan will also see an amendment to board’s quorum - the minimum number of members required to conduct the business of the group.

Jill Jones, the head of corporate services at Bron Afon, said: “These changes will see us increase the number of independent members from four to eight.

“We will continue to encourage tenants to apply for these vacancies as independent members so there are more opportunities to join our board.

“Building 450 houses over the next five years means we need to make sure we have the right people on our board with the right skills to help us achieve this.

“We are really proud to have more than 2,000 members and there are many ways they can get involved.

“Our Tenant Services Forum and Mutual Futures are just two of the new ways we have introduced in the last year to make sure our members have a say in improving our services and holding us to account.”