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Lords debate on HB: the progressive majority speaks

Post author By Red Brick Blog
Post date January 26, 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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I’ve never been much of a fan of the House of Lords. But you have to doff your cap occasionally when they have a debate of real interest based on a real knowledge of an issue. So it was with the rather uninspiringly-titled debate Motion to Annul – Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2010 held on 24 January. The debate, which resulted in government Minister Lord Freud promising to undertake a review of the housing benefit changes after a year or so, can be found in full here.

There were exceptional speeches from Richard Best, Victor Adebowale and Patricia Hollis, amongst others. It was notable that there were no speeches in favour of the government’s position, apart from the Minister – you could say there was a progressive majority. It’s worth a read, but here is a selection of a few quotable quotes.

Lord Best (Crossbench): The charities working in this field ……… all note the likelihood of several thousand tenants facing homelessness. Apart from this wrecking the life chances of the families concerned, the charities point out that the extra costs of homelessness could more than outweigh the housing benefit savings. Homeless Link notes that, on conservative estimates, if even one quarter of those identified as at severe risk were to become homeless, then all the gains from the housing benefit cuts would be lost.

Lord Adebowale (Crossbench): We have not thought through the impact on families and on the societies in which they live-on social services, on health, on mental health and on employment….. we know that the poor will suffer. We know where they will suffer, we know how they will suffer and we know what the impact on public services will be, but we do not have a clear plan B.

Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat): The $64,000 question remains…….. will these housing benefit regulations mean that landlords will reduce their rents, thus bringing the huge housing benefit bill down, to general rejoicing by taxpayers and the Government, or will it mean that not enough landlords will, or can afford to, reduce their rents low enough for LHA claimants, that the discretionary housing payments will be spread too thin to make much difference and that therefore thousands of people will face eviction, child poverty will increase and local authorities will eventually have to pick up a very large bill?

Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Labour): …… the DWP‘s own figures show that the increase in housing benefit has been caused not by increased rents but by increased demand for HB from more tenants in both the private and public sectors. Only 13 per cent of the increase in HB can be attributed to private sector rent increases. In other words, the increase in the HB bill has not come about because HB has driven up rents and, therefore, has sought to catch up with the rents that it has inflated. Instead, the HB bill has risen because more and poorer people are claiming HB, including those in low-paid work. That is a fact.

……. the Government do not control, as they believe they do, the rents of the private rented sector. It is a fallacy. Indeed, preliminary findings from current research suggest that, whether housing benefit claimants account for 20 per cent or 70 per cent of the private rental market, it makes no difference at all to local rent levels. HB levels, and therefore the Government, do not shape the market, full stop.

Why is that? It is because it is a landlords’ market and not a tenants’ market; it is, therefore, not a Government’s market and not a HB market. Surveyors, letting agents and estate agents are reporting gazumping, six to eight tenants after every property and sealed-bid rent offers. The British Property Federation tells us that 150,000 extra tenants will enter the private rental sector next year, pushing up rents even further. Even where landlords in the past might have accepted some limitation of their rents if they were gaining capital growth, this, too, is no longer the case. Those on current HB levels struggle to find a home. What will happen?

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (Liberal Democrat): The private rented sector is not a place for long-term, low-income households’ housing needs to be met. It is a device that should be for another segment of our society altogether. We have let it get out of control in a way that is difficult to justify.

Lord Freud (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Welfare Reform), Work and Pensions; Conservative): I make a firm commitment to the House that we intend to commission independent, external research to help us evaluate the impact of the reforms ……. (It will cover) homelessness and moves; the shared room rate and houses in multiple occupation; what is happening in Greater London; what is happening in rural communities; what is happening in black and minority ethnic households; large families; older people; people with disabilities and working claimants.

Many housing benefit recipients will not be affected by the changes until well into 2012. We will therefore make the findings available in early 2013, with initial findings available in the spring of 2012 and an interim report in the summer of 2012.

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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

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Some further proof, if it were needed

Post author By Tony Clements
Post date January 23, 2011

Regular readers will have noted that we think that Clegg, Cameron and Shapps’ denials on housing benefits changes are rubbish. Despite their claims, the changes will force lower-income people to move and make some areas ‘no go’ for poorer families. They will fatally undermine London’s mixed communities and force more people on lower incomes into specific neighbourhoods and areas.
This is inconsistent with the Tories professed desire to tackle ‘sink estates’ and concentrations of poverty in social housing.
Shelter have published a map of which areas of London will be affordable after the HB changes and how they shrink over time. I haven’t looked at the sources, but it’s further support for those of us worried about deprivation becoming ever more concentrated in specific areas – exacerbating the disadvantages of worklessness, low aspiration, poorer educational attainment etc.

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Secret Housing Review

Post author By Tony Clements
Post date January 22, 2011

Curious that Grant Shapps and Eric Pickles aren’t the only ministers involved in developing housing policy.
Cabinet Office Minister and David Cameron’s policy fixer, Oliver Letwin is also running a review into housing and particularly private housing delivery. Building.co.uk has the story here.
It seems like the review is very wide-ranging, if it is taking seriously issues like land value tax. Though I do wonder how far they will get, if they are not working with other trade and professional bodies or indeed the Homes and Communities Agency.
As talented as the civil servants at DCLG are, the description of the review as involving ‘a small coterie of staff’ from the department, doesn’t inspire that much confidence.
Perhaps Grant Shapps should be somewhat concerned about this review. Does it indicate that No10 doesn’t have full trust in the DCLG ministerial team? After all, Lansley’s health reforms, often tipped as a slow motion train wreck, have also been treated to the Letwin policy review treatment.

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Can Labour councils use the housing changes in a different way?

Post author By Tony Clements
Post date January 21, 2011

Mayor of Newham, Robin Wales, has long been a Labour advocate of housing reform. He’s got this piece in Inside Housing today.
The core argument is that the government’s plans will lead to ever further residualisation in affordable/social housing and turn it into only a tenure of temporary last resort. This blog has agreed with that analysis.
But, is he right that there’s enough space or opportunity in the government’s reforms to use them to counter the government’s direction of travel? Could they be used to support the vulnerable and those working on low and middle incomes to defend a more universal vision of state housing provision?
Full article:

Labour-led councils can use the coaltion’s social housing reforms to forge their own agenda

It’s one of the first rules of government: if you are cutting or abolishing something, you need a reform package to cover the crime.
The coalition has cut the affordable housing budget by 75 per cent and has put together a radical package of housing reforms. Unfortunately, if you need housing in the coming years you are likely to find a system that is ever more brutal; from housing benefit cuts in the private sector and the ongoing shortage of truly affordable housing. This does not paint a pretty picture, but I believe Labour-led councils should not fear these reforms and here’s why.
Despite a shaky start on devolution, the government has allowed councils and housing associations some genuine housing freedoms. The coalition has a clear vision for the system these freedoms are designed to create: more people housed in the private sector, a quasi-market system in public housing (with housing associations preferred to councils) and state support used as a temporary ‘backstop’ only in times of crisis.
That may be their intention but, holding the government to their word on local flexibility, Labour councils need not use these freedoms that way. The challenge for Labour authorities is to use some of these freedoms to demonstrate an alternative agenda.
The government’s plans are a recipe for concentrating poverty and deprivation in social housing, especially council housing. Proposals assume that councils should use shorter tenancies to move people on when their circumstances improve and they no longer ‘need’ social housing. Labour councils should demonstrate how affordable housing can support working people. And that affordable housing should be part of mixed communities, in which people put down roots. That means maintaining, not ending, the tenancies of those who are in work or contributing to the community. Allocation schemes should allow working people on low incomes to get affordable housing and even prioritise working people in some areas, where deprivation has become the norm. If used effectively this could help us support people better – particularly those who aspire to improve their lives.
Labour town halls will have greater capacity to do this if they take up the freedom to discharge their homelessness duty into private rented accommodation, with appropriate safeguards. There’s now a tough job to be done to ensure needs are met in that sector. Nevertheless, it does provide the space in social housing stock to offer council housing to a wider group of low-income people.
Government reforms pit housing policy against aspiration and stable, sustainable communities. We should use what freedoms we have to demonstrate the principle that public housing should support people in a range of circumstances.

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For one day only, I agree with Nick

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date January 19, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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It became a catchphrase during the Election TV debates and I haven’t found a lot to agree with Nick Clegg about since the coalition took over. But, just as Red Brick agreed with Grant Shapps when he made sensible remarks about the need for a period of stable and not inflationary house prices, now it is time to agree with Nick in his comments about the extension of the Freedom of Information legislation.

Labour had plans to extend the FoI to cover some additional agencies (such as University admissions services and the Association of Chief Police Officers) which the current government is also going to pursue, but Clegg spoke about going much further and my ears pricked up when ‘housing associations’ got a mention. Since FoI came in, we have had the strange position where the regulators (Housing Corporation then Tenant Services Authority) were covered by FoI but the organisations they regulated were not.

Clegg said that “Free citizens must be able to hold big institutions and powerful individuals to account…… There are a whole range of organisations who benefit from public money and whose activities have a profound impact on the public good….. citizens must first know what goes on in these institutions. ”

It is Clegg’s suggestion that private bodies performing ‘functions of a public nature’ should be covered by FoI that catches housing associations – although careful definition will be required to avoid any suggestion that the change might trigger the re-classification of housing associations as public bodies (thereby running the risk that their loans – around £40bn – might transfer to the public sector balance sheet). The FoI Campaign has argued for years that private providers of health and social care and other public services should be subject to the Act – which contains safeguards around information that might be commercially sensitive. As Clegg says, there should be a simple rule that organisations that benefit from public money should be subject to public scrutiny.

I suspect that housing associations are probably no better and no worse than most bodies that are subject to the FoI already. But non-disclosure and a lack of public scrutiny can make organisations too cosy in their internal procedures, and then it is easy to fall into bad habits. Public scrutiny (especially through Inside Housing’s annual survey and league table) has made a difference to housing associations that had a penchant for paying over the odds for their senior staff. But I think they are often unnecessarily secretive, for example many do not publish routine information like non-confidential Board papers. Tenants often complain that they cannot get hold of financial and other information that council tenants get routinely from their landlords. And you hear the occasional story about Chief Executives’ expenses, posh dinners and trips abroad….. all of which should see the light of day.

I argued unsuccessfully to the TSA that the principles of FoI should be part of the new regulatory code, thereby avoiding the need for an extension of the legislation. That didn’t happen, and now regulation itself will be severely restricted (Clegg got that one wrong), so the only way forward is to extend the Act. The principle has to be right, the risks can be avoided, and I don’t accept the line that it will involve ‘too much work’. If it also helps change the culture of some HAs, it might have the added benefit of making the government’s plans for tenant scrutiny more effective.

Tags Freedom of information, Housing association

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Right to transfer

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date January 17, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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Attracting virtually no comment at the time it was passed, an obscure clause in Labour’s 2008 Housing and Regeneration Act could offer council tenants a unique but controversial way of owning and running their own homes.

Section 34A, as it is known, requires a local authority to co-operate with a formal notice from a tenant group to transfer ownership of council homes and estates to them. The government has decided to press forward with making regulations under the section and has branded it the right to transfer. A draft is expected in February.

As a policy, S34A is a direct descendant of the Tenants Choice legislation that was introduced by the Conservatives in 1988. The political belief at the time was that tenants would rise up to take control of their housing from Labour councils who ran their housing badly. In practice, and famously, it was used by Walterton & Elgin Community Homes (WECH) to take over their estates when Westminster Council, led by Shirley Porter, tried to sell them to developers. As it didn’t lead to the hoped-for tenants’ revolt in Labour areas, and caused embarrassment in Westminster, it was repealed in the mid 1990s.

WECH is still going strong, a leading example of tenant control working in practice. Based on its experiences, the organisation has become a strong advocate of the principle that genuine empowerment through community ownership and control can lead to measureable improvements in happiness and wellbeing.

The right to transfer is seen by the ConDems as furthering both Localism and the Big Society. So we have Labour legislation and ConDem implementation, does this mean there is a consensus that the right to transfer is a good thing? The left has often been divided on the issues of tenant control and, in particular, tenant ownership. The co-operative and mutual traditions run deep, but there has often been hostility to moving ownership out of the public sector and away from traditional democratic control. Is transfer from a council to collective tenant ownership and control ‘privatisation’ or a different form of socialised ownership? I go for the latter as long as the model does not allow for private gain (as some earlier co-ownership models did) and the homes are properly used to meet housing need.

There are of course dangers to negotiate. If tenants wish to transfer part of a local authority’s stock to their ownership, coming out of the housing revenue account is hugely complex and has risks for both sides. Other major issues to deal with include the viability of the new tenant organisation and the long-term relationship with the parent authority over issues like allocations and future development.

The right to transfer will also cause bigger political divisions in the Conservative Party. In Hammersmith and Fulham, normally the incubator of Tory housing policy, tenants on estates threatened by demolition as part of the huge Earls Court redevelopment have already served notice that they want to take over their estates, potentially scuppering the council’s plans to reduce the amount of social housing in the borough. Will the government be willing to effectively overrule the Prime Minister’s favourite council to pursue its policy?

Given the need for the Labour Party to develop a new stance on housing, my own view is that Ed Miliband and the housing front bench should support tenants interested in using this new power.

PS – In legislative technicalities, S296 of the Housing & Regeneration Act 2008 introduced a new Section 34A to the 1985 Housing Act.

Tags Council housing, Tenant control

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Action on neighbours from hell ‘a chocolate teapot’?

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date January 14, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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Yet another attempt at populism by Mr Shapps with his announcement that ‘neighbours from hell’ will face faster eviction under ‘radical plans’ to introduce a new additional mandatory ground for possession against social tenants, under which tenants with a track record of anti-social behaviour can be evicted from their council or housing association property much more quickly. At its core, the proposal means that being found guilty of housing related anti-social behaviour in one court will provide automatic grounds for eviction in the county court, removing the need to prove the incidents of anti-social behaviour for a second time.

So far so good, it would be hard to find a stronger consensus on any issue than the one in support of tackling anti-social behaviour quickly and effectively.

However, m’learned friends at the consistently excellent Nearly Legal website take a different view. And, as NL says, it is housing lawyers who will have to make sense of this when court cases follow.

So what are their key points?

First, NL say that a criminal conviction would already be incontestable as a fact in civil possession proceedings – there is no need for something to be ‘proved again’ on a possession claim at all.

Secondly, they see definitional problems. Mr Shapps says the new mandatory ground will follow a tenant being found guilty of ‘housing related anti-social behaviour’ – but, say NL, that “covers a lot of ground, from the minor but annoying to the very serious indeed. And ‘found guilty’ – does this mean a conviction in the Magistrates or Crown Court? Or the Magistrates making an ASBO or ASBI?”

Thirdly, they see problems in the word ‘mandatory’, which due to a case called Pinnock, is a bit more of a tricky concept than it used to be and not as certain as Mr Shapps would like.

Fourthly, they say there is little if any evidence that non-mandatory possession proceedings are what is getting in the way of dealing with the problem, even in the dreadful ASB cases quoted in Mr Shapps’ press release.

NL places the problem closer to home, and in particular the failure of some landlords and the police to take more effective and joined up action against perpetrators or to support victims, and the lack of dedicated funding. So, they conclude, “Unless existing powers are actually used (and the dedicated joined-up ASB teams funded), the fact that there may be a kind of mandatory possession proceeding .. is going to make no practical difference to the situation at all, as there will be as few ‘housing related ASB’ prosecutions as there are now, or even fewer.”

Mr Shapps announcement is therefore, they say, “a chocolate teapot”.

PS – another sceptical lawyer writes on 24 Dash – see here http://www.24dash.com/news/housing/2011-01-14-Lawyer-in-warning-over-fast-track-evicitons-under-ASBO-reforms

Tags Anti-social behaviour, Security of tenure, Social tenant

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Protecting the rights of property owners – sometimes

Post author By Tony Clements
Post date January 13, 2011

Eric Pickles made a very big fuss announcing more protections for the rights of property owners – limiting councils’ ability to bring privately owned empty homes back into use:

“The Coalition Government is standing up for the civil liberties of law-abiding citizens. Fundamental human rights include the right to property.”

Quite.
It’s just as well that his Localism Bill doesn’t provide any Tom, Dick or Harry the right to interfere with your private property rights.
Erm, but doesn’t that very piece of ground breaking legislation provide for a ‘Community Right to Buy’?
This would give local people the legal right to nominate any community asset onto a council’s ‘most wanted’ list. An asset on this list, in the case of its closure, could not be sold until after a ‘community countdown’, in which the community gets time to prepare its own bid to buy it.
So if you want to flog your shop, pub, small business etc, you might find your neighbours ganging up to stop you doing so – for a little while anyway.
Now, I don’t think a community right to buy is a bad idea. I’m not sure it’ll ever work, but never mind. However, it is entirely at odds with the ‘fundamental rights’ you have to do as you wish with your property.
Both, on their own, are good populist measures in their own terms, so why pause for the sake of consistency?