The internet is getting increasingly littered with dead websites from now defunct social housing regulators. The Tenant Services Authority closed on 31 March and its functions transferred to a new Committee of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). Its website remains as a record of activity, just as the Housing Corporation’s web content remains online following its demise back in November 2008.
Another king is dead, long live the new king, this time the snappily titled HCA Regulation Committee, whose new regulatory framework for social housing came into effect along with other Localism Act changes on April 1st.
Tag: Homes and Communities Agency
The Government’s announcement of the new ‘Affordable Rent’ programme gets more and more curious.
We commented last week that although they and the HCA listed the 146 organisations that would receive money for the high rent initiative, both had failed to say who would build how many homes and failed to provide any information at all about the two key criticisms of the scheme – the rent levels that would be charged for the properties (they could be ‘up to 80%’ of market rents) – and the number of re-lets of existing social rent homes that will instead be let at so-called ‘affordable rents’ to pay for the programme – ie taken out of the existing pool of genuinely affordable homes. Nor, when we think about it, is there any
information about how many will be let on flexible (ie possibly short term) rather than permanent tenancies.
The information is clearly available, as London mayor ‘Codswallop’ Johnson tried to make political capital by saying the average rent in London would be ‘65%’ – ie much higher than social rents now but not as disastrous as it could be, reflecting a big effort by housing providers in London to make sense out of the whole thing. Johnson continues to obscure the real truth about the housing programme in London and still has the cheek to claim credit for the continuing completions of social rented homes from the programme inherited from Ken Livingstone.
Today, Inside Housing claims that housing providers have been ‘told to keep quiet’ about their allocations – ‘HCA tries to silence landlords’. Keith Exford, chief executive of Affinity Sutton, is quoted as saying that Ministers got ‘carried away’ in their announcements.
The ‘affordable rent’ programme is intermediate housing masquerading as social rent. As Johnson already has, the government will make great claims about their achievements in
producing affordable homes. But ‘affordable rent’ is not affordable in many parts of the country, however hard providers try to let it to people who would previously have been offered social rented homes, and in many cases it will not be secure.
With key information withheld and providers apparently silenced by the paymaster, the government are taking the public for fools.
Categories
Donkey con
It doesn’t matter how many times you call a donkey a horse, it’s still a donkey.
Grant Shapps announcement of the so-called ‘affordable homes’ programme boasts that the programme will spend around £1.8billion on producing 80,000 ‘affordable homes’ of which 63,000 will be for ‘affordable rent’ and 17,000 for ‘affordable home ownership’. Shapps says that “The new Affordable Rent model, which will be the principal element of the Programme, will make public subsidy go further while enabling local authorities and providers to target support where it is most needed.”
The implication from the announcement is that there are NO homes for social rent (ie at target rents) in the programme. Social rented housing and targets rents are not even mentioned.
Shapps’ announcement, and the listing of the 146 organisations who will receive funding from the Homes and Communities Agency (including 26 councils), is more remarkable for what it fails to say than what it does say.
There is NO information about the rent levels that the ‘affordable rent’ homes will be let at. This could be up to 80% of market rents although we know that many bidders have gone for a mix of rents to try to keep the rent of larger family homes down, but this crucial information has not seen the light of day. Housing website 24 Dash claims that the average rent will be 72-73% of market rent and that Mr Shapps is claiming that the average in London will be 65%, but the figures are not published. These averages represent enormous rent increases for tenants of new homes compared to the previous regime. They will intensify the poverty and employment traps and increase the housing benefit bill.
There is NO information about how many re-lets of existing stock will be let at ‘affordable rent’ levels instead of social rent or target rent levels to pay for the programme – the key policy that will lead to a large net reduction in the number of homes being made available from the exisiting stock for rent at genuinely affordable rents.
There is NO information about which bids were refused and why.
Classically, the information is stage managed to look good, to resemble a thoroughbred policy, building a good-sounding number of ‘affordable homes’. But new subsidy is now only available for what is really ‘intermediate rent’ and low cost home ownership. I have been an advocate for intermediate housing over the years as a parallel programme to social rent, but make no mistake: this policy is about ending social rent new build and gradually chipping away at the existing stock of homes for social rent. It has a few enthusiasts but they are the usual suspects in the housing association and local authority worlds who have wanted to stop providing housing for the poorest for some time.
There is no doubt: the policy is not a horse, nor even a mule. It is an ass.
May 3, 2011. Today is the deadline for housing associations to submit their ‘offers’ to the Homes and Communities Agency about what homes they might build over the next four years. Islington Council in London has thought long and hard about its strategy for delivering affordable homes. In an exclusive article for Red Brick, Councillor James Murray, Executive Member for Housing at Islington, sets out the borough’s plan.
Today marks the latest stage (and by no means the final one) in attempts by housing associations and others to steer a course through the government’s new ‘Affordable Rent’ programme. This programme’s headline has been known for a while: that housing associations would be allowed to charge up to 80 per cent of market rent on new build homes and a percentage of their relets. But teasing out the practicalities and implications of how this works in practice is taking a lot more discussion.
And in London, the acute implications of rent levels being set at 80 per cent of market – particularly in the inner-London boroughs and particularly for family-sized properties – have inspired months of discussion between London boroughs, the Homes and Communities Agency, and housing associations operating in the capital.
As part of this discussion, many London boroughs have set out their initial positions on ‘Affordable Rent’. In Islington, our position has focused on how we can respond to the concerns we have about the difficulty of using ‘Affordable Rent’ to address housing needs in our very high value borough.
We believe a different model is more appropriate for Islington. We are asking housing associations to work with us and use grant from the local authority – in the form of public land at discounted rates and capital from our new homes bonus – rather than grant from the government’s main ‘Affordable Rent’ programme. In return for this, we ask that housing associations build homes at social rents.
We believe that this is the best way to tackle our housing crisis in Islington. Like many London boroughs we have thousands of overcrowded families, and several hundred who are severely overcrowded (lacking two or more bedrooms). It is clear that tackling this means prioritising more family homes for social rent.
Since the election in May, 2010, we have prioritised a new council home building programme that means we will be on-site for over 100 new homes this year. Alongside our council-owned stock, we want to continue to work with our housing association partners.
In Islington we have a strong relationship with a number of housing associations. Through historical links, stock transfers, and new build projects, housing associations have played and continue to play a vital and positive role in Islington’s affordable housing stock.
We want this relationship to continue, and we believe that our plan for social rent with local authority grant will be the best way to enable willing housing associations to continue to build the kind of homes we need.
It goes without saying that the 80 per cent of market rent ‘Affordable Rent’ properties would be completely unaffordable in Islington. Our social rents are currently between 30 – 35 per cent of market rent, and so this would represent more than a doubling of the current levels.
Allowing properties to be developed at 80 per cent market rent would mean the new tenants either face an enormous rent hike or a deep benefits trap. Those not on benefits may decline to move into a new flat in future – even if doing so would relieve overcrowding or reduce under occupation – because of the unattractiveness of higher rents for new build properties. And for those on benefits, the looming prospect of caps makes the outlook uncertain and grim.
Some have suggested allowing 80 per cent market rent on, say, one-bed properties, and offering a rent level less than 80 per cent on the larger family dwellings. This may work in some places, but we do not believe it works in Islington. Our planning policy is explicit that we need the family homes rather than new one-bedroom flats. Our current council-owned stock is over 40 per cent one-bed properties – we are in fact piloting a separate programme of selling certain one-beds through shared ownership and using the capital raised to build new family homes.
So our priority in Islington has to be family homes at genuinely affordable rents. With our well-known high property prices in Islington, we believe that social rents, offering close to a level playing field with council rents, are the right level for this.
That is why we have said we will support schemes from housing associations that offer homes at social rent, and that are subsidised where necessary through our grant in the form of public land or capital. We have a pipeline of sites identified from public land – enough land for over 500 homes immediately, with several hundred more being looked at for the future. And our decision to dedicate almost all the borough’s new homes bonus to new home building means this year we can offer £1 million capital grant.
We have been pleased by the positive reaction from a number of housing associations to our plans. We are currently in negotiation with one of our housing associations on the details for a new scheme that would be the first under the new regime to offer social rent with land subsidy from the borough.
Our model will not be appropriate for allLondonboroughs – just as the ‘Affordable Rent’ model is not appropriate for Islington. But although it is self-evident that our position is outside the government’s main programme, we are committed to working with willing housing associations to make this work for them and for those in our borough with the most acute housing need.