Theer have been a number of different perpsectives on this, mainly positive, but that may be because we braced oursleves for some more bad news for housing.
Here are some of the useful contributions:
WYNTK autumn statement 2016 – from the CIH
www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/nov/25/philip-hammond-chancellor-weak-housing-crisis?CMP=ema-1703&CMP= – the guardian
ON THE DAY BRIEFING – Northern Housing Consortium
Two councils have confirmed they are scrapping their choice-based lettings (CBL) systems due to concerns about use of resources.
This is in addition to the City of York Council who are considering moving away from CBL due to a belief that moving back to a system where officers allocate properties is a “better use of resources” and enables a limited supply of housing to be better targeted.
According to Insside Housing:
“Hounslow Borough Council and Rochdale Borough Council this week confirmed that they also plan to end their CBL schemes.
Rochdale Borough Council will end its scheme in January. It said it is doing this because low demand locally has led to other providers not playing “an active role” in the scheme “due to targeting their resources in other local authority areas where they hold more housing stock”. It said administering the joint CBL scheme “has proved resource-intensive for the council, as more and more initiatives have been tried to address the low demand issue.”
Hounslow Borough Council analysed its CBL system and found 44% of those on the waiting list are “ineffective bidders” who withdraw their bids from properties, “wasting their own and officer time”. A spokesperson said the council has on average 72 bids for every property available.”
Many social landlords are still dealing with relatively small universal credit (UC) caseloads, and so their understanding and methods of working with it are still developing.
In CIH’s guide, ‘How to adapt your approach to rent collection for universal credit’, is designed to provide you with an overview of emerging good practice and will help to inform how you respond to universal credit in your organisation:
How to adapt your approach to rent collection for universal credit
DCLG i have produced the folloing fact sheets to support the Neighbourhood Planning Bill through parliament
www.gov.uk/government/publications/neighbourhood-planning-bill-policy-factsheets
England has not one housing market, but many. If the government is to even come close to hitting its target of 1 million new homes by the end of the current parliament, then the wide variation across the country – the different housing opportunities, challenges and requirements – must be recognised. Devolution – through city deals, local growth deals and, most recently, combined authority devolution deals – has started this process, but with a predominantly economic focus and an arguably partial and piecemeal approach to housing. The agenda must now be pushed further.
A new devolution deal on housing is needed: a two-way process in which newly created combined authorities, under mayoral leadership, commit to ambitious long-term housebuilding targets in return for an expanded menu of powers and resources transferred down from central government.
A process of devolution in housing and planning is underway. The extent and type of devolution varies across different areas, with some devolution deals going further than others. Across the negotiated deals, examples of notable new powers include:
These all go some way towards helping local areas shape their housing markets and grow their housing stock. However, there has been a simultaneous tightening of control at the centre, where a series of policies and targets are constraining local authority and combined authority plans. These include:
To meet national targets successfully, local areas must therefore be given more powers that can be used to co-ordinate strategic planning across boroughs, tailor housing supply to the needs of their populations, and ensure that housing and developments are delivered to a high standard of design, with a distinctive architectural character.
A deal-making process is required to generate a new devolution deal on housing. This must be two-way, and start with an ambitious offer from the combined authorities and their constituent local authorities, including:
In return, combined authorities should make new demands on government, which should respond through an improved devolution offer, including:
Mayoral development corporations are an opportunity for piloting new devolution powers and to test models of implementation, and combined authorities with these powers already negotiated should start to explore how these can be used to demonstrate their strategic ambitions and plans for housing.
New research by CIH has shown the new benefit cap could hit 116,000 families across Great Britain.
CIH analysis of the impact of the cap, which will limit the total amount of benefits a household can receive from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 outside of London on 7th November shows families could be hit by up to £115 a week in the worst cases.
In total around 320,000 children could be affected, the report shows, and the vast majority of the families affected will be two and three-children families.
Bonds issued by 14 housing associations have been deemed eligible for the Bank of England’s £10bn corporate bond-buying programme, potentially giving the sector a valuable borrowing boost.
The Bank of England (BoE) revealed its latest list of bonds eligible for the programme, under which the bank purchases existing corporate bonds on the secondary markets. The aim is to reduce the cost of borrowing for companies deemed to make a “material contribution to the UK economy”.
According to Inside Housing:
“The BoE’s purchase of association bonds is likely to increase demand for sector bonds, lowering the cost of social landlords’ future bond issues.
Bonds issued by Affinity Sutton, A2 Dominion, Guinness, L&Q, Sanctuary, Amicus Horizon, Midland Heart, Orbit, Notting Hill, Peabody, Riverside, Together, Wheatley and Sovereign were included in the list. Housing association bonds were not included on an initial list published in September, prompting fears they had been excluded from the scheme altogether.”
Shelter has s launched a ‘Living Home Standard’ to measure the acceptability of housing across all tenures.
http://www.shelter.org.uk/livinghomestandard
Shelter today published the new standard, which draws inspiration from the Living Wage to provide a “definition of what the British public believe everyone needs from a home”.
Research on behalf of the charity found 43% of those polled live in homes which fail to meet the new standard.
According to research by Ipsos Mori, which conducted 1,961 representative interviews across Britain on Shelter’s behalf, private renters fair the worst, with 69% failing the standard, compared to 20% of those who own their home outright.
However, 68% of local authority homes also fail the standard and 66% of housing association homes fail, too. It is unclear on exactly which measure these homes are failing on.
Shelter came up with 39 tests to meet the standard, which it divided up into five areas:
Affordability
Decent conditions
Space
Stability
Neighbourhood
Twenty-seven per cent of people live in homes which fail on affordability, while 18% live in homes that fail on poor conditions such as pests and damp.
Within the five areas, some tests were classed as ‘essentials’ – conditions that if not met, the home would fail the Living Home Standard. Other tests were classed as ‘tradables’ – features that were desirable but not universally applicable.
A report commissioned by BME National – a body of 60 social landlords specialising in housing for black and ethnic minority (BME) groups – found that the housing circumstances for BME groups are “less favourable” than for white people, highlighting particular disparities in homeownership.
The study, Forty Years of Struggle by the Human City Institute, said: “The housing circumstances of BME groups continue to be less favourable… with under-concentration in homeownership generally, and outright homeownership specifically.”
According to Inside Housing:
“Looking at national Census data from the Office for National Statistics, the report found that just 46% of BME groups own their own home compared to 64.4% of groups from white backgrounds.
It highlighted data from the Department for Communities and Local Government showing that 37% of households accepted as homeless were BME households, up from 18% in 1998.
Yet, according to the latest Census data, white ethnic groups currently make up 85.6% of the total population in England.
It highlighted work by the Institute of Race Relations, which found that recent housing policies have disadvantaged non-white groups.
It listed the phasing out of secure tenancies, the Pay to Stay, the forced sale of local authority housing and changes to council allocation schemes as policies that have disadvantaged BME people, because these groups rely disproportionately on social housing.
Cym D’Souza, chair of BME National, in a foreword to the report, said: “The report illustrates how discrimination in the housing market, although having receded since the 1970s, still consigns BME people more frequently to poorer, overcrowded, inadequate or fuel-poor housing in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
“One in three homeless people are BME – more than twice as many as would be expected.” “
RHP has applied to build the first in a series of developments for affordable rent without subsidy using offsite construction.
Richmond Housing Partnership (RHP) will be one of the first housing associations to construct homes made in a £55m factory in Leeds established by institutional investor Legal & General (L&G).
RHP is about to build a prototype of the flat, called Launchpad, at its office in Teddington, which will be onsite around Christmas or early in the new year. RHP has also put in a pre-application for planning for a site of 30 flats for affordable rent in Richmond.
RHP is aiming for build costs of £55,000 to £65,000 for the 26 sq m, one-bedroom flats compared to around £80,000 to £90,000 for a similar sized property built using traditional methods.
