Category: Blog Post

Institutional chaos

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 28, 2011

The Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, David Orr, spoke last week about the ‘institutional chaos’ facing housing associations and the need to think carefully about balancing the needs of their business with their mission.
He said “You might take a strategic business view that the smart thing to do is wait until all the moving parts have settled down and not take any risks. But that is pretty disastrous in mission terms with the scale of the housing crisis.”
Housing associations (HAs) certainly face huge dilemmas in the current policy framework. It is no longer possible to build what is needed most – social rented housing at genuinely affordable rents – except in tiny numbers as a special case. So, if HAs with development programmes want to keep them going, and most are assembling their bids at the moment, there is little choice but to plan a mix of private housing, shared ownership and the new, grotesquely-named ‘Affordable Rent (AR)’ product (which is little different from the intermediate rent products we have seen before). Of course it can be argued that building almost any housing is useful given the current shortage, and AR at 80% of market rent is not that much different from social rents in those parts of the country with the lowest values. But everywhere else, the virtual removal of social renting from the mix totally disregards the needs of communities and the people on lowest incomes.
One thing HAs with a development programme can and must do is protect the existing stock of social rented homes when they become available for re-letting. The government wants them to re-let a share of their existing homes at AR rent levels to generate funding for new development. I think they should demonstrate their commitment to their mission, to borrow David Orr’s word, by refusing to do so and by re-letting these homes at social rent levels. Councils, in revising their housing strategies and setting their new ‘tenancy strategies’ under the Localism Bill, should set out their opposition to existing social rented homes being re-let at such high rents.
Lettings policies, already the art of getting a quart in to a pint pot, will come under even greater strain. Demand for homes that are re-let at social rents will increase as supply contracts even further. Who will the new AR tenancies at up to 80% market rents be allocated to? The government argues that the profile will be the same as those who currently get allocated social rented homes, but they also say that the new policy will not impact on the requirement for housing benefit – and they can’t have both of these. Higher rents require more housing benefit, as we have argued before and as Family Mosaic’s research showed. Once again their housing policy and their welfare reform agendas are in direct conflict.
HAs caught in the middle say quietly that this is an argument that the lenders may ultimately decide – they don’t like it when the tenants can’t pay their rents and this will be reflected in their risk assessments of new schemes. One middle course would be for HAs to refuse to set AR rent levels above the limit for Housing Benefit, irrespective of local market rent levels. That would reduce the yield but would keep the homes available for people on housing benefit. But, in higher value areas, it is the total benefits cap (rather than the housing benefit limit) that will prevent many tenants from being able to pay their rent. This will be reflected in the risk assessment for new schemes and the pressure will be on to let to people with sufficient income to be able to afford the rent.
So, there are dangers both ways. If AR homes are let to people on low incomes who would previously have qualified for a social rented home, then housing benefit spending will go up. If AR homes are let to people who can afford the higher rents, then people on lower incomes will be squeezed out and more will end up in private rented accommodation at higher rents with a higher requirement for HB support. Either way, there is likely to be upward pressure on HB spending: the government will have to find more money or look for more cuts. The prospects are grim.

Tags Affordable housing, Housing association, Housing Benefit

Blog Post

Rough sleeping is the tip of the iceberg

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 23, 2011

In a recent post we covered the story of Westminster Council’s plans to introduce a new bye-law for the Victoria area of the city to ban street sleeping and soup runs.

Here, Nicky Gavron AM, Labour’s Spokesperson for Housing and Planning on the London Assembly, says that this ban is just one of many policies that will impact on homelessness.

Nicky Gavron AM

Former Deputy Mayor of London. London Assembly Member. Deputy Chair of the Planning Committee & GLA Labour Spokesperson for Planning.

The council made infamous by Shirley Porter is at it again, forcing people it considers undesirable out of the borough. In the eighties it was low income Labour-voting families; this time it’s some of society’s most vulnerable.

Westminster City Council’s pursuit of a byelaw to make it an offence to sleep rough and give away food in the most salubrious parts of the borough has been well documented.

Cllr Daniel Astaire, the council’s Cabinet Member for Society, Families and Adult Services audaciously told the Daily Mirror:

“Soup runs have no place in the 21st century. It is undignified that people are being fed on the streets. They actually encourage people to sleep rough with all the dangers that entails. Our priority is to get people off the streets altogether. We have a range of services that can help do that.”

But what Westminster councillors have not mentioned is that they are actively seeking to close the very hostels and services that help people off the streets and into a life of normality. One of these is the 100-plus bed Victoria Hostel in Castle Lane.

Westminster – like all borough councils – is given a budget to provide services for people in acute housing need, including rough sleepers. Most boroughs have had this budget cut, but Westminster has actually been given an increase – presumably in recognition of the need. And instead of using this extra money to carry out its legal and moral duty to help rough sleepers, it is slashing services and is prepared to waste police time and court resources by criminalising those who need help.

It’s difficult not to think that this is anything other than a cynical manoeuvre to turn Westminster into one big gated-community, and to seal it and its more well heeled residents off from a problem that’s getting worse across the city.

The combination of a stalling economy, rising unemployment, housing and benefit reforms will all conspire to push many more people into homelessness and increase levels of rough sleeping.

No assessment has been made by the government of the costs and impact of their housing and welfare reforms. The government’s total cap on benefits, which will hammer the budgets of families on low incomes, combined with their plan to raise social housing rents to 80 per cent of market rates will put intolerable stress on housing services in London.

Add to this the housing benefit reforms and the plan to make it easier for councils to discharge their homelessness duty, and the increase in rough sleeping seems inevitable.

Most damaging of all will be raising the age threshold for the Single Room Rate from 25 to 35. As one charity leader told me, rough sleepers will struggle to find normal shared housing. Forcing people to live together is a policy that has failed in the past and will fail again.

The Government must act now to stop rough sleeping getting worse. If it wants to convince us that these reforms are not ideologically driven, it must get tough with councils like Westminster by refusing this byelaw and reintroducing ring-fencing for those budgets that protect vulnerable people.

Without this, there is little the Mayor’s London Delivery Board on rough sleeping will be able to do to hold back the tide.

Most crucial of all, the government must rethink its housing and benefit reforms. As they stand they will lead to social segregation on an unprecedented scale – and rough sleeping is just the tip of the iceberg.

You can follow Nicky Gavron on Twitter at twitter.com/nickygavron. This article also appeared in Inside Housing magazine.

Tags Homelessness, Westminster City Council

Blog Post

Housing demand: the good the bad and the ugly

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 21, 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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Tony obviously spent much of the weekend counting up the number of housing reviews and commissions taking place at the moment for his post yesterday. One of those he listed has already produced some interesting research for its launch event last week – the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) fundamental review of housing policy.

The project, led by Andy Hull, Senior Research Fellow ([email protected]) will have four streams of work. It will look at housing’s role in the economy and how housing could play a less destabilising part in the macro-economy; housing supply and how to meet the projected increase in housing demand between now and 2025; housing allocation and use, and how to achieve a fairer and more efficient use of the housing stock we have; and housing management, looking mainly at the need to professionalise the private rented sector and encourage mixed communities.

The project’s first report on housing demand to 2025 presents a detailed model for estimating the number of households in each region requiring homes, which as they rightly say, should underpin the development of housing and planning policy. The model looks at how housing demand might vary according to changes in the growth path of the economy – the good, the bad and the ugly as they call their various economic growth scenarios.

This is a detailed and slightly techie read, but the headlines are clearly presented. Housing demand will outstrip supply by 750,000 by 2025 ‘equivalent to the combined current housing demand of Birmingham, Liverpool and Newcastle’. Between 3.3 million and 4.5 million additional households will be formed by 2025. Household growth will vary by region, with the fastest growth expected to continue to be in the South East and London, but even in the region with least pressure, the North West, the increase in overall housing demand relative to current demand will be in the range 9–15 per cent: ippr say there will be ‘a substantial imbalance in the supply and demand of housing in all regions’.

The demand for homes in the different tenures is seen to be closely linked to economic performance – the poorer the performance, the greater the demand for social rented homes. The demand for social rented homes (supply of which the government has just reduced to zero in the future) will still be high under all scenarios.

It will be worth keeping an eye out for further publications and events by ippr as the research progresses.

Tags Economy, Institute for Public Policy Research, Supply and demand

Blog Post

Changing the borrowing rules (part 26)

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 18, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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A rare opportunity to welcome an initiative by a bundle of ten councils of all political persuasions – Tory, LibDem, Lab and NOC – arose this week. The issue is an old one on which a dedicated band of experts have campaigned for 20 years or more. And the question is whether George Osborne is any more likely to listen than any of his predecessors as Chancellor. My feeling is not because the tradition of orthodoxy runs deep at HM treasury.

Changing the borrowing rules has been a celebrated cause, where everyone except the people who matter most, in Whitehall, favours change. In essence, in the UK borrowing to invest in council houses has been included in the main measure of public sector borrowing, and therefore subject to strict control. Other countries especially in the Eurozone, do things differently, and we could count council housing and other public corporate activities as separate trading activities where borrowing is determined by the business plan of the organisation involved and its revenue streams – and governed by the prudential code – rather than being controlled by an artificial national count of all debt that only the Brits use.

Detailed work led by the CIH in the 1990s (their report was entitled ‘Challenging the Conventions’) led to high hopes that the new Labour Government would change the rules. Some adjustments were made, mainly with the prudential borrowing regime, which helped, but the breakthrough never arrived. The research for the CIH report was undertaken by the (then) leading Coopers and Lybrand accountancy company, now part of PWC. They then did follow-up research with financial institutions, revealing in a second report called ‘Consensus for Change’ that the City was wholly relaxed about the proposed revision to borrowing measures and that it might lead to over £1 billion of extra investment being available for council housing.

This new initiative, supported by councils from all over the country as well as all political persuasions, takes the campaign into yet another decade. They assert that the change would not affect UK credit ratings, would ease unemployment in construction, and would help deliver the Government’s aspiration to build more homes during this spending review period. Their current estimate is also that an additional £1bn could be raised for investment in new housing.

HM Treasury being what it is, silence will probably be the response. I don’t think they have ever issued a serious rebuttal of the arguments. Time will tell, but some of us have already grown old and grey waiting for this sensible reform.

Blog Post

What are housing associations for?

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 17, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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There has been speculation in the last few days that the charitable status of housing associations might be under threat. It would cost the sector a huge amount in additional tax if charitable status was lost. The issue has been bubbling under for a while, but the new debate has been triggered by a request from the Tenant Services Authority to the Charity Commission to express a view on the implications of the new (mis-named) Affordable Rent regime.

The Commission’s response is of course equivocal: it depends on the circumstances of each association, what their charitable objectives are, and how Affordable Rent fits in with their activities as a whole. The key sentences in their reply are these:

“Generally, where an association has a charitable purpose to relieve those in need by providing housing, then those who benefit must be poor and in housing need…….. Associations will be aware of whether, in practice, some affordable rent products have rents at a level that people in poverty cannot access, and where housing benefits are capped at a level below the rent.”

“In summary, in principle, charitable housing associations can provide an Affordable Rents product. However, the extent to which the product will be used to relieve poverty may determine whether it is able to satisfy the public benefit requirement and one aspect of this will be the extent to which housing benefit will cover the rental. Charitable associations operating in areas of high market rents will therefore need to look at this aspect in detail to see whether the affordable rents can provide a means of relieving poverty.”

From an ideological point of view, it is clear where the Government is headed. By dictating that there will be no new social rented housing built in future, only ‘Affordable Rent’ (ie up to 80% of market rents), and by requiring that a proportion of re-lets in developing associations are also let at ‘Affordable Rent’ levels, the government is signaling the transformation of housing associations from bodies dedicated to providing homes for the poorest in society to institutional private landlords of near-market homes.

Some people in the sector have also been asking for this problem to visit them. Many housing associations are brilliant at what they do and serve homeless and badly-housed people, their tenants and their communities very well, but some look and act less and less like charitable bodies as each year passes and give every impression of not liking poor people much let alone wanting to relieve their poverty.

Charitable status might be protected as long as it is possible for people on low incomes to access ‘Affordable Rent’ homes. That in turn will depend on the allocations policies followed and the continued availability of housing benefit. Some associations think they will not be able to let the new homes to people who could be defined as charitable beneficiaries; for schemes to be viable they will have to let the homes, or at least a significant proportion of them, to people who can afford the rent without the risk associated with needing housing benefit to support their payments. For the moment, the government says HB will be available for AR properties, but in high cost areas it is the operation of the overall benefits cap and the uprating by less than real inflation that will make it impossible for families on benefit to access these homes.

The loss of charitable status would be a blow, but, in the context of government housing policy, it is the bigger question ‘what are housing associations now for?’ that needs to be answered.

Tags Affordable housing, Housing association, Housing Benefit, Poverty

Blog Post

Localism Bill holes homelessness safety net

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 16, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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Most people will never get to know about the work that many MPs put in, in quality and in quantity. But anyone following the Committee stage of the Localism Bill would be impressed by the hard graft put in by the key members of the Labour opposition, their analysis of the issues and their knowledge of the subjects under discussion.

The Bill covers such a wide range of topics and working out the ramifications of over 200 specific clauses and more than 20 schedules is a herculean task. As of 10 March there had been 24 sittings of the Bill Committee, and the leading Labour members have attended just about all of them, making dozens of amendments and speeches.

I have been following the debate on the homelessness sections of the Bill – see my previous post for more background here. The government’s policy of allowing councils to discharge their homelessness duty by obtaining a private rented sector letting for the applicant drives a coach and horses through the homelessness safety net, legislation that is arguably one of the legs of the welfare state. The whole debate can be read here.

On 10 March Nick Raynsford made a powerful speech on this section of the Bill – unfortunately to no avail. It traces the history of the homelessness legislation, how the Tories have always opposed it, and how the Lib Dems have always supported it – until now. Raynsford was of course heavily involved in achieving the passage of the original homelessness legislation in 1977. Here are a few highlights from what he said.

“Homeless people are not different from other people. There are some who have special problems, but the vast majority of homeless people are those who have fallen on difficult times. They may have lost their home through a variety of different circumstances, and they are exposed to all the horrors of not having a home. Above all, they need help and support to get back on their feet and to move back into the mainstream and normal life.

“That is what brought me into working in housing in the late 1960s. I was of the generation that saw “Cathy Come Home” and was horrified by the revelation in that powerful programme of just how badly we as a society treated homeless people in the 1960s. It was a revelation. I was not aware that old workhouses were still being used as accommodation, or that families were routinely split up and husbands were not allowed to go into accommodation for homeless families—only the women and children could go in, and the husbands were split away. There was no proper safeguard for homeless families or people. That led me not only to work in the voluntary housing sector, but to campaign in the 1970s for a law that would give hope and security to homeless people and help the process that I have just described.

“That process involved helping homeless people through the difficulty and back into the mainstream of society, rather than allowing them to be stigmatised, marginalised and punished, as was the case before the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977. That Act was very important, and I helped Stephen Ross, the Liberal MP for the Isle of Wight, who bravely undertook to promote that as a private Member’s Bill in 1976, a time when he could have easily adopted other causes that might have been more popular in his constituency. I know from talking to him at the time that he was determined to do something hugely important for society, not just take on something that would be popular and help him to win a marginal seat in the ensuing general election, so I pay huge tribute to him. He did so with the support of the then Labour Government, which had a wafer-thin majority, so Liberal support was important. The two parties worked together, and that legislation was the product of Labour and Liberals working together to give rights to homeless people.

“I am sorry to say that the Conservative party at the time opposed that legislation. It voted against it and fought it literally clause by clause through this House. However, it got onto the statute book and made a difference. It changed attitudes towards the homeless, and it ensured that provision for homeless people was brought into the mainstream of housing provision, rather than being something on the margins that separated them from the rest of society. That continued throughout the 1980s, until in 1996 a Conservative Government sought to weaken the safeguards for homeless people. In Opposition, we in the Labour party fought that unsuccessfully, supported by the Liberal party—I think they were the Liberal Democrats by then—who were absolutely at one with us in defending the 1977 Act against the Tory Government’s attempt to weaken it. I welcomed that support.

“In 2000-01, when I was Minister for Housing and Planning, I had the privilege of introducing the Homes Bill, which reinstated the principal safeguards of the 1977 Act which had been weakened by the 1996 legislation, and also introduced the concept of local authorities developing homelessness prevention strategies. That Bill did not reach the statute books immediately—it fell because of the 2001 general election—but it was re-introduced by my successor immediately after that election, when I had moved to another responsibility, and made it on to the statute book. That was passed by a Labour Government with the support of the Liberal Democrats. In fact, I well remember the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who led the Opposition for the Liberal Democrats in the Committee that discussed the Homes Bill in the run-up to the 2001 general election. He was pressing us to go further, rather than saying we should weaken in any way our commitment to homeless people.

“This is what really saddens me about what is happening now, because we are seeing here a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats weakening a piece of legislation that should be a proud monument to parties working together to advance the prospects of disadvantaged people and help those in difficult circumstances to get back on their feet. I am delighted that the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay has—to a degree—maintained the honourable tradition of his party in seeking to safeguard the position of homeless people. I hope when on Report he will continue to do so with a commitment to voting for his views, rather than simply articulating them.

“I say to this Committee, and to all Members of this House, that this is a retrograde step. This is weakening the safeguards for homeless people…. it will expose more people to a position where they are subject to a dependence on benefits; where the work incentives are to very large degree taken away by punitive rates of taxation because of the withdrawal of benefits; and where they do not have the security to be able to rebuild their lives because they live in insecure lettings where they cannot be certain they can stay from one year to the next and continue to occupy it as their home, providing they pay the rent and meet the tenancy obligations. This is a sad, retrograde step, and I believe that the House will ultimately regret it and will come to realise that if it passes the clause, and the Bill, it will have made a serious mistake.”

Localism Bill Clause 124 3 March 2011

Tags Homelessness, Liberal Democrats, Localism Bill

Blog Post

An everyday story of housing folk

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 10, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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‘Neigbourhood Watched’ on the BBC seems to be achieving cult status, ‘The Wire’ without the guns (and without the Americans). Although I’m not sure whether I’m more disturbed by Michelle and Laura, two of the ‘stars’ of the last episode, or some of the twits who tweeted about it.

It is refreshing to have a programme about the work and challenges facing housing officers. They came across as caring and business-like, offering the families chances to change but then being decisive when the chances were spurned. The focus of the programme on anti-social behaviour may have given a distorted view of what housing officers do, but it demonstrated that it is a serious blight in many neighbourhoods and can ruin an estate. For a family to nickname a small child ‘asbo’ is pretty disgusting. I may have missed it but the one weakness in the approach was that I can’t recall any reference to Children’s Services being made. The families will live somewhere when they are evicted, the children will still be there, things may get worse not better, and there are no housing officers paying attention in the private rented sector.

Most of us go into housing because of Bill and Elsie and have to put up with Michelle and Laura. After a good life bringing up their children in their council home (the distinction between the council and the housing association seemed irrelevant to them) all they wanted was a sheltered flat with no stairs as they approached their 80s in declining health. The housing officers knew the house would be in high demand for a family but it was touch and go whether they would qualify for a sheltered flat. How crazy is that? But their story demonstrated the huge significance of a decent affordable home to the quality of life of ordinary decent people – and in my experience they are far more representative of social housing tenants than the stereotypical spongers we read about everyday.

I expect the programme is available on BBC i-player if anyone missed it. I hope there are more Bills and Elsies in the rest of series. They make the struggle worthwhile – for resources, for more affordable homes, and for decent treatment of tenants as human beings not chess pieces to be moved around the board every year or two.

Tags Anti-social behaviour, BBC, Renting

Blog Post

HRA ring fence: the need for scrutiny

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 8, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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In previous posts we welcomed the Government’s decision to implement John Healey’s proposals to reform council housing finance through ‘self-financing’. We expressed a couple of doubts about the new proposals, notably that the Government had abandoned Labour’s plan to allow councils to retain all of their capital receipts from council house sales.

One other noteworthy distinction between the two sets of plans concerns the operation of the Housing Revenue Account ‘ring fence’ – ie the rules governing transfers between the HRA, which records income and expenditure on council housing, and the General Fund, which covers the rest of council spending.

John Healey’s ‘Prospectus’ published a year ago showed the need for gradual reform of the way the ring fence operates to make the system fairer for tenants. It showed that at least 40% of general management costs are incurred on what it defined as ‘non-core’ services, services that arguably should not be met from rents but from the general income of the council. This one statistic makes a mockery of any accusation that tenants are ‘subsidised’. Therefore, over time, it was proposed that non-core services should be regarded as services provided by the landlord but funded from sources other than rent. The consultation showed virtually unanimous support for the continuation of the ring fence and the Prospectus proposed that new updated guidance should be issued.

In the Tory proposals ‘Implementing self-financing for council housing’ published in February 2011 the ring fence merits a single paragraph. On the principle it accepts that the system should ensure that ‘council taxpayers do not subsidise services specifically for the benefit of tenants and that rent is not used to subsidise functions which are for the benefit of the wider local community’ – although that statement is open to several interpretations. My concern is that it states ‘In line with our emphasis on localism we do not intend to issue new guidance on the operation of the ring-fence. We expect local authorities to take their own decisions, rooted in the principle that ‘who benefits pays’.’ The last guidance was issued in 1995 when council housing finance was very different from today.

Although the legal position will not change, the lack of guidance, the dilution of Labour’s plans for independent regulation of council housing, and the message the government is sending out that the operation of the ring fence is down to local discretion, combine to create a real danger for tenants. Council Finance Directors and local politicians of all hues will look enviously at a fairly well-funded HRA and see opportunities to shift resources to help their beleaguered General Funds.

The ring fence is easily breached and open to manipulation. In one council I worked with, there were more than 60 types of transaction between the HRA and the General Fund. These ranged from recharges for council overheads and democratic costs, to dozens of service level agreements with charges for items like central accountancy and HR, to procurement of office furniture, to rent for council premises. Then there are age-old practices where council tenants are charged twice, as rent payers and as council tax payers, for a single service – for example paying towards general street lighting but also paying extra for lighting on estate roads.

These charges have often been set historically with little challenge. One of the many benefits of ALMOs was that the process of setting up the management agreement required recharges and SLAs to be identified and renegotiated, a process sharpened by the need to obtain 2 stars in the inspection, which led to better services and significant cost reductions. My fear is that local discretion will reverse this progress and cost tenants dear over time. The temptation will be just too great – and it will undermine the move towards council housing being run as a self-financed business within the council, with services paid for out of rents in a very transparent way. The case for central guidance is strong.

Tenants have been vigilant on this in the past – witness the ‘Daylight Robbery’ campaign a few years back. In future, detailed tenant scrutiny of the local arrangements will be essential, and well-informed campaigning tenants groups could make a real difference.

Tags Council house, Housing revenue account

Blog Post

‘Bleeding stump’ charge adds insult to injury

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 7, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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On top of the policies that have come out of Communities and Local Government department since the Election, which are bad enough, many people in the housing and local government world have been infuriated by the style of political argument adopted by Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps. It all seems so unpleasant.

Anybody with a contrary view is rubbished and serious debate about the huge and sweeping cuts to frontline services is reduced to a few soundbites about the salaries of some senior officers or a couple of funny-sounding job titles. The fact that Tory and Liberal councils are making huge cuts to frontline services is brushed aside as Labour councils are denounced for making supposedly politically-inspired cuts.

Shapps raised the political temperature by accusing Liverpool of a ‘disgraceful attack on the vulnerable’ when it made cuts to its supporting people programme. This was believed to be not entirely unconnected to the fact that the council pulled out as one of the vanguard communities for the Big Society – because of the scale of the cuts enforced by the Government. Last weekend Pickles accused Labour councils of adopting a “bleeding stump” strategy.

According to the BBC, Pickles said that Labour councils are making bigger than necessary cuts for ‘politically motivated reasons’ and that he ‘is angry about councils publicising spending cuts and blaming them on ministers.’ Even his own coalition partners have had enough: last month a large group of Lib Dems complained about his approach and said he was engaged in ‘gunboat diplomacy’ with local government.

It is therefore good to hear that the Cabinet Secretary has officially rebuked the Prime Minister over the ‘unacceptable’ behaviour of Pickles’ special advisers and the way in which they brief the media. Cameron has been told to ‘restrain his aides’. Politics is a rough old trade, as they say, but this action appears to be unprecedented. The Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell’s letter, according to PR Week, read: ‘This behaviour is unacceptable. I trust you will agree with me and take necessary action to make sure that people understand this will not be tolerated.’

All over the country Labour councils have been struggling with huge front-loaded cuts to their budgets. There have been large demonstrations at many council budget-making meetings by community organisations seeking to save their services, and Labour councillors dedicated to serving their communities have faced impossible decisions. Pickles ‘bleeding stump’ comment adds insult to injury and will cause enormous resentment.

It is probably unconnected, but last week I signed up to Twitter for the first time, only to receive an email within minutes which read “you are being followed by the Conservatives”. It’s an alarming thought.

Tags Department for Communities and Local Government, Labour councils, Local government

Blog Post

Localism Bill Committee debates social housing clauses

Post author By Steve Hilditch
Post date March 4, 2011

Steve Hilditch

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This week the House of Commons Committee examining the Localism Bill moved on to Part 6 of the Bill, the part dealing with social housing. Over the coming few sessions, the Committee will look at the various government proposals for homelessness and allocations, social housing tenancies, mobility, regulation, HRA reform, complaints and the Ombudsmen function. It is a huge agenda of change, much of it controversial.

In the first debate on this part, Shadow Housing Minister Alison Seabeck set out some general comments on the government’s approach and that of the Labour opposition, extracts are included below.

Readers interested in the detail of the Bill and the Parties’ stances on the issues coming up can follow the full debate clause by clause through the ‘They Work for You’ website. Start the housing section of the Localism Bill here.

The Committee has a coalition majority and its members (all parties) currently are:

Jack Dromey, David Ward, Bob Neill, Fiona Bruce, Henry Smith, Gavin Barwell, Ian Mearns, Brandon Lewis, Nick Raynsford, James Morris, Andrew Stunell, John Howell, Eric Ollerenshaw, Heidi Alexander, Iain Stewart, Siobhain McDonagh, Bill Wiggin, Alison Seabeck, Nicholas Dakin, Stephen Gilbert, Jonathan Reynolds, Julie Elliott, Greg Clark, David Simpson, Alun Cairns, Barbara Keeley

Extracts from speech of Alison Seabeck MP on 1 March 2011

“Social housing is an integral part of the housing mix in this country. It provides secure and affordable accommodation for low-income families, for pensioners and for people who are unable to work or who cannot find a job and are vulnerable. Historically, it has been a safety net ensuring that the most disadvantaged in our community, as well as those in housing need for a very broad range of reasons, retained the human right to a roof over their head. Housing is a human right that was upheld by the Supreme Court in a ruling on Manchester City Council v. Pinnock, and more recently in the case of Hounslow LBC v. Powell, in which the judges who heard the appeal talked about “respecting a person’s home”.

“Most importantly, social housing—I would prefer not to label it in that way—forms an essential part of many communities. They are homes, sometimes occupied by successive generations of the same family, which make up communities. Communities come in all shapes and sizes, but even those that may be seen by the outside world as difficult areas have a sense of strong community.

“The most recent statistics from the Department for Communities and Local Government show that 17% of households in England live in social rented housing; for pensioner households, the figure rises to more than a fifth. About a quarter of ethnic minority households live in social housing. The median household income in 2007-08 in social housing was just £10,900 a year. Those living in social housing are not in a land of milk and honey, as is sometimes suggested. Many are vulnerable, many are poor and any changes to the social housing system need to be approached carefully and with sensitivity. If only the Government had taken such an approach.

“We know that the proposals in the Bill did not feature in manifestos; they were either opposed or denied by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The Miniuster (Andrew Stunell) repeatedly put his name to early-day motions in the previous Parliament on matters which now fall within his portfolio. We want to understand at which point he changed his mind on the importance of security of tenure and affordability. Was it before or after he was appointed to a position within a Government led by a Tory Prime Minister?

“We seek to amend the Government’s proposals in order to increase protections, defend the long-held rights of those in social housing and those who expect to move into social housing, and provide safeguards for homeless families within the framework of the Bill.”

Tags Alison Seabeck, Localism Bill, Social housing