This paper by CfPD, 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

Accoridng to CfPS where i am a proud advisory board member:

“SROI has been a strong focus of CfPS’ practical work for some time. We believe that in a turbulent time for councils, with financial pressures and new forms of partnering and service delivery, scrutiny can play a valuable role in ensuring that councils bring real social value in what they do.”

For more information, please contact the paper’s author, ed.hammond@cfps.org.uk.

There is an “impending shortage” of housing for asylum seekers in the UK,the home affairs committee has warned.

Accoridng to 24 Housing:

“The issue is being made worse by a lack of “fair and equal dispersal”, with some areas receiving hundreds of people and others getting none, its MPs said.

The report includes Home Office figures showing where asylum seekers are being housed, with Glasgow having the most – 3,084 people – as of the end of 2015.

The Home Office said it was committed to providing safe and secure housing.

The committee said its findings “leave major questions” to be answered about the running of government contracts to provide asylum support services – collectively called Compass.

Why do so many asylum seekers live in Middlesbrough?

As part of the scheme, asylum seekers are found accommodation while their applications are being considered, often in areas where cheap housing is available.

Local authorities in those areas are then required to provide any education, health or specialist services those people may require.

Committee chairman Keith Vaz said the dispersal system “appears unfair, with whole swathes of the country never receiving a single asylum seeker”.

“The majority are being moved into low-cost housing in urban areas such as Glasgow, Stoke, Cardiff and of course Middlesbrough, where the ratio is one asylum seeker per 137 people.

“However, on the data we have received, local authorities in areas such as Maidenhead, Lincoln and Warwick have housed none.”

Other areas listed in the report as having no-one in receipt of aid given to asylum seekers – known as Section 95 support – in the final quarter of 2015 included Cambridge, Cornwall, Midlothian and York.

Local authorities with few asylum seekers, or none, should be “actively encouraged by ministers to volunteer” to take some, the MPs said.”

A government response to a consultation on the scheme , said households claiming housing benefit would escape the new rules, contained in the Housing and Planning Bill.

According to Inside Housing:

““It should not be the case that those who are in receipt of housing benefit should be subject to increased rents, as the rent rises would simply need to be covered by the taxpayer,” the consultation response said.

“Households in receipt of housing benefit will therefore be exempt from the policy.”

Under Pay to Stay, social tenants earning £30,000 (£40,000 in London) will be forced to pay up to market rents. The Chartered Institute of Housing in November said the threshold is too low and would hit benefit claimants.

The response also confirmed that there would be a ‘taper’ for Pay to Stay. A total of 89% of respondents to the consultation were in support of a tapered system.

“We would design this so that households at the lower end of income above the proposed threshold will see their rent rise by only a few pounds each week,” the response said.

The policy is voluntary for housing associations, but compulsory for councils, which will be required to hand the additional income to the Treasury.

However, the consultation response said councils would be able to retain a “reasonable” amount to cover the administrative costs.”

Providing enough secure, affordable and decent homes is one of the biggest challenges facing the capital – London needs at least 50,000 of them each year to keep pace with its growing population. Currently, it is falling far short: last year only 25,000 new homes were built.

London’s unprecedented housing crisis has serious consequences. Businesses struggle to recruit and retain staff. More and more people live in overcrowded social and rented homes. Housing-induced poverty remains stubbornly high. And the government is spending billions of pounds on housing benefit to keep a roof over renters’ heads and provide temporary accommodation for homeless families.

The next mayor of London and the 33 boroughs should join forces to strike a major devolution deal with central government. They should commit to increase supply to 50,000 homes a year by the end of the decade, to ensure that London has sufficient affordable housing for citizens of all income levels, and to eliminate poor conditions in the rented market. In return, the government should give London significant new freedoms to control its own planning, borrowing and taxes.

THE TERMS OF A NEW HOUSING DEAL WITH CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

The mayor and London boroughs would be significantly better able to address the housing crisis if they were given new powers by central government. So they should come together to ask government for a new devolution deal, in return for a commitment that they will, by 2020, double the annual supply of homes.

The mayor and boroughs will only be able to deliver on that commitment if they work very closely together. To do that, they should form a joint London Housing Committee to coordinate housing policy across the capital, and to negotiate this new deal with central government.

They should ask central government for the following:

• To exempt London from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and instead give the mayor’s London Plan the same status as the NPPF – and give the mayor the power to force boroughs to change their plans if they are not identifying enough land for housing. This will mean that local authorities outside London have a duty to cooperate with the mayor to help solve London’s housing crisis.
• To allow the London Housing Committee to set planning fees for London.
• To allow both the GLA and the boroughs to borrow more for housebuilding and infrastructure.
• To devolve stamp duty on the same model as the government’s recent devolution of business rates to local authorities, allowing London to retain a substantial proportion of its stamp duty income, in return for an equivalent reduction in grants from central government, and to adjust stamp duty rates in consultation with the business community, such as via the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry and London First.
• To allow the boroughs to levy, at their discretion, council tax on developments that fail to meet agreed building targets.
• To allow boroughs to create their own landlord licensing schemes.
• In return, the mayor and boroughs should commit to central government:
• To double the supply of new homes to London to 50,000 per year by 2020, and to maintain this for at least the following five years.
• To ensure that London has sufficient housing at submarket rents.
• To eliminate non-decent housing in the private rented sector by 2025.
• To lend credibility to those commitments, the mayor and boroughs should also commit to take a number of specific actions, including:
• To identify sufficient land to deliver 50,000 homes per year for the next decade.
• To significantly increase the volume and speed of planning approvals, by increasing the capacity of boroughs’ planning departments and creating a London planning inspectorate.
• To earmark a significant proportion of public land for affordable housing and new privately rented housing
• To take an active lead in the nurturing of housing and planning skills in the private and public sector.

IMMEDIATE ACTIONS FOR THE MAYOR AND BOROUGHS

Even if central government does not rapidly give London these extra powers, there is much the mayor and boroughs can do right now to address the housing crisis and to prepare the ground for a future devolution deal.

Find more land

• Speed up the release and development of public land identified as not in use by the London Land Commission for building homes.
• Lend planning expertise to Transport for London for it to review the potential for higher-density development around tube, rail and bus stations.
• Support communities to conduct their own neighbourhood planning to identify opportunities for regeneration and small sites not currently in the London Plan.
• Review greenbelt land near public transport sites, in exchange for improved community amenities and the extension of greenbelt protections in other places.

Turn land into homes

• The boroughs should conduct and publish an annual audit of the progress of local planning applications in their areas, and the progress of large sites in particular. The sites identified by the audit as needing extra support to be developed, either from the boroughs, the mayor’s office or central government, should be given that support.
• Offer public landowners the support of the London Development Panel to turn public land sites into new homes, on condition that a proportion of the public land is used exclusively for privately rented housing (for a limited period of time).
• Where it is appropriate for the site, or if a developer cannot be found, the combined resources of the mayor and boroughs should be used to directly commission housing on sites through housing associations and private developers.
• Support smaller developers by offering them first refusal on a proportion of small public sites identified for development through communities conducting their own neighbourhood planning, at no initial charge. The public landowner should take a stake in the sale or rental value of the homes created.

Improve planning

• Boroughs should publish an annual review of their progress against national and local targets for development.

Provide more affordable homes

• The mayor should immediately issue London-wide guidance on negotiating affordable housing with developers, and commit not to call in planning applications that demand a specified proportion of affordable housing.
• The mayor and boroughs should do a deal with housing associations to double their housebuilding in exchange for a pipeline of new sites.
• Consult on simplifying the affordable housing requirement of planning negotiations between boroughs and developers through the establishment of a London-wide affordable housing tariff.

Improve substandard rented homes

• Launch a London lettings hub to link up tenants directly with good-quality, accredited landlords, and to offer discounted lettings fees to landlords offering longer tenancies.

Its nearly year end and time to start thiking aout the end of year VF statement.

More and mroe focus will be expected on this as a route for the HCA to assess where it dives deep.

Awaydays are a good to time to linke VFM training to discussions at Board awaydays.

This is not time for long paper based reports – if there ever is a time for them!

Awaydays present a good opportuity to scan the opprtunties and threats in our ever changing environment, but do do this through discussion.

Alistair at HQN, for 24 Housing makes the following suggestions on threats:

• “The government does not think that registered providers (RP) are doing enough to cut costs.
• Registered providers’ costs are going up by much more than inflation.
• There will be pressure for mergers

Here are the questions you need to ask from the same article: 

• Are we controlling our costs? How do we compare to others? What are our trends like?
• Do we have a clear plan to save money?
• Are we making the most of our assets?
• Are we building as many homes as we can?  Or will the HCA say we are just sitting on cash?
• Are we doing enough to boost home ownership?
• Can we prove we are in the best position to deliver as a stand-alone RP? If not, what are we doing about it?
• Are we strong enough to get through the rent cut?
• Can we withstand the risks we could face like interest rate fluctuations and a downturn in sales?
• Does the VfM statement paint a clear picture of what we are doing?
• In the face of all this – are we true to our values?
• Can the HCA rely on us – did we make the savings we said we would in our earlier VfM statements? If not, why not?”

Britain’s largest listed private landlord has announced higher rental increases, high demand and a “strong trading performance”.

Grainger in a trading update announced its rents in the four months to 31 January increased by an average of 7.8% on new lets and 3.6% on renewed lets. This is up on the previous year’s figures of 6.3% and 2.6% respectively.

The landlord plans to invest £850m in private rented sector (PRS) development by 2020.

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A 57-strong group of the largest developing housing associations are to set up a new system to track housebuilding, following government criticism over their build record.

The Driving Delivery Group (DDG) is made up of associations described as those with the largest development programmes in 2014/15.

It follows chancellor George Osborne criticising the sector’s record as “not particularly impressive” in September last year.

It will track the number of homes they are contributing to the government’s target of 400,000 affordable housing starts by 2021.

A core steering group of 12 associations including Genesis, Sovereign and Orbit has had its first meeting, with the next scheduled for March.

The DDG is collaborating with the National Housing Federation (NHF) on the project.

HCA have now published our 2015 Global Accounts, illustrating the financial position and performance of providers managing over 1,000 homes.

The Accounts illustrate that the strong performance of the sector in 2013 to 2014 continued into 2014 to 2015. Highlights include the fact that 46,000+ social housing units were developed – an increase of 35% on 2014.

Meanwhile in 24 Housing, Alistair at HQN provies the following insight into those accounts:

1. Housing Association are doing really well financially – Osborne has three billion reasons to love you

The surplus is bigger than ever. And the HCA says that is good news. It’s where the money comes from for new homes. Can we keep it? You can expect Osborne to have his beady eyes on it. He will ask why only 70% of the surplus goes towards building new homes and fixing old ones. Why, he will wonder, has this fallen from 88% in 2012? – part of the reason is the way we work it out has changed. On a like for like basis today’s figure is around 80%. The HCA does say that associations need working capital. Will Osborne agree? What will he make of the 25 associations that had more than £50m in the bank each at the end of the year? Could they be doing more to help with the national housing emergency? Or is it OK for them to wait for the right opportunity? I expect we will find out soon how independent associations really are. A top housebuilder said that it could not be “forced or bullied into unsustainable growth that could pose a business risk.” Will any of our boards say the same?

2. But it’s not at all clear how well housing associations are doing on VfM

OK I’m being kind. The jury isn’t out. It’s back in and the judge is looking for the black cap. Since 2013 management costs per home have gone up by 8.6%. In the last year it went up by 3.8%. This is going to play badly. First of all there was no inflation to speak of. Why is this affliction unique to housing? And second of all associations put out statements promising to save money. Osborne will pounce on these figures to justify the rent cut. Will he see it as the only medicine that works? I can come up with all sorts of good reasons why costs have gone up. But I am not the audience.

3. Some work is needed to make the case for merger

Everyone’s a winner in this argument. Look at the table:

Number of homes  and Management cost per unit

• Up to 5,000 £1117
• 5,000-10,000 £935
• 10,000-20,000 £1060
• 20,000-40,000 £1132
• >40,000 £920

So it’s true biggest is best. Well certainly cheapest. Does this mean that it’s right to go for economies of scale? Hold your horses! Landlords with 5,000 to 10,000 homes are breathing down the necks of the big boys. You could say that these figures are not really that important to the merger argument. The red pen will be unleashed on mergers from now on. This time it’s different. Well we have been saying that for years. It’s an obvious point I know but these are only averages. When you look at the figures in detail some surprising associations are at the very high and very low cost ends of the spectrum. You’ve got to ditch any prejudices you may have. The data is all over the place.

4. You can diversify with success – sometimes

So far so good on market renting. The figures are great. Out of a turnover of £117m associations took a surplus of £62m. That’s a tidy bit of business. And as for student housing. Is it dead in the water after Cosmopolitan? Not a bit of it. This activity brought in a surplus of more than £16m. As you would expect there were losses on supporting people and nursing homes barely broke even. It seems that some of the services that associations hold dear and that people really need are challenging to run. To put it mildly.

5. Every time the Global Accounts comes out the HCA says next year will be tougher

It will. This time they are not crying wolf. You know what is, and could be, coming down the track. You all had to send in a new FFR saying what you will do with the rent cut and other challenges. Will associations be able to make the savings they need to? Time will tell. But, according to the HCA itself – the track record on making savings is not good. We are seeing a lot of associations making deep cuts just now. Will these be enough to satisfy Osborne? And what does it mean for your tenants?

The government has been forced into retreat after agreeing that it should continue to report lack of money as a measure of child poverty.

Ministers wanted to remove a statutory duty to publish levels of UK household income as part of the welfare reform and work bill but have now accepted, after a battle with the House of Lords, that the material deprivation measures should remain protected.

The guardian on line reports:

“The government suffered a defeat in the Lords in January after peers pushed through an amendment forcing the government to retain four established indicators, including income, which use official statistics to track and monitor relative and absolute poverty.

Although the Commons voted to overrule the Lords vote, the welfare reform minister, Lord Freud, published a government amendment that accepts the main thrust of the original Lords amendment proposed by the bishop of Durham.

The move, which is likely to placate peers, was welcomed by poverty campaigners. Sam Royston, chair of End Child Poverty and policy director at the Children’s Society, said: “You can’t know the extent of child poverty in this country without taking family income into account. The government’s legally binding commitment to continue measuring the number of families struggling on low incomes – including those in work – will at the very least stop child poverty from being hidden from view.”

The government played down the significance of its about-turn, saying it had always intended to continue collecting data on households with below-average incomes and insisted that it would have been unable to stop publishing the data even if it had wanted to because the statistics were protected.

But Alison Garnham, chief executive of the charity Child Poverty Action Group, said the move would help prevent child poverty being sidelined: “A legally binding duty to publish child poverty statistics reflects the overwhelming view of experts and charities that child poverty must be prioritised and that money matters when we’re discussing child poverty.”
The welfare reform and work bill will repeal the Child Poverty Act, introduced by Labour in 2010, and get rid of child poverty targets for government and local councils while introducing new so-called life chances poverty measures around family, debt, and addiction.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “This government is dedicated to eradicating child poverty and improving children’s life chances and we strongly believe that we must tackle the root causes of poverty, rather than just the symptoms.

“Our new measures will be the foundation of a new, comprehensive approach to improving children’s life chances and will drive effective government action. But we’ve always been very clear that we will continue to publish low-income statistics.”

However, charities said that the government’s measures would not hold back the anticipated rise in child poverty. By 2020, 3.8 million children are forecast to be in poverty, up from 2.3 million.
Garnham said: “Official statistics measuring child poverty are crucial, but the number one priority has to be urgent and substantial action from government when we’re facing the biggest increase in child poverty in a generation.”

The four income measures – of which the best known is relative poverty, which considers children to be in poverty if their income falls below 60% of UK median income – were established in 2003 and are the standard poverty indicator used across the EU.

Owen Smith MP, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “This represents a big victory for the campaigners who have come together to demand the government meaningfully monitors child poverty.

“Efforts led by the Labour party, our peers, the bishop of Durham and the charity sector have together forced the Tories to climb down on their bid to cover their tracks on child poverty. They will now be legally bound to keep monitoring child poverty and Labour will be sure to hold them to account for their failures to address it.”

Under the scheme, which covers more than 76,000 new homes, new developments will be designed around improving health.

Councils, housing associations, NHS organisations and developers were invited to bid for NHS support.

Some of the ideas to be tested in the new towns include fast-food-free zones near schools, designing safe green spaces and building “dementia-friendly” streets.

Inside Housig reported:

“The scheme, which is supported by Public Health England, attracted 114 bids.

The sites that have been named are: