An official impact assessment published  reveals for the first time the extent to which the government’s plan to build 200,000 Starter Homes could cause a drop in affordable rented and shared ownership housebuilding and negatively affect women and disabled people.

Starter Homes, which will be offered to first-time buyers under the age of 40 at a 20% discount, have been criticised by councils for being less affordable than the rented homes they will replace.

Under government plans, they are to be principally paid for by scrapping planning obligations on developers – Section 106 and the Community Infrastructure Levy – to build sub-market rented housing and shared ownership. Starter Homes will replace these homes on all “reasonably sized” sites.

Additionally, there is also £2.3bn of funding to help pay for 60,000 Starter Homes.

According to the impact assessment, for every 100 Starter Homes built using Section 106 funding, there will be between 56 and 71 fewer households moving into affordable rented, social rented or low-cost homeownership homes.

It estimates that an average developer can build 1.4 to 1.8 Starter Homes for every affordable home.

“Broadening the affordable housing definition for planning purposes to cover new types of low-cost homeownership products, including Starter Homes, could have some negative impacts for some protected groups, particularly women, disabled people and those over the age of 40,” the document states.

It shows women are worse hit than men by the loss of affordable rented tenures, missing out on between 28 and 37 affordable rented homes for every 100 Starter Homes built compared to between 22 and 28 missed by men.

The document adds that it is “reasonable to conclude that households with at least one member who is disabled or long-term sick will be adversely affected”.

Local authorities could be forced to re-draft their Local Plans following the government’s decision to widen the definition of affordable housing to include Starter Homes.

According to Inside Housing:

Government has launched a dedicated Help to Buy ISA, which will give first time buyers the opportunity to save up to £200 a month that the government will top up by 25%, up to a maximum of £3,000. Fourteen brands have signed up to offer the product.

The HCA have now published details of the brownfield sites across the country that will benefit from a share of £7.2 million Starter Homes grant funding.

The money will be used to prepare and bring forward local authority brownfield land for future starter homes development.

Here are some good summaries of the spending review:

CSR_2015_-_Member_Briefing

What you need to know about the spending review and autumn statement 2015

Focusing his speech on housing, George Osborne committed to a £6.9bn housing investment programme that included:

• £4bn funding for 135,000 shared ownership homes
• £2.3bn for 200,000 Starter Homes
• funding for 100,000 affordable rented homes
• public land to be released for more than 160,000 homes.

The Chancellor also announced measures on Housing Benefit, social care, Right to Buy, planning and apprenticeships:

• Housing Benefit capped in the social housing sector to the level of Local Housing Allowance
• an extra £1.5bn for the Better Care Fund by 2019/20
• an optional 2% council tax increase to fund social care
• a pilot of the voluntary Right to Buy scheme for housing association tenants
• planning reforms, including a continuation of developers’ right to negotiate Section 106 affordable housing requirements if they affect viability
• an Apprenticeship Levy to be introduced in 2017.

Here is the link to the governments site:

https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/autumn-statement-and-spending-review-2015

The comprehensive spending review announced right to buy pilots.

The NHF has been working with HAs to devise these for the last few months.

They have developed  criteria and now the pilots will be operatiing in 5 HAs nationally.

To find out more – here is the adver on the governments website:

https://righttobuy.communities.gov.uk/am-i-eligible/housing-association-tenants/

The chair of the Homes and Communities Agency regulation committee said the change was being considered as part of a deregulatory package being drawn up by government.

Inside Housing reported:

“It would replace the regulator’s current powers to appoint managers and board members, which were listed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in its decision to reclassify associations as public last month.

He said lenders have expressed concern that the power might be dropped in a bid to reverse the ONS decision.

However, the alternative would see courts given the power to appoint the regulator as an administrator if an association got into serious financial trouble, he said.

Speaking at Social Housing magazine’s annual conference in London, Mr Ashby said: “I would like to make it clear that we are engaging fully with government as it looks to respond to the [ONS] decision and redesign regulation to remove the areas that led to reclassification.”

He added: “I know that some lenders are concerned with reference to powers to appoint board and executives.

“I hope it is of some comfort to you to know that we have only used those powers once in six years and that was not in relation to the solvency of an organisation.

“We expect going forward for the focus to be on defining when the use of these powers if appropriate.”

He said this could take the form of “a special administration regime such as applied in a number of other regulatory environments”.

“That would provide options if an association got into really serious difficulties,” he said. “This is actually seen as a deregulatory step because powers are exercised by courts with an administrator, rather than by government through a regulator.”

Mr Ashby also said regulatory powers to consent to sales, another issue flagged by the ONS, would be likely to change. He said he was “satisfied that we can run a robust regime of regulation without them”.

He also used his speech to issue a warning that the sector will be left “friendless” if it fails to up its output of new homes, and risks undermining its relationship with councils if it moves too far away from its social purpose.

“If you fail to help out in tackling local homelessness, your localist credentials will be undermined. You will be required to build more homes and many of them will be for sale, but don’t forget what your core purpose is and what cross subsidy is for,” he said.”

A parliamentary inquiry will press ministers on whether they are willing to water down proposed reforms to ensure housing associations are taken back off the public balance sheet.

Inside Housing has reported:

“Greg Clark, communities secretary, has promised to work up a “deregulatory package” to reduce government control of social landlords, as it seeks to get them removed from the public balance sheet.

But Clive Betts, chair of the Communities and Local Government (CLG) committee, said he was keen to probe ministers on whether this extended to high-profile recent reforms which appear to increase control.

These include forcing associations to charge high-income tenants higher rents through Pay to Stay, a new regulatory standard to push associations to sell homes under the Right to Buy and legislation requiring them to reduce rents by 1% for four years.

The CLG committee is currently carrying out an inquiry into the housing association sector, which has its next session for evidence on Monday.

Labour MP Mr Betts said: “Something we are pressing through the inquiry, and we will continue to do so, is the question of whether there is really a willingness to change housing associations back to non-public status.

“The government says that’s what they want to do, so it’s a question of how you do it. Are they prepared to look at things like Pay to Stay and Right to Buy as well as the measures introduced in 2008?”

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) based last month’s reclassification decision largely on measures introduced under the Labour government’s Housing and Regeneration Act 2008.

Mr Clark has promised to work with the housing association sector to unwind some of these measures, and introduce further deregulation to ensure the decision is swiftly reversed.

However, the government has remained tight-lipped on whether this will be allowed to include the recently proposed measures.

The voluntary Right to Buy deal said the government would implement deregulatory measures to support homeownership. The Housing and Planning Bill contains provisions to allow the reduction of social housing regulation.

Regulatory experts have also speculated that the government could remove consumer standards relating to tenants. These include the Home Standard, which requires that properties are maintained at Decent Homes levels, and the Homes and Communities Agency’s Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard, which gives tenants a role in their landlords’ decision-making.

ONS response: what might happen?

The 2008 powers identified by the ONS, largely relating to regulatory consent over sales and a power to appoint and remove managers.
Housing associations are pushing for Pay to Stay to be watered down, and made non-compulsory.
The specific powers the regulator gains to police Right to Buy are still to be decided, and could end up being a lighter touch than previously imagined.
Housing associations want control over rent-setting and are lobbying government on this point.”

“Even prior to the idea of the northern powerhouse gaining common currency, no witness to the north of England’s evident resurgence could defensibly say that it was a region trapped in decline. However, all parts of the country – and indeed all sub-national regions across the developed world – face a series of challenges. Some are rooted in the past, and others will be thrown up by the changes to come.

This report assesses the state of the North as it is, but also what it could, and should, aspire to become. It presents an analysis of the North’s strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Standard economic metrics such as levels of economic growth and productivity paint an important picture. Yet they don’t necessarily paint the full picture; neither are they always entirely helpful in planning for the future. For this reason, this report presents four tests for the northern powerhouse that are designed to promote the idea that with greater control over economic development, the north of England can nurture a more equal, resilient and sustainable economy.

We believe that the northern powerhouse can be proclaimed a success when the following four tests have been met in the North. Within each test we also set out 11 clear, unapologetically ambitious benchmarks against which the powerhouse’s progress can be judged.

1. The northern powerhouse must generate a better type of economic growth, one that combines rising productivity with more jobs and higher wages for all.
2. The northern powerhouse must liberate the potential of its greatest asset – its people – through huge improvements to the development of skills, starting with the very youngest.
3. The northern powerhouse requires investment in future success, particularly in terms of enabling innovation and building the infrastructure we need for the 21st century and beyond.
4. The northern powerhouse must rejuvenate local democracy by giving people a genuine involvement in the way the north of England is run.

At the beginning of this new parliament, and with the northern powerhouse in the ascendancy, our ambition for this report is not so much to provide detailed policy prescription as it is to set out something of a vision for what could be achieved for and by the people of the North. We offer them, in the spirit of optimism and ambition, to stoke new thinking within the burgeoning northern powerhouse debate.”