Here is a round up of the debate as 120 tower blocks tested so far have all failed the safety test based on cladding only tests.

Camden Council moved its tenants out last week, but was it more than cladding – were there many missing fire doors, which check the fire missing too?

Fire safety experts have cast doubt on the suitability of the current fire risk assessment process, as there is no requirement for fire risk assessors to be accredited by a professional body and there is no legal time frame in which assessments should be carried out.

Tenants, do you know whether to stay out of leave your home during a fire – make sure you get advice from your landlords – the circumstances vary based on design and also based on the materials and risk assessments already carried out on your homes – make it your job to find out and to support your landlord to communicate advice to neighbours.

Here goes:

The CIH issued this guide in 2013, on how landlords should communicate with tenants on fire safety issues:

Landlords, building owners and building managers (as the ‘responsible person’) have responsibility for fire safety in the communal areas of residential buildings. This means they have a legal responsibility to ensure that occupants and visitors are not put at risk from fire.

The regulator and the HCA have written to housing providers in all sectors

Fiona MacGregor, director of regulation at the HCA, emphasised the importance of recognising responsibility in a letter to providers:

“Contracting out delivery of services,” she wrote, “does not contract out responsibility to meet the requirements of legislation or standards, so providers need systems to give boards assurance of compliance.”

Here is the letter from the HCA to housing providers:

Letter_to_all_providers_-_Grenfell_Tower_Fire

Here is the letter from the DCLG to Housing providers:

local-authorities-and-housing-associations-re-checks (1)

Here is the letter to the private sector from the DCLG :

melanie-dawes-letter-to-private-residential-bodies

Debbie Larner at the  CIH has givcn advice as a trade body – they say:

It is too early to speculate about the causes of the tragic incident which happened at Grenfell Tower on Tuesday evening. What is clear is that something went disastrously wrong. It will take some time for us to get the true picture of what actually happened and why, but the tragedy has understandably put fire safety at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that a fatal fire has occurred in a residential tower block. In 2009, a fire swept through Lakanal House, in Camberwell, which killed six residents and injured many more.

After that fire we worked closely with the Chief Fire Officers Association with the aim of raising awareness of fire safety issues across our sector and highlighting practical approaches that could be taken in relation to fire prevention and safety. This work culminated in a joint briefing:

Fire safety in housing

(Please note this briefing was written in 2011 and in some cases information on specific regulations is now out of date – we will update this briefing in due course.)

We highlighted some really fundamental things that landlords should be doing.

These included:

• Ensuring that fire risk assessment are conducted regularly – by a competent person qualified to undertake the assessment
• Prioritising actions in response to the risk assessment
• Devising a schedule which prioritises remedial work that needs to be done in response to the risk assessment and setting timescales for these
• Working with fire and rescue services to carry out home fire safety checks
• Installing hardwired smoke detectors in all properties
• Consider whether properties are suitable for the retro fitting of sprinklers
• Communicating in different ways to residents the appropriate action to be taken in the event of a fire.

These measures and many more remain essential – fire prevention and fire safety precautions are fundamental and when properly implemented can save lives.

We are ready to work with the sector to learn lessons from this tragedy and will be looking at how we can strengthen the sector’s understanding by updating our advice and support.

Sprinkler fitting

Nottingham City Homes, Barnet Council and Croydon Council have all informed Inside Housing they will consider adding sprinklers to high rises following the disaster.

According to Inside Housing:

The retrofitting of sprinklers was recommended by the coroner in the inquest to the Lakanal House fire in 2009, but little progress has been made since.

Inside Housing research in 2015 showed just 18 of almost 3,000 tower blocks had sprinklers in flats, with just 187 containing the devices in halls or communal areas.

A spokesperson for Nottingham City Homes said: “We plan to install sprinklers in corridors and communal areas in all our tower blocks as an added safety measure. We will also ask residents whether they would like sprinklers installed in their flats.

“Both ourselves and the council believe that it’s a priority, and we believe that this is a firm base from which to move forward in the interests of all our residents.”

At last weeks housing conference, this tragedy was the main subject of debate.

Here are some key messages from the conference:

Sort out the building regulations – HCA

“If you look at the building regulations, they are impenetrable; that doesn’t help us. So something as simple as sorting out the building regulations, which has been called for for so long, has to happen,” she said.

fire safety experts Sam Webb and Ian Gough, discussing Grenfell Tower

 Both experts have been calling on sprinkler systems to be fitted in tower blocks for years.

Mr Webb, who is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group and represented the families of the victims of the Lakanal House fire, said the previous communities minister Bob Neill stormed out of a meeting of the APPG and resigned after fellow members of the group spoke in favour of sprinkler systems.

Ian Gough, from the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association, said sprinkler systems can be fitted within a month in some blocks and don’t require residents to be moved out while the work is being done.

He should know – he helped to fit sprinkler systems in a 13-storey sheltered housing block in Sheffield in 2011. The cost was around £1,150 per flat, he said

Fix the problems – HCA

The sector has a grave duty to sort out the issues which arise from Grenfell Tower.

“The key message for the regulator to all organisations is sort the problem. If you have a problem that looks similar to Grenfell, you need to sort that.”

HQN CEO has also written his blog about fire safety:

170623 – Blog – Housing’s Piper Alpha moment

As a proud Advisory Board member of CfPS – we have produced this scrutiny self-evaluation framework is a tool to help scrutiny officers and members to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of their arrangements for overview and scrutiny, and to put in place practical steps for improvement.
This publication offers scrutiny’s best and worst practices observed throughout various local authorities, identifies the most productive ways of working within scrutiny committees and in task groups, and provides a four-step approach to revising scrutiny.

Here you go:

CfPS-Scrutiny-Evaluation-v2-SINGLE-PAGES

The Northern Housing Consortium has developed Priorities for Housing in the North alongside our members to build on the success of the Commission for Housing in the North and take forward the critical issue of regeneration for the region.

Here is the paper for your bed time reading:

Priorities-for-Housing-in-the-North

If you are self employed – work space is expensive.. This is a useful publication by IPPR on the challenges and the support we could be giving to those who are trying to make a living:

start-me-up-final-report_Dec2016

In summary (from IPPR):

‘Open workspaces’ allow small and micro-businesses to share space and resources on a flexible basis. They offer spaces that are suitable for the needs of micro- and growing businesses, alongside business support and a collaborative environment for peer-to-peer collaboration. At their best, open workspaces support economic growth and the regeneration of neighbourhoods, help address disadvantage, and offer a lifeline to the city’s creative sector. They are key to maintaining the dynamism and inclusivity of London’s economy and cultural life.

Following the UK’s vote in favour of leaving the European Union, London’s small businesses, entrepreneurs and creative sector face a period of uncertainty. In challenging economic times, it is more important than ever that small businesses can access affordable space on a flexible basis. Even before the referendum vote, however, open workspaces faced the prospect of higher rents, business rate rises and the increasing loss of office space to residential use.

Where London’s property market is not sustaining open workspaces, the mayor and local authorities should act. We recommend that the following actions are taken.

• London’s mayor should be granted new powers over ‘permitted development rights’, which put open workspaces at risk of residential development.
• The mayor should launch a new fund for open workspaces in London’s growing town centres, leveraging funding from the private sector and local business community.
• Local authorities should use the planning system as well as their own surplus assets to create open workspaces in areas of employment growth.
• Providers should use the ‘impact matrix’ we develop in this report to gather the evidence to support the case for public as well as private investment in open workspaces.

KEY FINDINGS

London’s small and microbusinesses, as well as artists and community organisations, rely on shared and flexible offices and studios, referred to in this report as ‘open workspaces’. By flexibly sharing space and resources, users of open workspaces can pay lower commercial rents and reduce the risks of starting a business, as well as work alongside and collaborate with peers.

Incubators, accelerators, coworking spaces, makerspaces and artists’ studios are all open workspaces. The main users of these spaces are businesses in London’s thriving creative economy; one in four of all London’s small and medium-sized enterprises working in digital and creative sectors have used an incubator, accelerator or coworking space. Open workspaces also bring together professionals working in diverse sectors, including biotech, business services and the charity sector. Most users are microbusinesses – which make up 96 per cent of all businesses in London and provide employment for 1.45 million Londoners.

Coworking spaces in particular have grown as a result of global workplace changes, but also in response to London-specific trends. Technology has made it easier for employees and the self-employed to work from anywhere with a strong internet connection, and London’s entrepreneurial creative and digital sectors have seen healthy growth since the financial crisis: 17.6 per cent of the London workforce is self-employed, up from 15.9 per cent in 2008 and compared to 14.7 per cent nationally. Established businesses have also sought to use space efficiently as prices and demand for office space has risen.

Despite this recent growth, open workspaces face a range of threats, with sustainability a primary concern for many providers.

• London’s booming property market is pushing up rents for workspaces and their tenants. Prime rents in the West End have risen by up to 70 per cent since 2009, and 35 per cent in the City of London. The effect of ‘Brexit’ is uncertain; while prime commercial property may become cheaper as business investment falters, this may lead to more employment space being converted to residential use, which property owners can receive a higher rate for.
• Employment space outside London’s most central economic area is being lost through permitted development rights, which allow the conversion of office space to residential use with minimal planning requirements. Since 2013, 1.47 million square metres of office space has been given prior approval for development to residential use.
• Businesses face a revaluation of business rates in 2017. For instance, open workspaces in Shoreditch could see their notional rate liability double from about £12 to £29 per square foot.
• Decreased local authority funding has led to sharp rent increases for council-owned property.

Availability of affordable and flexible office space is vital for innovation and growth. It helps generate economic growth and jobs, by supporting entrepreneurs in the early stages of their businesses. Studios and makerspaces sustain London’s cultural life and creative economy, and workspaces with a social purpose support the capital’s community organisations, as well as helping disadvantaged people access employment. The Open Workspace Providers Group estimates that London’s open workspaces host 31,000 people, generating £1.7 billion in GVA. In some cases, open workspaces have generated an additional £40.80 for every £1 invested – far higher than DCLG’s guidance of £5.80 per £1 of regeneration investment.

The challenges facing open workspaces must be addressed; otherwise, London risks losing out on the economic, social and cultural benefits they offer. One in three businesses report that the lack of affordable office space is damaging their business – with microbusinesses facing the greatest challenges.

London’s new mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that he will put in place new measures to help, protect and expand workspace for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs in London (Mayor of London 2016). The mayor should consider introducing a number of specific measures in order to make this commitment a reality.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE MAYOR

• The mayor of London should lobby for full flexibility over permitted development rights, including the power to set the exemption for the central activities zone (CAZ), Canary Wharf and Tech City, to set article 4 directions on local areas, and the power, in consultation with the boroughs, to charge the community infrastructure levy (CIL) on developments where they will put pressure on local infrastructure.
• The mayor should launch a new fund to support open workspacesthat accelerate the growth of clusters in town centres outside the CAZ. This fund should leverage additional investment from local business communities, and encourage growth in opportunity areas (OAs).
• The mayor should work with Transport for London (TfL) to ensure that developments on TfL’s 5,700 acres of land include open workspaces, particularly in new town centres near transport hubs.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES

• Local authorities (LAs) should work with providers to turn unused spaces into open workspaces. The Greater London authority should host an online directory of available spaces, such as in town halls and libraries, that workspace providers can bid for.
• Local authorities should apply for article 4 directions to exempt from permitted development rights key employment growth areas not in the CAZ.
• Local authorities should use section 106 negotiations to secure spaces in new developments. Where the site is not suitable for an open workspace given market conditions, LAs should require a section 106 payment to fund open workspace elsewhere.
• Local authorities should consider additional density in mixed-use schemes if the development includes commercial space including open workspace, which complements strategic priorities, as part of planning negotiations.
• The current business rate system penalises small businesses that share space flexibly, as the provider is liable for the business rate on the whole property, and therefore must charge higher rates to cover costs. To encourage growth, local authorities should remove this penalty, by recognising the small business using the space as the ratepayer and calculating rateable value as a proportion of space used. Alternatively, LAs should use existing discretionary powers to reduce business rates for open workspaces that deliver the greatest benefits.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

• National government should devolve control over business rate exemptions to the mayor of London through the local growth and jobs bill. In addition, DCLG should issue guidance on how local authorities can use discretionary powers from 2017 to offer business rate reductions to open workspaces. Local authorities should be encouraged to do so where evidence of benefits is strong, particularly in cases where sharing facilities means small businesses effectively pay rates (as they are passed on through rent).
• National government should devolve to the mayor full flexibility over permitted development rights, including powers to set the exemption for the CAZ, Canary Wharf and Tech City, to set article 4 directions on local areas, and the power, in consultation with the boroughs, to charge CIL on developments where they will put pressure on local infrastructure. As a minimum, national government should extend the exemption for the CAZ, Canary Wharf and Tech City past 2019.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO DEVELOPERS

• Include open workspaces in mixed-use and commercial developments. Open workspaces can increase the financial and community value of development through placemaking, cultural, social and economic benefits. For successful workspaces, developers should work closely with workspace providers early on in the development process.
• Encourage ‘meanwhile’ (temporary) open workspaces prior to development, to test the concept and viability of workspace, and to maintain activity in the area during redevelopment.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO OPEN WORKSPACE PROVIDERS

• In order to demonstrate value as a sector, it is important that open workspace providers consistently measure the same outcomes. Providers should measure their impact using our key metrics.
• The Open Workspace Providers Group, which was created as a subcommittee of the London Enterprise Panel, should promote adoption of our key metrics, and gather annually.

Here is the report and what follows is IPPR’s own summary:

IPPR-manifesto-for-change_general-election-2017

As the UK prepares to return to the polling stations on 8 June it is clear that Brexit will dominate much of the public debate over the next five weeks, as the negotiations and the aftermath will dominate British politics over the next five years.

But the UK faces serious challenges that whoever is elected in June must tackle alongside getting the best Brexit deal. Half of all UK households have seen no meaningful improvement in their incomes for more than a decade; our NHS faces unpreceded challenges from an aging population and the crisis in social care; and our housing system has consistently failed to build anywhere near the number of new homes we need.

How will our new government respond to these unprecedented challenges?

At IPPR, we are setting out a series of practical and progressive recommendations for change. We hope they will be useful to all political parties in setting out how they will deliver the kind of change Britain needs to deal with the mounting pressures it faces.

Many of these ideas will be controversial, but in policy terms more of the same from our political parties simply won’t be enough for the UK. Throughout this election and into the coming parliament IPPR will continue to find the evidence, and make the case for real progressive change. Here we set out some first steps towards achieving this change that all political parties could sign up to.

• Negotiate a ‘progressive Brexit’ that prioritises close UK-EU trade links in goods and services, maintains employment and consumer rights, and develops a new UK-EU agreement that gives the UK greater control over migration from the EU.
• Create a hypothecated ‘NHS tax’ by raising income tax and national insurance for the highest-paid to provide a further £3.9 billion a year to tackle the funding crisis in the NHS, and reforming pensions tax relief to deliver a £3 billion a year cash boost to social care.
• Guarantee a universal entitlement to free childcare for all those aged between two and four, and greater paternity rights for working dads;
• Introduce a new Skills Levy to boost employer investment in skills and lifelong learning, and a youth guarantee for 18–21-year-olds that offers education, training and intensive support to get into work.
• Develop an active, place-based industrial strategy with powers devolved to strong regional and sub-regional institutions.
• Introduce a five-year ‘family tenancy’ for renters, and give local areas the power to build more homes by devolving a share of stamp duty and freeing councils to borrow to build.

These are just some of the ideas we are putting forward: the following pages contain many more.

Any policy programme for the next parliament must seek to do five key things if we are to confront some of the challenges we face.

1. Negotiate a progressive Brexit.
2. Create an economy that works for all.
3. Tackle the crisis in health and care.
4. Respond to the housing crisis.
5. Protect our environment.

This publication addresses each of these objectives in turn.

The Naylor Review was published in late March, but ministers did not respond to it before the general election was called.

Challenged in a BBC television interview on how she would raise an additional £10bn for the NHS, Ms May said: “We are backing the proposals in the Naylor report [as one means of increasing funding].”

The review by Sir Robert Naylor, former chief executive of University College London Hospitals, suggested the NHS could form its own housing association to house its staff, perhaps in partnership with existing landlords.

Here is IPPR’s 60-second summary

In the UK – and throughout the developed world – longevity is rising, and older people make up a larger proportion of the population than ever before. Without major changes in patterns of retirement, this could place a severe strain on the public funding of pensions and other provision for old age. People will also need to save more for their later lives. In many countries (including Britain), the state pension age (SPA) has been raised and policies introduced to discourage early retirement. And more people are working up to and beyond the SPA, for financial reasons and also for personal and social ones. Many – although by no means all – of today’s retirees are relatively well-off, but future generations may not have the same opportunities to save or acquire property.

Only large-scale and holistic change will enable extended working lives to become the norm rather than the exception. We also need approaches that address the particular challenges for sectors where work involves heavy physical or emotional demands, for small businesses, and for other areas of the economy. Despite increased overall longevity, rates of poor health and of frailty are relatively high in some regions and communities; these factors may make it difficult for some people to continue in work, or to continue in the same work as before. Low-paid workers in very physical jobs may encounter a ‘double bind’ of needing to earn for longer but being unable to remain in their established job. The current policy focus on ‘good jobs’ must include making work better for older people.

We propose a holistic approach in which local enterprise partnerships and combined authorities lead with a ‘lifecourse’ approach to policies for extending working lives. This should involve analysis of economic and population trends to identify local challenges and opportunities. Experts based in regional ‘lifecourse work centres’ should work with partners to develop programmes that can support businesses and individuals. Regional ‘generational accounts’ should be used to plan and evaluate economic and social impacts.

Key findings

• The proportion of the UK population aged 65 and over is increasing; it accounted for 14.1 per cent of the population in 1975 and 17.8 per cent in 2015. By 2045, nearly a quarter of people in the UK will fall into this age group. The north of England is comparatively ‘older’ than the south. As people live longer, extended working is becoming more common. The rate of early retirement has decreased over the past decade and the ‘effective age of retirement’ (the average age at which people leave the labour market) has increased. More than one in 10 people aged 65 and over is now employed. This reflects the impact of incentives to stay in work and financial penalties for early exit, but also the force of social and ‘identity’ reasons for staying in work. Older workers offer benefits for employers, including experience, professionalism and high levels of problem solving and interpersonal skills.
• Current retirees are sometimes stereotyped as wealthy and privileged. Certainly some members of the ‘baby boomer’ generation have been able to earn well and acquire strong pensions and assets (including property) on which to rely in retirement. However, this picture obscures considerable inequality within the generation now leaving work; many spent their working lives in low-paid jobs, and women’s pensions are often much poorer than men’s. And ‘tomorrow’s retirees’ may well be poorer than today’s, with rising indebtedness (including student debt), increased rates of insecure work and a harsher property market. Many people due to retire in 2050 or 2060 are already in work. Policies, employment practices and cultural change need to start now to address their needs and encourage early planning for long careers.
• Opportunities to extend working life are not equally distributed. Health, including the health of older people, tends to be poorer in deprived communities and among people who have held physically demanding or damaging jobs. And in the north of England, average healthy life expectancy is below the SPA. Low-paid and low-skilled workers in physically demanding roles may find themselves caught in a ‘double bind’. Limited opportunities to save and build up assets mean that they need to keep working, but poor health and the physical impacts of their work may make it difficult to continue in their established jobs, while a lack of qualifications and engagement with lifelong learning reduces their opportunities to retrain for alternative employment.

Recommendations

We make a set of recommendations for actions by combined authorities and local enterprise partnerships, alongside support from central government and ongoing policies to encourage extended working. The focus here is on ways to make this practical and accessible for people who want and/or need to work up to or beyond the SPA.

• Key recommendation 1: Take a ‘lifecourse’ approach to policies for extending working lives. Ageing is cumulative and experiences throughout the lifecourse have an impact on health, outlook, skills and capacity in later life. Therefore we recommend that interventions should be considered not as ‘old people’s issues’ but at the points where they are best placed throughout the lifecourse. In this case, the ‘lifecourse’ involves the whole experience of training, work and preparation for retirement.
• Key recommendation 2: Develop regional generational accounts as the basis for planning and evaluating interventions; in the longer term, use these as the basis for some limited fiscal devolution to support investment in interventions through ‘invest to save’ models. We propose a system of ‘generational accounting’ based on that proposed in research on ageing for the World Bank. This should be used to plan and evaluate policies.
  • Recommendation 2a: Commission analysis of local labour market and social trends and their relationship to ageing.Planning for an ageing workforce should be grounded in a detailed analysis of local economic and population trends. Central government could incentivise regions that implement effective practice, and in the longer term use this analysis as the basis for an innovative invest to save model.
  • Recommendation 2b: Offer incentives associated with successful actions to extend working lives. Companies and local authorities that implement policies to extend working lives and achieve outcomes above ‘baseline’ rates should receive incentives, possibly in the form of two-phase ‘development’ and ‘reward’ funding. Central government could incentivise regions that implement effective practice, and in the longer term use this analysis as the basis for an innovative invest to save model.
• Key recommendation 3: Establish ‘lifecourse work centres’.Effective policies to extend working lives demand expertise in diverse issues relating to ageing and work, as well as partnerships above the level of the individual workplace to lead on policies and interventions, support businesses and also provide services ‘across’ the local economy such as coordinating opportunities in different businesses. We recommend that local enterprise partnerships, working with other local partners – including business, sectors, trades unions and health authorities – should establish regional ‘lifecourse work centres’ to lead on these activities (similar to those used in other countries). These centres should also coordinate local opportunities for older workers, providing an age-friendly alternative to Jobcentre Plus, and coordinate the ‘voices’ of older workers through comprehensive engagement with the workforce and civil society groups.
  • Recommendation 3a: Coordinate initiatives to support small- and medium-sized enterprises, particularly in sectors where redeployment opportunities within a single company present challenges. These should be provided through lifecourse work centres and might include sector-specific advice on human resources (HR) and occupational health issues, training provision, coordination of opportunities for redeployment across companies and even sectors, fora for peer learning and sharing good practice, and awareness-raising.
  • Recommendation 3b: Provide support for self-employment, including sole trading, and for older entrepreneurs. Lifecourse work centres should offer ‘one-stop shop’ advice, support and guidance for older people who want to set up a business or become self-employed.
  • Recommendation 3c: Pilot ‘Work Ability’ approaches in key workplaces and sectors. The ‘Work Ability’ approach to health and wellbeing in the workplace, where holistically and effectively implemented, is associated with strong recruitment and retention among older workers and may have benefits for younger people in the workforce – which then ‘accumulate’ to help extend working lives. The proposed local labour market analysis would provide a useful ‘map’ of priority areas for possible interventions. Local pilots should be established and evaluated to test the extent to which this kind of initiative can be implemented in the UK context.
  • Recommendation 3d: Establish tailored training and skills development. Local labour market intelligence should be used to plan and provide opportunities for training and reskilling to facilitate the extension of working lives, either with their established employer or in an alternative position. Financial incentives for employees to engage in training that is relevant to opportunities in the local labour market (for example, interest-free loans or subsidised course fees) and information about retraining should be offered.
  • Recommendation 3e: Encourage HR practice that includes discussion of planning for later career and retirement in early- and mid-career appraisals and reviews, as appropriate for sector and role. HR departments and staff should receive specialist training in offering advice to workers at different career stages about the elements of later career and retirement planning that are relevant at each stage.
  • Recommendation 3f: Integrate public health interventions into the workplace. Opportunities to integrate public health approaches into the workplace should be explored. These should include both responses to occupation-specific findings on relationships between health and work, and more general initiatives to support healthy behaviours and lifestyles. Interventions should be linked to observable elements of the working lifecycle, for example, holiday periods and celebrations, regular parts of the working day or week, milestones in the working year of a business and changes such as a move to part-time work. Employees identified as being at risk of health-related cessation or disruption of work should be automatically entitled to specialist support, including advice about options for redeployment and reskilling.
  • Recommendation 3g: Identify and expand intergenerational opportunities in civil society. Lifecourse work centres should coordinate the gathering of community views and attitudes on ageing and retirement, from people of all ages.

At the Social Housing Finance Conference , Julian Ashby, chair of the Homes and Communities Agency Regulation Committee, announced the regulator will launch a consultation into the Value for Money Standard “shortly after the election”. It will propose using a “limited suite” of  measurements.

Currently housing associations assess their own efficiency in a process known as self-assessment, which would be scrapped under the plans.

The Sector Scorecard aims to create an agreed set of metrics for housing providers to compare their performance and check they are providing value for money. It has been backed by government and the National Housing Federation.

The 15 metrics include operating margin, number of units developed, investment in new housing and customers’ value for money satisfaction.

200 HAs are piloting the scorecard..

According to Inside Housing:

“Mr Ashby also touched on the commercial activity of housing providers. He said more than 90% of the forecast surpluses from market sales over the next five years come from “just 20” housing providers.

He added: “What our analysis suggests is that a relatively small number of providers will be carrying out the overwhelming bulk of non-social housing activities, whether that be outright sale, market rent or any other non-social housing activities.

“For the most part we find that reassuring, rather than the reverse. If non-standard activities are being carried out by experienced specialists, in particular those who are large and financially strong, then they have good prospects of managing it competently and of coping with unexpected market conditions or other adverse circumstances.”

However, he also warned the regulator is not as “reassured” by a “small number” of medium to large associations that have, or plan to have, “substantial non-housing activities, particularly relative to their size” after tracking this activity against the providers’ financial strength.”

The Work and Pensions Committee has published the written evidence received in response to its inquiry into the cap – which limits the total amount of benefit and tax credit income that an out-of-work household can receive, subject to certain exemptions.

Below is some of an article in 24 Housing which you might find helpful:

“that amount was reduced from £26,000 a year to £20,000 a year outside London and £23,000 within London. The lower cap was rolled out nationally over a twelve week period in November last year with implementation completed by mid-January. 

Frank Field MP, chair of the committee, said: “Once again we see a benefit change purported to push people into work, while the evidence points to the contrary effect. Changes that actually did save money and help (claimants) get into proper, gainful employment would be very welcome, but that is not what we are seeing with new policies like Universal Credit or the lower benefit cap.” 

Committee member Karen Buck MP said: “As the benefit cap starts to bite across Britain it looks from the evidence we’ve seen so far like a drastic cut to income for people who are really unable to cut their living costs any further.

“The evidence does not show us that being plunged further into poverty encourages or helps people to find work, and the vast majority of those hit by this cut are already recognised as unable to work at the moment. It is very hard to see any benefit from the benefit cap.”

The inquiry is being discontinued as a consequence of the dissolution of Parliament, but the evidence submitted to the committee provides an initial indication of the difficulties faced by claimants, housing providers and local authorities in the first few months of the lower cap’s implementation.

Preliminary effects of the lower cap – the evidence

Benefit caseload statistics for February 2017 are scheduled to be published  this week. These will be the first set of official statistics showing the impact of the lower cap.

The government estimates that, in the absence of any ‘behavioural changes’ from claimants, 88,000 households will be affected by the new cap, compared with around 20,000 under the previous policy.

The new cap is not only deepening the impact on households but also spreading it more widely across the country – the proportion of capped households who are outside London is set to increase from three-fifths to four-fifths.

In advance of the first set of official statistics on the lower cap, local authorities have reported to us that the lower cap is beginning to bite in areas where there had previously been relatively few affected households.

For instance, Newcastle City Council has seen its caseload of affected claimants rise from 72 in March 2016 to 358 in March 2017.

Highland Council told the committee that by March this year the lower cap was affecting 75 households, as against around a dozen previously.

Advisory services are reporting a substantial rise in demand from households affected by the cap – with claimants suffering drastic and abrupt reductions in income and severely constrained in their ability to avoid the impact:

• Citizens Advice Scotland reported a large rise in requests for benefit-cap related advice since the third quarter of 2016, typically from lone parents and large families
• Among the examples provided by Shelter was that of a mother-of-three in Sunderland who had successfully made arrangements with her private landlord to settle the rent arrears caused by the original cap, but who now potentially faces the threat of eviction again due to a further £180-a-month benefit cut
• Welfare advice service Turn2Us told of worrying trends reported by their helpline over the last year: “The most worrying trend that is emerging is pregnant women asking the call handler to undertake a benefit check to ascertain what they would be entitled to if they continue with the pregnancy, citing that the outcome will help them to decide whether they continue with the pregnancy or terminate it.”
• Halton Housing Trust said that tenants’ initial response had been to apply for additional benefit such as Discretionary Housing Payments or to claim disability benefit that confer exemption from the cap: “Where there are concerns about the lower benefit cap, it does not initially act as an incentive to find work.” 

Housing

The evidence points to major concerns about the ability of affected households to reduce their housing costs in response to the cap – particularly as many households affected by the lower cap already live in social housing which is typically the cheapest accommodation available.

• Shelter said “nearly 60% of households affected by the lower cap already live in social properties”, and for those who are in private rented accommodation the option of social housing is “increasingly scarce and difficult to access”
• To London Councils the lower cap means that “it will be increasingly unviable for households to avoid the cap by moving to lower value areas (including areas outside of London) given that housing costs will be more widely unaffordable. [….] the lower rate is likely to bring a new cohort of vulnerable customers into the scope of the cap that may not be work ready but who will be unable to escape it by moving to lower value areas.”

Concerns have also been raised about the effect of the cap on families placed in expensive temporary accommodation by councils to cover their statutory duty to prevent homelessness.

Research by Policy in Practice, a welfare policy consultancy which works in partnership with local authorities, has found that the benefit cap more than doubles the average gap between housing benefit and rent for families in temporary accommodation, from £1,704 per year to £5,520 per year – leaving local authorities to plug the gap.

Croydon alone is cited as facing extra costs of £1.1m as a result.

Councils can make discretionary housing payments, funded in large part by allocations from by central government, to help families struggling with their housing costs.

However numerous organisations have expressed concerns about the pressure that the lower cap is placing on DHP budgets, particularly in conjunction with the effect of other welfare reforms. 

• Newcastle City Council and London Councils said that the extra DHP funding provided to help mitigate the benefit cap is not proportionate to the rise in demand
• Zacchaeus 2000 Trust said: “The level of DHP funding being made available is clearly insufficient to support those worst affected by the new cap”
• Shelter said DHPs can be difficult and slow to access and can come with extra conditions attached, such as a requirement to show engagement with work programmes.

Universal Credit

The cap was initially imposed by means of a reduction in claimants’ Housing Benefit award.

However, with the roll-out of Universal Credit full service across the country, an increasing proportion of capped households will be recipients of Universal Credit instead.

The Chartered Institute of Housing told us that such families stand to be even worse off than capped families on Housing Benefit “as the amount by which their benefit can be reduced will not be limited to the just the housing costs element.”

A number of respondents raised concern about the inadequate provision of information regarding the circumstances of capped Universal Credit claimants.

Policy in Practice said reliable information on claimants’ circumstances is “an essential condition” to successful multi-agency provision of local support to affected claimants, but that “this condition is not met in Universal Credit Full Service areas. This is due to a very limited ability to identify capped claimants on UC by frontline advisors, and a lack of a systematic sharing of information on Universal Credit claimants between the local Job Centre Plus office and local authorities. As a result of this, households on UC affected by the benefit are more likely to fall through the net of support available to them, paying the highest price as this policy is implemented.” 

Halton Housing Trust said it had not been proactively informed about how many of their UC-claimant tenants are subject to the cap, due to lack of information sharing – “This will only become apparent if they request support or accrue rent arrears.”

Similarly, Symphony Housing Group said: “The inability on the part of the DWP to share information about Universal Credit claimants who are affected by the cap is counterproductive.” 

Claimants face significant barriers to entering work

One of the main purposes of the benefit cap is to encourage claimants to look for work.

Many respondents to the committee’s call for evidence raised serious concerns about the appropriateness and effectiveness of the benefit cap as a means of achieving this, given that the vast majority of affected claimants have already been assessed as not being required to seek work as a condition of receiving benefit due to ill-health/disability or caring responsibilities for very young children.

Under the original benefit cap only 13% of those affected were JSA claimants who were formally subject to a requirement to seek work.

60-SECOND SUMMARY

Each year up to 70,000 internships take place, offering mostly graduates the chance to gain experience in the workplace. Many internships, however, do not offer meaningful learning opportunities, have poor working conditions, and are inaccessible to young people without the connections and know-how to get one. Internships should no longer remain unregulated, of variable quality and restricted to a privileged few. Providing equal opportunities for young people of different backgrounds to enter the professions is important both from a moral perspective and to ensure that businesses have access to the widest pool of talent. For internships to be a driver of social mobility rather than a barrier to it, universities, employers and the government should act together to increase the overall availability of internships and minimise any barriers to takeup for those who are disadvantaged.

The proportion of graduates in high-skilled work is in long-term decline: while 61.3 per cent of graduates aged 21 to 30 were employed in high-skill occupations in 2008, today only 55.8 per cent are. Characteristics including socioeconomic background, schooling and ethnicity are still strongly related to the jobs prospects of young people, with those who went to private school earning more even compared to other graduates in professional jobs.

Within this challenging and competitive labour market, internships have emerged, offering young people a chance to gain experience in the workplace and employers a form of cheap labour, as well as a way to find top talent for more permanent roles. Each year 11,000 internships are advertised – but the true number that take place is estimated to be as high as 70,000 per year. Internships offered by top graduate recruiters have consistently risen each year since 2010 (by as much as 50 per cent in total). Nearly half of these employers report that candidates who have not gained work experience through an internship will ‘have little or no chance of receiving a job offer’ for their organisations’ graduate programmes, regardless of academic qualifications.

The sharp decline in job opportunities at the time of the recession led to an oversupply of graduates, with greater competition for good graduate jobs meaning that firms were able to access highly skilled workers even for low-paid, insecure work, such as internships. Now that the economy is recovering we would expect to see internships receding and entry-level jobs taking their place. It appears, however, that internships have become a permanent feature of the graduate labour market, and are now a ‘must have’ for the typical graduate career.

Although prime minister Theresa May agrees that ‘advancement in today’s Britain is still too often determined by wealth or circumstance, by an accident of birth rather than talent and by privilege not merit’, one of the key routes into top jobs – internships – is closed off to many, due to a lack of connections and insufficient financial capital to subsidise low-paid insecure work. Our focus groups with graduates also show that discrimination, low confidence in navigating opaque recruitment practices, and a lack of knowledge in how to find good placements can prevent young people from less privileged backgrounds from securing an internship. In short, internships are acting as a barrier to social mobility rather than being a driver of it.

Download the employer’s guide to internships that accompanies this report (Internships as opportunity: How employers should offer accessible, high-quality placements)

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Universities should offer brokered work placements to all students, prioritising disadvantaged undergraduates.

Our vision is for a higher education system in which every full-time undergraduate student has the opportunity to carry out a university-approved undergraduate internship.

Recommendations for universities

• Provide back office functions to encourage employers (and particularly SMEs) to offer internships, including for some employers their payroll/ HR/legal functions. Providing a matching service can ensure more successful internships and also allow universities to put forward disadvantaged students.
• Potentially offer a small wage subsidy for SMEs where the placement is not part of an accredited course (and therefore will usually be eligible for payment of the minimum wage).
• To ensure access to national opportunities as well as local economies, universities should work with charities that have relationships with national employers, such as upReach or the Social Mobility Foundation, or should collaborate to share opportunities across universities.
• Activities within universities should include encouraging students to take up placements, as many do not recognise the benefits of doing so.
• Only internships that comply with minimum wage legislation should be supported. We recommend placements of one to two months for current students to fit around study commitments, and up to six months for recent graduates.

The above activities should prioritise disadvantaged students, using Office for Fair Access (OFFA) countable funds. In order to further strengthen incentives for universities to focus on employment outcomes for disadvantaged students, we recommend that the TEF metrics include the proportion of disadvantaged students in highly skilled work one and two years after graduating.

2. A new residential internship opportunity programme for young people from Opportunity Areas

Geographic mobility is important for social mobility, as young people less able to move to where the opportunities are will struggle to access the most competitive jobs. Regional imbalances in the UK economy mean that jobs are concentrated in London, the South East and metropolitan areas. But internships which provide access to desirable jobs are even more geographically concentrated, with up to 85 per cent of all internships in some sectors in Greater London.

The government has earmarked £72 million of funding for ‘Opportunity Areas’, which are currently ‘coldspots’ for social mobility. We recommend that a small portion of this, circa £1 million, is used to offer incentives and funding for top employers to offer residential internship programmes for disadvantaged young people from Opportunity Areas. This should act as a pilot, evaluated by the Education Endowment Foundation, to inform future practice outside of Opportunity Areas.

3. Employers should be able to use the apprenticeship levy to offer high-quality placements to graduates.

To help with the cost of offering an internship, employers offering placements which are accredited as part of university courses should be able to access funding through the new apprenticeship levy.

Employers should follow our guide to offering accessible, high-quality internships that accompanies this report.

4. A new association should be established to give a stronger voice to interns in London and the UK.

Without stronger representation it is likely that the voice of interns will continue to struggle to be heard and issues such as the accessibility and quality of internships will continue to be neglected as a result. While the UK has a number of organisations advertising internships and offering advice to would-be or current interns, there is no organisation that advances the interests of interns with a consistent, reliable voice to act as a political force in public debate.

Interns we interviewed through this research were in favour of any organisation that could play such a role in the UK. Rather than replacing existing groups the aim of this association should be to lend support to strengthen the voice of existing groups and ensure their sustainability.

Building on successful international models reviewed in this report, we recommend that student bodies and unions (including the National Union of Students and trade unions), with the support of leading employers, work with small existing internship organisations to scope the establishment of an intern association for London and England and the devolved nations.

5. Any placement lasting longer than four weeks should be banned.

While some unpaid internships are illegal, others are currently legal if they involve ‘volunteering’, even at private companies. Unpaid internships prevent access to opportunities for those who cannot afford to undertake them. Due to the ambiguity in the legality of unpaid internships many employers can either unwittingly or wittingly offer illegal unpaid internships with few repercussions.

We advocate the adoption of Intern Aware’s recommendation to ban any placement in private or public sector organisations lasting for more than four weeks, in order to prevent companies from offering opportunities that are only open to advantaged young people and add clarity to when a placement is breaking the law.

We also recommend that the government examines the case and means for legally protecting the term ‘internship’, potentially in a similar way to the protection of the term ‘apprenticeship’, such that it only applies to placements that are paid and which offer a training opportunity.