Each year the HCA carry out a resident survey on the quality and design of homes funded under the Affordable Homes Programme.
The latest Quality Counts report has now been published.
The most popular features include space and storage, private outdoor space and layout of the home.
The government is planning to scrap lifetime tenancies for new social housing tenants in favour of fixed-term contracts.
Inside Housing has revealed that under government plans, social landlords would no longer be able to automatically issue tenancies on a lifetime basis and would instead be forced to offer fixed-term lets for prospective tenants.
Accoridng to Inside Housing:
“Since 2012, councils and housing associations have been able to offer five-year fixed-term tenancies to new tenants. However, according to official figures, just 13% of new general needs social housing lets were made on a fixed-term basis in 2014/15, compared with 9% in 2013/14.
The government in July said it would review the use of lifetime tenancies and limit their use. Civil servants have briefed several sector figures in the last few weeks that this strategy will go as far as preventing landlords offering lifetime tenancies to new tenants.
The move would follow other radical changes to social housing announced this year, including extending the Right to Buy to housing associations and the rent cut.
Tenants with vulnerabilities may receive exceptions under the policy.
In July, Natalie Elphicke, co-author of the Treasury-commissioned House/Elphicke review of council house building, has previously urged the restriction of lifetime tenancies to groups such as those in “extreme old age” or “highly disabled” people.
A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), said: “More details will be available in due course.” “
These are the findings in yet another excellent piece of research from JRF.
This research investigated earnings below the Living Wage for staff in care homes for older people, what the costs and benefits might be, and how this pay increase could be funded. The research also explored the implications of the new National Living Wage and reductions to in-work benefits.
care-staff-living-wage-summary
JRF say their research found that:
“The estimated annual wage cost of paying the LW to all care home staff in 2014 is £830 million for the UK, increasing to almost £1 billion when National Insurance and pension contributions are factored in.
Paying higher wages reduces the need for in-work benefits, conservatively estimated at £19 per week per household in 2014.
The new National Living Wage announced in the Summer 2015 budget will affect at least 50% of care home workers. Including National Insurance and pension contributions, it would cost £387 million per year.”
Up to 170,000 housing association households might be able to take advantage of the proposed Right to Buy extension using their own finances, a report has found.
According to Inside Housing today:
“A review of the effect of the existing Right to Buy and of the likely impact of the policy’s extension to an extra 1.3m housing association tenants has been published by the Communities and Local Government (CLG) committee of MPs.
It estimated that between nine and 20% of eligible households might be able to take up the Right to Buy without financial help, equivalent to between 76,500 and 170,000 households. The work, published on 22 October, was carried out by academics from Sheffield Hallam University. The figure was based on analysis of data on characteristics of age, affordability, income and length of tenancy.
The estimate is less than the 221,000 households the National Housing Federation in April initially forecast would be eligible and able to afford the Right to Buy.
The Sheffield Hallam review said: “The decision by eligible housing association tenants about whether to exercise the Right to Buy will be influenced by a host of factors.
“For example, the persistence of low interest rates may attract more tenants to take on a mortgage in order to fund purchase.
“On the other hand, the availability of mortgages for ‘marginal’ purchasers has tightened considerably.” It said, however, that any estimates are “speculative” at this stage.
The report says the Right to Buy extension could “temper” the recent decline in owner-occupation, but will not on its own be enough to reverse it.
The CLG committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the likely impact of the Right to Buy extension on housing associations. The committee will next Wednesday question several housing figures including David Montague, chief executive of L&Q, and Tony Stacey, chief executive of South Yorkshire Housing Association. “
English housing associations are part of the public sector for the purposes of national accounts,
The news came in a review by the Office for National Statistics review
The reclassification means that housing association debt will be counted as public borrowing, pushing £60bn on to the government’s balance sheet. The decision does not in itself lead to a material change in the way housing associations operate, but it will spark fears that the government would seek to limit or control their borrowing.
The ONS review looked at changes introduced over recent years, including the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008.
However, recent government policies – including the rent cut, Pay to Stay and the Right to Buy – did not form part of the review as they are yet to come into force. Experts have suggested reclassification would remove a potential barrier to the government nationalising associations.
The ONS said it had drawn its conclusion to reclassify housing associations because of government consent powers over asset disposals and the restructuring and winding up of housing associations, as well as ministers’ powers to appoint managers and officers to landlords. The ONS will provide further details on the impact of the re-classification on public sector debt and net borrowing on 20 November.
The government, however, responded to the announcement by pledging to bring forward measures to allow housing associations to become private bodies again “as soon as possible”. A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “This statistical matter relates to an historical legislative change, made by a previous government, which came into effect over eight years ago and makes no difference at all to the way housing associations run themselves and imposes no new controls or rules.”
Councils would no longer have a duty to assess the specific housing needs of Gypsies and Travellers, under proposed legislation.
According to Inside Housing:
A measure in the Housing and Planning Bill would ensure that councils “consider the needs of all the people residing in or resorting to their district, without any references to Gypsies and Travellers”, when carrying out reviews of housing needs.
A Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) spokesperson said the legislation would “make sure that sites for Travellers and Gypsies will be assessed with housing need for everyone else”.
The move follows changes to planning guidance in August, meaning those who do not travel permanently are excluded from the definition of Travellers.
Currently, local authorities are obliged to carry out Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs assessments, which allow local authorities to forecast the number of new pitches needed.
The previous Labour government introduced the duty in 2007 guidance because general housing assessments were failing to identify the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers.
Debby Kennett, chief executive of the London Gypsy and Traveller Unit, said: “As soon as the needs of travellers are lumped together with mainstream housing needs, their particular housing needs are going to be lost [from system] completely.”
Marc Willers, a human rights barrister, said he was concerned the legislation could be “another example of the government effectively sweeping Gypsies and Travellers’ needs under the carpet”.
However, he said the full effects of the proposed change would not be fully clear until the government issued detailed planning guidance. The legislation does not change the duty on councils to identify Gypsy and Traveller sites.”
A giant private investor is targeting “market transformation” of the affordable housing sector, as it throws its £5bn weight into building cheap rented housing without grant.
According to Inside Housing:
Octopus Investments has formed a partnership with commercial affordable housing developer QSH to deliver thousands of grant-free units over the coming years, Inside Housing can reveal.
The investment management company, which already has multibillion pound investments in healthcare, sustainability and property, will provide debt and equity finance to a new company, Octopus QSH, which is a joint venture between the two groups.
It will build and own the homes, which will be for affordable rent and a pioneering rent-to-buy product, while seeking councils, housing associations and other social housing management agents to take on management contracts for the properties.
The fund has a total investment capacity of £5bn spread across a variety of markets. It says it hopes to achieve a “market transformation” in affordable housing but would not be drawn on how much specifically it will invest into the affordable housing sector.
Octopus joins merchant back Salamanca Group and equity investor Cheyne Capital in making significant moves into the affordable housing sector this year, as the growth of equity-funded affordable housing gathers pace.
The company is not registered as a housing association, meaning it will not be subject to recent government changes such as Right to Buy, the rent cut and Pay to Stay.
Work has already started on its first development – a 106-home scheme in Doncaster, where the builder will be Wates Living Space, a strategic partner of Octopus QSH.
The homes will be offered as rent-to-buy units, where half of tenants’ rent goes towards saving for a deposit for the home. The homes will be managed by St Leger – Doncaster Council’s arm’s-length management organisation. Ten further schemes are currently in the pipeline.
Mario Berti, head of the specialist finance team at Octopus, said: “There is a chronic shortage of affordable housing in the UK, which presents a huge opportunity for Octopus QSH.”
Octopus QSH’s management team all have social housing backgrounds, with founder and chief executive Paul Hardisty a former director at Birmingham City Council.
QSH has already developed schemes across the UK under a grant-free model, but the backing of Octopus will allow it to vastly expand its operation.
Steve Douglas, director of consultancy Altair, said: “I think this is the future – where social housing will be delivered without grant… and housing associations have to reimagine their role.”
UPDATE: At 10.00am on 14.10.2015
This story was updated to make it clear that Octopus is an investment management company, controlling several funds.
HM Revenue and Customs will share income information with social landlords to help them implement the government’s Pay to Stay rules.
According to Inside Housing:
“The Housing and Planning Bill, says that while social landlords will have responsibility for ensuring tenants declare their incomes, HMRC will be given new powers to disclose data in order to allow landlords to verify the information and ensure they are charging the correct rents.
The proposed legislation allows the government to fulfil a pledge to make ‘high income social tenants’ – defined as households earning more than £30,000, or £40,000 in London – pay rents up to market rent.
Social landlords will be given the power to require their tenants to declare what their household income is.
However, the legislation also empowers HMRC to share information to ensure “declarations of income are correct”. It is not clear if HMRC would share information on individual tenants’ incomes under the legislation.
The bill allows information to be shared between HMRC and landlords, via the secretary of state, or a body that would act as a ‘gatekeeper’ for this purpose.
If a tenant fails to declare their income, their rent will be raised to ‘maximum’ high income social tenant levels.
The government has yet to declare what type of income will be captured, and whether it will include just earnings or all types of taxable income.
“Starting income thresholds will initially be set at £30,000 outside London and £40,000 in London, but the enabling powers are worded flexibly giving power to vary thresholds as may be considered necessary in the future,” explanatory notes to the legislation state.
The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) would also be given powers to police social landlords over the policy. New grounds would be introduced for enforcement notices when landlords fail to comply with the Pay to Stay rules.
In a consultation document last week, the government confirmed there was likely to be a taper in the Pay to Stay regulations, meaning tenants would not be charged full market rent as soon as they hit the income threshold.”
The Homes and Communities Agency will have a role in enforcing the Right to Buy extension for housing associations through new ‘homeownership criteria’.
The Housing and Planning Bill confirms more details of how the policy, underpinned by a voluntary deal between landlords and the government, will work in practice.
According to Inside Housing:
“The bill said the English regulator of social housing – the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) – must monitor associations’ compliance with homeownership criteria if requested to do so by the secretary of state.
‘Homeownership criteria’ relates to the sale of housing association homes to tenants, with the specific requirements to be outlined by the secretary of state.
The HCA must report on associations’ compliance with the new criteria and the government can publish information about associations not complying.
Explanatory notes to the bill said it is open to housing associations to meet the criteria “in other ways” than complying with the Right to Buy extension, but these ways would have to provide “an equal or greater level of support” to tenants to help them into homeownership.
The legislation also paves the way for the government to allow more freedom over disposal of stock – a key part of the National Housing Federation (NHF)-led deal – and for “portable discounts” for properties landlords who want to be exempt.
It allows the government to make grants for Right to Buy discounts “on any terms and conditions the secretary of state considers appropriate”. More detail is not included in the legislation, but is instead outlined in a deal agreed by NHF and the government.
Sue Chalkley, chief executive of Hastoe Housing Association, which voted against the Right to Buy deal, said the deal is not genuinely ‘voluntary’ if it is enforced by the regulatory framework.
She also said the bill does not give landlords any certainty.
She said: “There are two immediate disappointments for me. One is that rural communities are not mentioned at all – there’s no recognition of any special circumstances, which there should be.
“Second is that there is no indication that 100% of the discount will be paid, which is what we had been reassured.
“It gives the government full flexibility to change the percentage of the discount that is paid. Nothing there gives us any confidence about the proportion of the discount we’re going to receive.”
The government has said it has accepted the NHF deal under which associations will be compensated for the discount and allowed to keep the receipts to reinvest in building new homes, along with flexibilities to build homes for other tenures.
Under the terms of the offer, every housing association tenant has the right to purchase a home, with the presumption this will be the home in which they live. Associations would have the discretion not to sell “in particular circumstances, such as in rural areas or homes that have been adapted, in these cases tenants would be offered a discount”.”
Around 7,000 council homes will not be replaced under the Right to Buy extension unless a funding gap is closed.
According to the Guardian newspaper:
” That is the findings of analysis published today by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH).
The government’s Right to Buy extension to housing association tenants is to be funded by the selling of vacant high-value council stock, and the Conservative Party has previously estimated 15,000 of these properties will become vacant and eligible for sale each year, raising £4.5bn.
However, the CIH analysis suggests between 2,100 and 6,800 homes are likely to become empty and sold each year, generating between £1.2bn and £2.2bn. The research estimates that housing associations would need almost all of the higher £2.2bn estimate to fund their Right to Buy discounts, leaving councils with little cash for replacing their own stock.
The analysis uses assumptions in previous research by consultancy Savills and thinktank PolicyExchange.
It was supported by the Pegasus Group of associations, Affinity Sutton, Guinness, Peabody and Southern.
The CIH is now calling on the government to include measures to close the possible funding gap in the forthcoming Spending Review. It has also suggested reducing discounts or lengthening the Right to Buy qualifying period could help solve the problem.
Terrie Alafat, chief executive of the CIH, said: “The figures simply will not stack up. Selling high-value council homes to fund the extension of Right to Buy to housing associations could result in the loss of almost 7,000 council homes a year, at a time when more and more people are in need of an affordable home.
“Such a significant loss of desperately needed affordable homes would mean more people on lower incomes stuck on council waiting lists all over England – and for generations to come.”
The Housing and Planning Bill, published on Tuesday, revealed councils will be charged a fixed levy based on a prior estimate of vacant high-value homes they will sell. Some local authorities have raised concerns that they could be left out of pocket if the government over-estimates likely sales.“
