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
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.
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
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.
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Right to transfer
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.
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
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?
An early glimpse into the new edition of the UK Housing Review, to be published at the start of February, reveals that investment in social housing has reached its highest level for 20 years but is due to plummet again when the cuts take effect in April 2011.
The review describes how overall gross social housing investment in Great Britain rose again in 2009/10, to the highest level in real terms for almost 20 years – up by over 80 per cent since the previous decade. The strongest annualised growth was seen in Scotland. Taking account of all private finance investment, the Review concludes that “the last two years have seen overall investment in social housing at its highest sustained level (in real terms) for three decades”.
“Going right back to the 1970s, in only in one earlier year – 1989/90 – was expenditure higher. This resulted from a coincidence of exceptional factors – peaking right to buy receipts in the late 1980s housing market boom, together with landlord action to pre-empt government spending restrictions that were announced before they took effect.”
For the Chartered Institute of Housing, which trailed the Review this week, Director of Policy and Practice Richard Capie said: “The last two years have seen record investment in social housing across Britain, both from central government and importantly through private finance. This allowed the provision of more homes, essential community regeneration and important improvements in existing homes. We have now entered a very different era, with 50 per cent cuts in cash terms to housing budgets in England and around 19 per cent in Scotland. We are in the midst of a housing crisis with fewer than half the homes we need being built. This latest research shows the sheer scale of the dramatic cuts we are now seeing in new housing. These are a body blow to first time buyers, low income households and the construction sector.”
Figures on cuts to housing investment for 2011-14 for England are taken from the National Affordable Housing Programme which was £8.4bn in 2008-11 and will be £4.5bn in the three years from 2011/12. Accounting for the inclusion of mortgage rescue and the recovery of empty homes this represents a cash terms cut of 50 per cent. In Scotland the draft budget prefigures a cut in housing and regeneration spending from £488m to £393m, a cash cut of 19 per cent. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations estimates that allowance for spending brought forward in 2010/11 means that the real reduction in 2011/12 will be over 30 per cent.
The starkness of the figures adds strength to the points made by Tony in his post on how the anti-recession stimulus is running out with potentially dire consequences for the construction sector of the economy.
The website of the UK Housing Review is http://www.york.ac.uk/res/ukhr/index.htm 2010-11 and contains a wealth of statistical and financial information about housing in the UK. It is edited by Professors Steve Wilcox and Hal Pawson.
I thought I’d flag up this article in the Telegraph from last week.
It’s about the construction industry hitting the buffers because of the poor weather in November and December this year.
It also notes that construction, despite being a very small part of the economy (6%) accounted for a significant proportion of what little growth there has been. Construction growth made up one third of all growth in the economy in Q2 of 2010, and one quarter of all growth in Q3. Not a bad contribution from a small sector.
This shows that the extra money invested in housing as part of the fiscal stimulus worked exactly as it was supposed to. The construction growth of the last year has kept people in jobs (and off benefits) and supported firms that otherwise would have gone under or contracted.
Think how much more anemic the growth in Quarters 2 and 3 would be without the extra housebuilding.
More worryingly for the future, construction is now contracting, jobs are being shed at a rapid rate and in particular “residential construction [is] falling at the fastest rate since April 2009, indicating the knock-on impact of a stagnant housing market.”
And I would add, deep cuts in capital for housing investment and the fiscal stimulus coming to an end.
And remember not only did this irresponsible, deficit creating spending splurge keep people off benefits, in jobs and supported competitiveness and capacity in the economy – it leaves a legacy of tens of thousands new affordable homes across the country that would not otherwise have been built.
In previous posts we highlighted the bizarre examples used in the government’s advice on how to deal with squatters, especially what to do if your home is squatted whilst out walking the dog. Bernard Crofton recalled that the dog example originated as an ironic comment made at a meeting many years ago. From his Freedom of Information request, it seems no such examples actually exist and, even if they did, the government wouldn’t know because it keeps no data on such cases.
It was with this in mind that I read the 7 January announcement by Secretary of State Eric Pickles that he planned to heavily restrict the use of Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMO), introduced by Labour to take action on properties that have been empty for 6 months or more.
Once again the justification for the policy is punctuated by colourful and extreme examples. Pickles said it was wrong that a bereaved family could face having their loved one’s home seized under an EDMO, and quoted examples of councils attempting to use the powers against someone caring for an injured daughter abroad and a 96 year old who had passed away in a nursing home.
These examples would indeed be extraordinary if true, and CLG will shortly receive an FoI request seeking more information about them. What is known is that only 44 EDMOs have been made since the law came into effect in 2006. Councils would indeed have to be out to lunch to have focused on such cases given how many empty homes there are to choose from.
Let me be clear: just as I disapprove of people squatting properties when homeowners are walking their dogs, I also disapprove of councils making EDMOs against ‘people in vulnerable situations’ as Mr Pickles calls them, or when a property is empty for good reason.
Having compulsorily purchased quite a lot of empty homes in a previous life (indeed under the Thatcher government) I know that owners get into complex positions especially if a relative has died intestate. Back then the owners would be given lots of opportunities to bring their properties back into use, and the same is true today with EDMOs. But the very fact that the council intervened and was willing to take strong action meant that many properties were brought back into use without any formal action being taken. The threat was taken seriously. Owners will see Pickles’ soft soap policy and laugh when the council comes calling.
The real reason for Pickles’ change is ideological: “The Coalition Government is standing up for the civil liberties of law-abiding citizens. Fundamental human rights include the right to property” he said. More important, it seems than the human rights of the homeless.
Pickles clearly has little understanding of the damage empty properties can do to neighbourhoods in a very short space of time. In future he will only allow EDMOs to be used where there has been vandalism or squatters and other forms of anti-social behaviour, and action can only be taken after the property has been empty for two years. So an owner will be able to keep a property empty in a vandalised state, a blight on the neighbourhood, for 2 years before the council can take EDMO enforcement action.
I hope councils will object strongly, both to the stupidity of the new policy and to the demeaning nature of the argument for introducing it.