Council concern at lack of new powers in green paper to support housebuilding
The Government’s long awaited social housing green paper has concentrated on improving relations between residents’ and landlords but has disappointed councils by offering no new powers to support house building.
Among the main proposals in A new deal for social housing are publication of key performance indicators to allow residents to compare landlords, a revived stock transfer programme, a right-to-buy exercisable in stages and more effective resolution of complaints.
Judith Blake, the Local Government Association’s housing spokesperson, said: “This green paper is a step towards delivering more social homes but it is only a small step, compared with the huge and immediate need for more genuinely affordable homes.
“The Government must go beyond the limited measures announced so far, scrap the housing borrowing cap, and enable all councils, across the country, to borrow to build once more.”
National Housing Federation chief executive David Orr - who represents housing associations - said: “Our members fully share the Government’s commitment to ensuring tenants get the quality services they need – and that they can hold their landlords to account if they don’t.”
He added: “Without significant new investment in the building of more social housing, it is very hard to see how it can be a safety net and springboard for all the people who desperately need it.”
Communities Secretary Jame Brokenshire said the paper’s priorities were:
- tackling stigma and celebrating thriving communities;
- expanding supply and supporting home ownership;
- effective resolution of complaints;
- empowering residents and strengthening the regulator;
- ensuring homes are safe and decent.
The paper proposed league tables of landlords based on how well they met key performance indicators on services to residents, and implied that access to government funds for development might in future be tied to these.
There will also be a consultation on allowing councils greater flexibility over how they use right-to-buy receipts.
Stock transfer has ground to a halt in recent years but the green paper proposed that this could be revived by transfers to smaller community-led housing associations.
There are also proposals to help housing association tenants buy 25-75% of their homes in stages and paying a subsidised rent on the remainder.
The government has though dropped the idea that right-to-buy for housing association tenants should be paid for by forced sales of the most valuable council properties.
Tonia Secker, partner at law firm Trowers & Hamlins, said the green paper’s call for evidence on the role of the Regulator of Social Housing was timely and could resolve “existing tensions between its actual powers, the perception of those powers and the role of the Housing Ombudsman - as well as the difference in its enforcement powers as between registered providers and councils”.
She added: “Some yardstick of quality is necessary, but whether a league table approach is useful remains to be seen - particularly in circumstances where an individual's choice of landlord is constrained.
“The additional resource and infrastructure required to implement such a system risks both cutting across the role of the regulator and muddying the waters.”
Ms Secker welcomed help for tenants to enter home ownership, but asked: “How can a right to buy - in whatever guise - not deplete the national social housing stock at a time when the need for it is acute? What is the incentive for councils and housing associations to build knowing that the stock may be lost?”
