Author: Steve Hilditch

Passing the buck for new homes

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date February 14, 2011

Steve Hilditch

Founder of Red Brick. Former Head of Policy for Shelter. Select Committee Advisor for Housing and Homelessness. Drafted the first London Mayor’s Housing Strategy under Ken Livingstone. Steve sits on the Editorial Panel of Red Brick.

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The proposals for the new ‘Affordable Rent’ regime published today by Communities and Local Government department and the Homes and Communities Agency are in the classic style of this government.

Make huge cuts. Change a few rules. Devolve responsibility. Then wash your hands, it’s nothing to do with us.

Passing the buck developed as an art form. Pontius Pilate has nothing on these guys. Nothing could be clearer than the one underlined and emphasised sentence in Grant Shapps’ introduction:

“So Government is getting out of the way where it needs to, and is supporting you where it can. Ultimately, though, delivery depends on the initiative of providers, and the support of local authorities and local communities. It is now up to you to deliver the homes we need.”

The mis-named ‘Affordable Rent’ (AR) product will be the main form of provision in future. Providers will be able to get some grant from the Homes and Communities Agency, but the pot is about half what it used to be. They will have to show how they can generate resources by borrowing (I thought the government didn’t like borrowing?) against the increased rental stream from letting new homes and a proportion of re-let homes at AR levels (up to 80% of market rents), together with other resources such as existing surpluses, s106 planning gain, free or cheap public land, recycled grant from previous developments and so on.

But there are no numbers – no specific expectations, not even a regional distribution of the HCA’s funding (although London is expected to get the same share of outputs as now, around 27%), no expected or even hoped-for split between city town and country. The outcome will depend on the bids, what providers think they can do and where they think they can do it. From housing strategy to housing chaos in one easy step.

The HCA paper does include some detail about AR. The product (and therefore the rental income) will only be available to Registered Providers who achieve an HCA contract for delivery, so that will exclude virtually all councils and all non-developing housing associations and any existing developing HAs who do not win a contract. So that will keep the numbers of AR lettings down and ensure that most re-lets across the stock will be under a continuation of the existing ‘rent restructuring’ rules. Under AR or social rent, the terms of tenancy will be up to the landlord to decide within a policy framework set by local authorities – subject to a 2 year minimum term for AR tenancies. So all future tenancies could be short or long term at the landlords’ whim.

The relationship between AR and housing benefit is going to be crucial. The HCA paper implies that HB will be payable on an AR letting even if the 80% market rent takes it above the local LHA limit. That might offer some protection to tenants who will be on benefits for a long time. However the overall benefits cap of £26,000 will still apply, irrespective of the rent being covered: in high rent areas, that will be the worst of all the new rules in practice. If the aim of building 150,000 new affordable homes is achieved, and say 90% of them are AR and say 60% of those are let to HB tenants, then the cost to the government will run to several hundred millions of pounds, proving yet again that cuts in one place often pop up as extra costs somewhere else.

Providers have to submit their ‘offers’ by 3 May and initial contracts are expected to be sign in July.

Tags Affordable housing, Housing association, Housing Benefit

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Homes for votes

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date February 10, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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Sometimes an innocuous news story grabs your attention and triggers a strong emotional reaction. Well this time it was the seemingly unremarkable story of a former Head teacher who was made a Dame in 2000 for her services to education, then was sacked for misconduct to do with staff appointments. But yesterday she had her Dame Commander of the British Empire honour cancelled and annulled by the Queen.

My problem is that I can’t hear the word ‘Dame’ without a shiver going down my spine because of its association in my mind with the name of Dame Shirley Porter. In the late 1980s I became one of the ‘objectors’ to Westminster Council’s accounts over the policy that became known as the ‘Homes for Votes’ gerrymandering scandal. Over many years the case was investigated by the Auditor and then meandered through the Courts, ending conclusively in a House of Lords judgement against her for “wilful misconduct” and “disgraceful and improper gerrymandering”. Those with a keen interest can read the Lords’ judgement . The case concerned the unlawful sale of council houses for electoral purposes, which was illegal, but Westminster’s other noteworthy policies including closing homeless hostels, being ‘nasty to the homeless’, and rehousing people in temporary accommodation in tower blocks known to be riddled with asbestos.

Karen Buck MP, who was involved in exposing and pursuing Porter, has recently pointed out that the number of people displaced under Porter’s plans was tiny compared to the clearances that will shortly happen with the changes to local housing allowance. That is the battle to come. But for those interested in the history, Andrew Hosken’s book ‘Nothing Like a Dame: The Scandals of Shirley Porter’ tells the whole story and Paul Dimoldenberg’s book ‘The Westminster Whistleblowers: Shirley Porter, Homes for Votes and Scandal in Britain’s Rottenest Borough’ looks at events from the point of view of local campaigners. Both are excellent reads. There was also a BBC radio 4 play broadcast in 2009 called ‘Shirleymander’.

Since the case was finalised – Porter eventually paid back £12m of the losses – Westminster Labour councillors, MPs and Ken Livingstone have raised a number of related issues. One is that there should have been a serious investigation by the Met into allegations of perjury against Porter. And another was that it was improper for a person found guilty of such acts to remain as a Dame given the endorsement that implies. Neither of these points have been satisfactorily answered.

No Tory Leader has ever apologised for what Porter did. That would be good to hear. It probably will never happen. But it is reasonable to ask – why is she still a Dame?

Tags Dame Shirley Porter, Karen Buck, Westminster Council

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Tenant organisation is social housing’s ‘big society’

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date February 9, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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It’s no surprise that Liverpool City Council has pulled out as one of the government’s ‘vanguard communities’ for the Big Society. The city faces huge cuts and many of those cuts will have a big impact on projects that could be described as furthering the big society, and not only in the voluntary sector. For the government to accuse Liverpool of pulling a political stunt shows how crude their spin machine has become.

Despite some elaborate language and a smattering of half-decent projects, the Tory concept of the Big Society is floundering because it has become a subterfuge for devolving and diverting blame for the cuts. Its key themes – empowering individuals and communities, encouraging social responsibility, creating an enabling and accountable state, and, more controversially, public sector reform – often sound ok but when thay are twisted to fit Tory ideology and deliver Tory policies they have little to do with the Big Society and a lot to do with the Small State and deficit reduction.

Insofar as it means anything at all, the Big Society should be natural territory for the left and for Labour. It is not necessary to have a ‘Small State’ as a precondition for a Big Society, indeed public spending is the essential underpinning. As Labour’s policy reviews get under way, it will be a good thing if many of the new policies that emerge have a clear focus on building stronger individual rights, stronger communities and stronger local government. Labour’s politics should welcome and encourage a flourishing civil society in all its forms, even if it sometimes makes life harder for Labour politicians.

The Big Society is a new presentation, recycled and rebadged, of age-old ideas. Community action in its various guises, community control of buildings, tenant participation and control, mutualism, community involvement in local decisions, these are all natural elements of progressive left politics.

Tenants and Residents Associations are perhaps the best example in housing, and they have been a feature of the landscape for a century or more. Often with no resources at all to speak of, they organise and promote projects of all shapes and sizes to match community needs and interests, ranging from social activities to youth projects to festivals to advice surgeries to crime reduction to befriending schemes to consultations on council policies to managing buildings to managing housing estates. They are the front line in holding landlords to account. The list is endless, as is the commitment of the people involved. An effective TRA can make the difference between an estate failing and it being a place where people want to live. TRAs demonstrate the ability and potential of ordinary people to achieve things and put the lie to the negative and stigmatising media image of social tenants.

The reality of this government’s approach to the Big Society is exemplified by its decision to strangle the National Tenant Voice at birth immediately after the Election. Seen by the Labour Government as the third arm of the new architecture for social housing (together with the investor, the Homes and Communities Agency, and the regulator, the Tenant Services Authority) the NTV was fashioned by the existing national representative tenant organisations not only to organise tenant self-advocacy at a national level but also to provide support and encouragement to the many thousands of TRAs and individual tenants who struggle in isolation to improve their communities.

The NTV would have cost less than two pence a year for everyone living in social housing but its Big Society impact would have been enormous. Closing it down shows that saving a few pence means more to the government than all the rhetoric.

Tags Big Society, Social tenant, Tenant organisation

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Self-financed council housing – will it do what it says on the tin?

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date February 5, 2011

Monimbo

Senior housing policy expert writing under a pseudonym.

I hesitate to say that the government has published its final proposals for the self-financing of council housing, since they’ve made so many announcements about it they are rivalling the quantity issued by the previous government. And strangely enough, despite this the broad shape of the package is pretty much the same as that put forward by John Healey when he offered his ‘prospectus’ last year. One key difference, of course, is that a prospectus implies choice, whereas the current package will – after a bit of negotiation around the edges – be imposed by statute from April 2012, on all 171 councils that still have housing stock.

On the face of it, the figures involved look alarming, and no doubt some on the left will use them to oppose self-financing outright, as they did when Labour put it forward. The headline figure is that councils will take on around £19bn of new debt, to enable them (in effect) to buy their way out of the system. While the LGA originally demanded that all ‘historic’ debt be written off, this was always an unlikely call on public funds, even more so with Mr Osborne in charge at the Treasury. More recently, among local authorities there has been gradual and – almost – universal acceptance of the principle that extra debt would have to be taken on as the price for escaping from the so-called ‘subsidy’ system. (The word ‘subsidy’ increasingly means, of course, that tenants subsidise the Exchequer, not the other way round.) And the other side of the coin is that a minority of councils will have part of their debt paid off.

Inevitably, the Treasury had its fingers in this pie well before the general election. The cap on each council’s borrowing, which restricts them to the levels to be included in the settlement itself, was already envisaged in Labour’s prospectus. Not only that, but it was always likely that the Treasury would ensure that it kept the surpluses the government would have earned from council housing in the future, however much these are correctly argued to amount to ‘daylight robbery’ from tenants.

In terms of the arithmetic, the spreadsheet experts have so far concluded that the current deal is similar to, and perhaps even a bit better than, the one in John Healey’s prospectus. However, whatever the overall deal, what will matter to authorities is how their individual figures work out. Given that there is a fair amount of local detail in the latest paper, this is where the focus of interest on the figures is likely to shift.

There is already a danger, of course, that hard-pressed councils whose revenue support grant has been cut are looking at their housing revenue accounts to see if they can help make up the shortfall. Labour was alive to this, and included updated guidance about maintaining the ‘ring fence’ around the HRA in its prospectus. In the current document, the guidance has been dropped and there is only a brief reminder that the ring fence needs to be kept. It seems to me that it’s always been down to tenants to be vigilant on this issue. Their vigilance needs to be even greater when, after April next year, the only income to the HRA will be their rents. The first call on rents will be to pay the debt charges, then maintain the stock, then run the landlord service. Councils and tenants can’t afford to let any of their rental income be siphoned off to make good cuts elsewhere.

There remain several points of contention about the caveats in the overall deal the government has put on the table, and all of these are a result of those greedy Treasury fingers looking for the meat in the pie. The new one to emerge as part of Mr Shapps’ package is that councils will have to continue paying three-quarters of right to buy receipts back to government. Labour can hardly rail against this iniquity, since they introduced it, but credit was due to John Healey that through his package it would have been brought to an end. The Treasury have locked their fingers round this tasty morsel, and must now somehow twist the settlement so that it reflects 30 years of future stock losses through right to buy. This introduces a high and unnecessary degree of uncertainty, since predictions of right to buy sales are invariably wrong.

The Treasury also wants the facility to reopen the settlement if circumstances change. One of these might of course be a wayward forecast of the effects of the right to buy, but the very prominence of this caveat is making councils think that ‘self-financing’ might be maintained only as long as it suits the Treasury. This is not what the deal is supposed to be about.

However, it’s the debt cap that really grates with councils, in part because of the context of overall spending cuts. If it was a bad idea under Labour, it’s a far worse one when grants from central government and other sources of finance apart from borrowing are likely to be extremely scarce, to put it mildly.

The debt cap, the continued repayment of receipts and the constant threat that the settlement might be reopened are all eroding councils’ supposed autonomy. Interestingly, as was revealed last month, councils have an unlikely ally in the deputy prime minister, who is said to have asked for councils’ borrowing powers to be reconsidered in a letter to Eric Pickles about the imminent local government finance review.

Of course, if the Treasury were to listen, at last, to the case for taking council borrowing out of the main national accounts, they could use self-financing to get council debt off the government’s books completely. Council housing is anyway now classified as outside government by the Office for National Statistics. Because most of its income comes from charges (rents). Where councils have ALMOs, these are considered separate public corporations (like, say, the BBC). Taken together with likely changes to the accountancy rules about housing revenue accounts and the separating out of housing debt, this could be the moment for the Treasury to take a step towards giving council housing – like housing associations – real autonomy. However, none of us will be holding our breath.

Tags Council house, Finance, HRA

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Progressive London: Housing foundations for the future

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date February 4, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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This year’s Progressive London’s conference takes place on 19th February and housing will be top of the agenda with session entitled “Housing – Foundations for the Future” which will discuss the progressive alternatives to the present housing policies that experts believe will force 80,000 Londoners to leave their homes.

Labour Mayoral Candidate Ken Livingstone, who is hosting the Conference, said: “The Tories’ attitude to housing can be clearly seen by the results of their policies in London. Between 2000 and 2008 156,181 new homes were built, an average 19,522 a year. Since Boris Johnson was elected in 2008 house building has fallen significantly, just 25,700 new homes, an average of 12,850. If the Tory Government and the Tory mayor’s policies are not reversed then London will become a housing no go area for the ordinary people who keep this city alive. Londoners need homes, homes they can afford, and homes that families can live in.”

Stephen Cowan, Labour Group Leader at Hammersmith and Fulham Council, who will be speaking at the session said: “The present governments housing policy will directly lead to greater segregation and larger poor communities. It has been shown that 80,000 Londoners will be forced to move if changes to housing benefit, the ending of security of tenure and the forcing up of the social housing rent cap to 80% are introduced. Now is the time for Labour to set a new and progressive housing agenda.”

The Progressive London Conference will take place on 19th February 2011 at Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS. More details from www.progressivelondon.org.uk

Tags Ken Livingstone, London

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The revolving door for homeless people

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date February 3, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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For those of us who are getting a little long in the tooth, the passage of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act in 1977 was one of the most significant moments in post war housing policy. Sponsored by a Liberal, the late Stephen Ross MP, supported by most Labour MPs and quite a few Tories, the Act was a triumph for the campaign led by Shelter and SHAC and others. The Act placed clear statutory duties on local authorities to assist the homeless based on the central principle that households in ‘priority need’ (mainly families with children and vulnerable single people) who are unintentionally homeless would be found a settled home, in practice usually an offer of social rented housing. The Act was seen by many as the last brick in the creation of a comprehensive welfare state.

The homelessness section of the Localism Bill, currently in Committee in the House of Commons, drives a coach and horses through the legislation. It will allow local authorities to discharge their main homelessness duty by providing privately rented accommodation (subject to there being a minimum 12 month fixed term).

Practice in homelessness has changed a great deal over the past few years. Partly driven by the well-intentioned but ultimately counter-productive target of halving the number of households in temporary accommodation, ‘gatekeeping’ the homelessness duty has become an art form. The growth in ‘housing options’ services has substantially improved practice in the prevention of homelessness, but has also led to a huge increase in the diversion of homeless households into the private rented sector, often without troubling the homelessness statistics collector. Up to now the homeless household, if they knew their rights, had a choice: they could either go into the system and wait for a social letting or be found a private let straight away. Given the option of a lengthy spell in temporary accommodation, many chose an early move into a private letting. Now they will be required to take private accommodation even if it is against their wishes or best interests.

Responses to this element of the Bill are varied. Not surprisingly, many councils support anything that reduces the burden on them and some are proud of the quality of the housing options service they provide (see Camden for a good example).

Shelter’s assessment is that “this measure will ultimately strip the homelessness legislation of its force and leave the most vulnerable families ….. facing a cycle of insecure accommodation, eviction and reapplication to the council.”

Citizens Advice stress that the policy will create a revolving door for the homeless because the ending of a private rented tenancy is already a significant – and increasing – cause of homelessness, and that this will get worse as the changes to the Local Housing Allowance come in. They also argue that private renting is not well suited to many homeless people – the characteristics of homeless households and the profile of existing private tenants are very different, with the latter tending to be younger, single, and less likely to be vulnerable.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation argues that ‘given that homeless households are often also experiencing poverty and other forms of social disadvantage we would be concerned about the impact on homeless households achieving stability, the increase in housing costs for individuals and the welfare benefit bill.’

The Housing Law Practitioners Association goes to the heart of the issue: ‘We suggest that the aim of a homelessness policy should be to bring the applicant’s homelessness or a cycle of homelessness to an end.’ They also argue that the burden placed on social lettings by the Act is acceptable even with the current dearth of supply: ‘If 21% of social lets are to those owed the main homelessness duty, we think that is a welcome feature, not one requiring change.’

The Chartered Institute of Housing broadly accepts the changes but this seems a contrary conclusion given their enormous list of ‘concerns’ about the proposal – the poor quality of the private rented sector, affordability, its inappropriateness for homeless families and vulnerable single people, the lack of support services, the revolving door problem, and the growing concentration or ghettoisation of poor private tenants. They should know that the government will do nothing about any of these things.

It may be clever politics to include these measures in a jumbo Bill with plenty of other controversies for people to focus on, but this section deserves major scrutiny. The ‘Big Society’ should be outraged.

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What is the truth about Supporting People cuts?

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date February 1, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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An interesting spat between Patrick Butler of the Guardian and Grant Shapps. Butler – the Guardian’s head of society, health and education – wrote a strong piece arguing that ‘savage cuts will leave people sleeping in the streets’ and Shapps replied with ‘the government is protecting the homeless from council cuts’. Read both and see what you think.

Butler’s article quoted examples of councils making huge cuts in their Supporting People (SP) programmes, which provides services to homeless people amongst others. He quotes (as far as I know his figures have not been challenged) examples of 65% and 45% cuts. Butler concludes by saying:

The savaging of SP, a proven cost-effective social intervention, also spells doom for scores of small charities, which have quietly used SP money to up the kind of innovative, low-cost, volunteer-assisted community support networks that the coalition likes to call “big society”. Much of this infrastructure will be laid to waste.

In his reply, Shapps says he ‘simply does not recognise’ Butler’s ‘apocalyptic picture of impending social disaster’. The government has protected both SP budgets and homelessness budgets, ‘so there is no excuse for councils to be targeting any disproportionate spending reductions on programmes that support the most vulnerable.’

To discover the truth we have to rely on mostly anecdotal information at this stage. However, Inside Housing’s survey of 150 councils’ intentions for 2011/2012 shows that there will be cuts of more than 30% in 16 councils and 67 of the councils in the survey will lose money compared to this year. Of equal interest is the fact that the remainder appear to have increased allocations – although, with no ring fence around SP spending, it remains to be seen what will actually get spent given all the other pressures.

And a National Housing Federation survey of 136 organisations which provide services to vulnerable people revealed that the vast majority of councils had already indicated cuts greater than 12%. Nearly three quarters of respondents (73%) said local authorities they work in had already indicated cuts of greater than 12%. 41% expected cuts over 20% in their area, and 18% of respondents expecting cuts over 30%. 60% of respondents said their organisation would be forced to reduce the level of service they offered and the top five client groups most at risk of cuts were: single homeless people, older people in need of support, people with drug and alcohol problems, ex-offenders, people with mental health problems.

The best that can be said is that a major redistribution of funding is taking place at the same time as the total national allocation is being frozen (taking Shapps at his word) or reduced, making life impossible for the losers, and more importantly, for the people who depend on the services. As funding is not ring fenced councils are doing what the government says they should – determining local priorities. Regrettably, some vulnerable groups do not seem to be highly prioritised and ‘localism’ means the government can wash its hands of any responsibility for the outcome. For Shapps to say that ‘there is no excuse for councils to be targeting any disproportionate spending reductions on programmes that support the most vulnerable’ when he has shifted large sums of money away from many of them is outrageous.

Shapps’ article contains one hostage to fortune. He says “If I thought this would in any way increase homelessness and rough sleeping, I certainly would not support the moves we are making to ensure every taxpayer’s pound is spent more wisely.”

We will soon know and then the sector can hold Shapps to his word. As we are talking about the very visible end of homelessness, the evidence will be there for everyone to see.

Tags Homelessness, Supporting People

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Housing Emergency lobby of Parliament 15 February

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date January 31, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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Housing Emergency is holding a lobby of Parliament on 15 February. The meeting point is Central Hall Westminster (Storey’s Gate SW1H 9NH) from 12-4pm.

The group includes the House of Commons Council Housing Group chaired by Austin Mitchell MP, trades unions such as Unite, GMB, UNISON, and UCATT, councils, tenants’ federations, National Tenants Council members, and Defend Council Housing.

There will be a rally starting at noon with speakers including Caroline Lucas MP, Councillor Catherine West (Leader Islington Council), Labour Housing Group Executive member Jackie Peacock, Linda McNeil (Leeds Tenants Federation), Mark Serwotka (PCS General Secretary). There will be workshops including ‘what to say to your MP’ at 2pm and a closing rally at 3.30.

The themes of the rally are: *Hands Off Secure Tenancies – no means test *Cap Rents not Benefits *Oppose up to 80% market rents *No Evictions due to Housing Benefit cuts *Build Council and other housing for rent

Housing Emergency says

“Government proposals to cut housing benefit, force rents up to 80% of market levels, and remove security of tenure for new tenants will increase fear and insecurity, rent arrears, evictions and homelessness. These policies do nothing to reduce high rents, Nor do they build the secure, genuinely affordable homes for rent we need, with 5 million already on housing waiting lists.

Ministers want to drive people into insecure, expensive private renting and destroy the principles of public housing. We want secure and stable mixed communities – not poverty traps and transit camps.”

The leaflet for the rally can be downloaded here.

Further information: [email protected] or [email protected]

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A Man’s a Man For A’ That

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date January 25, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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I could try to make a link but it’s nothing to do with housing really. It is Burns night, and my friend Billy Rae sent me this that I thought I would share.

It reflects the mood of the times, from the Burns’ poem ‘Why Should We Idly Waste Our Prime’.

Why should we idly waste our prime
Repeating our oppressions?
Come rouse to arms! ‘Tis now the time
To punish past transgressions.
‘Tis said that Kings can do no wrong —
Their murderous deeds deny it,
And, since from us their power is sprung,
We have a right to try it.
Now each true patriot’s song shall be: –
‘Welcome Death or Libertie!’

The Golden Age we’ll then revive:
Each man will be a brother;
In harmony we all shall live,
And share the earth together;
In Virtue train’d, enlighten’d Youth
Will love each fellow-creature;
And future years shall prove the truth
That Man is good by nature:
Then let us toast with three times three
The reign of Peace and Libertie!

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Under-occupation – the market solution?

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date January 25, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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A lot more is said than done about the issue of under-occupation of social rented homes.

Grant Shapps has allocated a piddling sum of £13m amongst the 50 councils with the largest numbers of under-occupiers. Of course it is a move in the right direction, if a small one, and the linked announcement that a central unit will be set up in the Chartered Institute of Housing should be a valuable resource supporting local initiatives.

Ministers say there are 430,000 under-occupied social homes in England – where tenants have two or more bedrooms more than they require (against the ‘bedroom standard’). I support the focus on tenants with 2+ additional bedrooms because tenants with one spare room over the rather ancient ‘bedroom standard’ do not regard themselves as under-occupiers.

With an estimated 258,000 social renters living in overcrowded conditions, simplistic arguments are sometimes made that the problem could be ‘solved’ if selfish older tenants were stopped from blocking social homes needed for larger families. Calls for draconian action of some kind to require under-occupiers to move to smaller accommodation seem to have been rejected – the government says it has “accepted the basic right of older tenants to stay in their homes, and that policies of encouragement are better than those of coercion….. Ministers are clear that they will not force people to move – but want to provide a helping hand to those wanting to do so.”

Just like older home owners, older tenants have often raised their families in these homes and are emotionally attached to them, still have many family visitors, are part of the local community, have neighbourhood support networks, and now have time to enjoy the garden if they have one. They have probably paid for the property a few times over in rent, and now contribute through rent pooling to the cost of homes elsewhere.

Bespoke solutions are needed, with landlords who know their tenants talking with them individually and devising a solution that meets their needs and preferences. It might involve financial incentives, a choice of suitable alternatives in preferred locations, and practical support with moving and other arrangements. We need far more schemes like the London Seaside and Country Homes scheme, offering tenants genuine retirement opportunities if that is their choice. It is regrettable that financial incentives to downsize have been cut back in many places – I suspect by an amount many times greater than Mr Shapps’ new fund.

Mr Shapps says that he wants to “make it easier for those tenants wanting to move from larger family homes to smaller, more manageable homes, to do so.” But where, exactly, are these homes? Like people who are being decanted for development, older tenants realise that they have a little bit of negotiating strength for once. They will only accept somewhere smaller if it is in some way better or suits their needs more than their current home. The right to buy and the failure to reinvest mean that there are many fewer smaller dwellings on the ground floor in good locations with access to outside space. Many top class sheltered housing schemes have had their onsite wardens removed due to changes in the Supporting People regime. There is little new development. As in so many other areas, supply and short-sighted funding regimes are the barriers to a sensible policy.

Now for the warning. Everything is not always what it seems with this government. We should not forget the analysis of Mr Shapps’ friends at Localis. In their report on social housing reform, which pointed the way to many of this government’s policies, they argued for a market approach not a change in powers:

“There has been a number of calls for Landlords to gain more power to require tenants to move to more appropriately sized accommodation to deal with under-occupation. Whilst such powers would assist with this problem, the move to market rents and personal subsidy would, in our view, address this in a more fundamental way as under-occupancy will become more expensive for tenants as their rents, but not their housing benefit, rise.”

We have had a number of policy shifts in this direction already, both through rents policy and housing benefit. Call me cynical but, despite the warm words, I think this is the real agenda.

Tags Social tenant, Under-occupation