The Government has announced the harsher penalties for landlords renting out to migrants staying in the UK illegally, as part of a wider crackdown on immigration.

According to Inside Housing:
In February, the government introduced mandatory ‘Right to Rent’ checks, forcing landlords to check new tenants’ identification documents to ensure they have a right to live in the UK. Those caught renting to migrants living in the UK illegally could face fines of £3,000 per tenant.

Housing associations are subject to the policy, however they are not liable to be prosecuted if they house an illegal immigrant off a council waiting list.

Last October, a Home Office report found that a pilot of the Right to Rent scheme had resulted in discrimination against non-UK renters.

The report found that some landlords had instructed letting agents not to rent their properties to “any foreigners”.

A publication on risk, resilience and scrutiny from CfPS– exploring how scrutiny can help to develop and sustain a positive risk culture in local authorities:

CfPS-Risk-and-Resilience-WEB

Tools for officers and members with governance and scrutiny responsibilities to help them tackle major change. This paper, sponsored by Grant Thornton, provides a methodology of Social Return on Investment (SROI) that officers and members can use to tackle questions of major service change:

cfps___social_return_on_investment

This paper is part of IPPR’s series on a ‘Progressive Brexit’. It considers both the implications of Brexit for the North of England, and a process by which the North can ensure that its needs are recognised within a national negotiation.

The north of England depends more heavily on trade with Europe than other parts of the country, and has been a significant recipient of EU funding. Yet, taken as a whole, a greater proportion of people in the North voted to leave the EU than in other parts of the UK.

This paper does not look in detail at the reasons for such voting patterns; instead, it focuses on the economic implications of the result. It argues that alongside trade and funding issues, the North has distinct economic assets and interests that will be affected by Brexit. This includes strengths in key sectors such as:

• advanced materials and manufacturing
• energy generation, distribution and storage
• health innovation
• the digital economy.

This distinctiveness means that Brexit presents both opportunities and threats. It is therefore essential that the North ensures that it has the tools it needs in order to both exploit the opportunities that Brexit offers, and mitigate the risks that it will pose.

The nascent and patchy development of combined authorities, metro-mayors and devolution ‘deals’ in the North means that the region is not well-placed to formulate a coherent response to Brexit that will match those of the devolved administrations for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, or that of the mayor of London or other well-established lobbying groups. Furthermore, it is quite impossible for central government to deal meaningfully with the demands of over 30 upper-tier local authorities, and 11 local enterprise partnership areas, in the North one by one.

For this reason, the paper argues for the formation of a Northern Brexit Negotiating Committee to determine the type of Brexit that the North needs, and speak with one voice in the negotiations, rather than have others shape the debate and leave individual places in the North to simply cope with the Brexit that they are given.

“The NHF identified 25,999 households in England that could be affected by the government’s decision to cap housing benefit in line with Local Housing Allowance (LHA) if landlords continued with current patterns of letting.

The figures, based on government lettings data from 2012/13, suggest that 18.2% of new housing association and council tenants in a year could be hit and face average shortfalls of £18.28 a week. Some renters would face shortfalls of £30 a week. As the research is based on trends for 2012/13, it does not predict how landlords will change their lettings policies to take account of the benefit change.

Around 88% of the 26,000 would be single people, aged 35 years or younger, and therefore under the proposed ‘LHA cap’ would only be eligible for the ‘shared accommodation rate’ (SAR) of housing benefit, which is intended to be enough to cover the rent for a room in a shared house. There are a number of exemptions to the SAR, for example where the tenant has disabilities, however the NHF was unable to isolate these from the figures.

As social landlords do not typically provide shared housing, landlords could be faced with putting tenants in homes they cannot afford, or not letting homes to younger single people on housing benefit.

Similar research by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) covering just local authorities, found 137 out of 163 councils (84%) in England with stock would have new tenants that are affected.

In last year’s Autumn Statement, then-chancellor George Osborne said the government would only pay housing benefit and universal credit in social housing up to LHA rates from 2018. It will only affecttenancies started from April 2016.”

Thanks to Mark at Trafford Housing Trust for sharing these with members

Induction Docs SEPT 2016

INTRODUCTION TO THE QUALITY AND INSIGHT PANEL VS2 FEB 2016

QIP Induction Flowchart 2015

QIP Interview Question 2016 VS2 matrix

Quality and Insight Panel JD

Six Month Feedback

THE QIP ARTICLE WHO ARE WE2015

Three Month Feedback

A paper by Polict Exchange said the government should do housing deals with associations that own or manage more than 4,000 homes which would give the greater  financial freedom to enable them to buildmore, particularly properties for sale.

The report, A New Settlement Between Government and Independent Housing Associations, said the five-year deals could involve an association agreeing to build 3% fto 4% more homes including a significant number of shared ownership and market sale properties.

In return, the government would permit the housing association to raise its rents by up to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) level of inflation or to simply avoid the rent cut.

Chris Walker, author of the report who was formerly head of housing, planning and urban policy at Policy Exchange, said: “[The rent cut] makes it harder for well-run housing associations to build the homes they want to build.”

It follows a previous controversial Policy Exchange report about removing regulation. The thinktank also pioneered the idea of selling off high-value council homes.

Here is a useful summary of where we are from the CIH:

SEpt 2016 need-to-know-about-the-housing-and-planning-act-2016

The social housing regulator has warned that housing associations risk damaging the reputation of the sector if they sell stock inhabited by social tenants.

According to Insde Housing:

“Fiona MacGregor, executive director of regulation at the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), said the agency would be keeping a particularly keen eye on social landlords disposing of tenanted stock because of a potential public backlash.

As part of a deregulation drive, ministers have removed the need for associations to obtain regulatory permission to dispose of social assets, although they will still have to notify the HCA of sales.

Speaking at the National Housing Federation’s conference in Birmingham, Ms MacGregor said: “We’ll want to know about disposals of tenanted property out of the sector. We think that’s one of the areas that could bring the greatest reputational risk to the organisations and the sector, and you see examples of that all the time.

“Our interest in this is that you make sure you comply with the consumer standards, being open and transparent with tenants so they know what the implications of being outside the regulated sector will mean for them and their tenancies.

“We do think it’s important to think about the position and the reputation of the sector… We think we’ve got a role in terms of effective regulation to support that, to prevent problems arising and then if they do happen to act, use our powers where necessary.” “

Some more footballers are enterig the property market big time – see this artcile in the Guardian about 3 footballers who are developing 1300 homes!

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/24/footballers-400m-social-housing-dream-unveiled?CMP=fb_gu

The Government has announced an exemption from the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cap for those tenants living in hostels and supported housing but is proceeding with the 1% rent cut.

In a written statement to Parliament, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Damian Green, said that he would defer the imposition of the LHA cap on supported housing until 2019-20 after which a new system would keep funding at current levels.

The announcement follows deep concern from the housing sector, charities and third sector organisations who warned that if the cap were to apply to those living in hostels and supported housing, it would see the schemes providing support to these vulnerable groups become financially nonviable and at risk of closure.

One of the chief concerns raised by those organisations working with the homeless and the mentally ill was that the LHA cap would mean widespread closure of many hostels and shelters which could force thousands of people on to the streets.

The NHC’s  has been doing its own research and member engagement on this matter has found that many registered providers in the North froze development of new supported schemes after the announcement of the cap last year with nearly all plans for future schemes left in doubt.

The Ministerial Statement on LHA Cap freeze outlines the broad structure of a replacement model which would see Local Authorities receive funding to ‘top up’ LHA – however, many questions remain. Whilst the LA fund is ‘ring fenced’ it is not clear how long this ring fence will last – or indeed how porous it turns out to be. Equally, the impact on sheltered schemes is not yet clear.

The government will shortly issue a consultation paper.