Have you suggested your tenants join the board mentoring programme from HDN yet?

HDN-eBriefing-July-2015-

HDN-eBriefing-August-2015

“The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) is investigating a greater proportion of complaints it receives following the change.

The HCA’s consumer regulation review published today revealed it received 589 complaints in 2014/15, and judged 238 of these – 40% – to be worthy of referral to its specialist ‘consumer regulation panel’ for further investigation. This compares to 20% of 509 complaints it received in 2013/14 being referred.

The regulator last year changed its practices to ensure that if there is any doubt at all about whether a complaint should be probed, it is referred to the panel.

This was due to concerns among senior staff that employees in the referrals teams are not specialists in consumer regulation and that complaints could be rejected incorrectly. An HCA spokesperson said it reconsidered a “handful” of complaints initially dismissed.

The review said: “The increase in cases considered at stage two was as a consequence of both the increase in the number of cases overall and a change to internal decision-making procedures.”

The regulator since 2012 can only intervene on tenant complaints where it deems there is actual or potential harm to tenants. Under a three-stage system, the referrals team decides whether the complaint falls under the HCA’s remit and whether there is a risk of a breach of regulatory standards, before referring the case on to the panel.

Of the 238 complaints passed on to the panel in 2014/15, 89 were investigated further, with six cases of serious detriment found. In 2013/14, 40 cases were investigated further and three cases of serious detriment found.

Of the six cases judged to meet the ‘serious detriment’ threshold prompting a regulatory notice, four related to gas safety (Yorkshire Housing Group, First Wessex Housing Group, Merlin Housing Society and Severn Vale Housing Society), one to a balcony collapse (Blackpool Council) and one to repairs (Circle). Complaints about the abolition of a tenants’ association, poor estate maintenance and asbestos contamination were judged not to breach regulatory standards.

This article was in the Guardian on line this week and follows research by the NHF on the number of people who are in social houisng and the myth that they might be unemployed:

“Politics has been dominated by discussions of the future of welfare and the quality of life for those who receive benefits. However, there has often been a lack of understanding of those on welfare who are often referred to simply as the unemployed – or in the worst case “benefit scroungers”.

Out-of-work people living in social housing are too often referred to as one big group with the same enduring stigma. Around half (52%) of working-age people who live in social housing are not working, compared to just 29% in private tenures. The sector undeniably houses a significant proportion of unemployed and economically inactive people.

Unsurprisingly it also provides the important function of sheltering society’s most vulnerable people, for example disabled people and single parents. In many circumstances, worklessness is largely the result of these disadvantages.

A key point to understand is that only 10% of this population can actually be classified as unemployed. A much larger group of 40% is economically inactive. The distinction between unemployed and economically inactive is whether someone has been looking for work recently and would be able to start work immediately.

So what’s the story behind these 40% economically inactive social renters who haven’t been looking for work? More than half are long-term sick or disabled and a further 34% are carers. With a further 4% being temporarily sick, a total of 88% are economically inactive due to barriers such as illness, disability or caring responsibilities.

How can social housing providers help people into work?
We have looked at providing a new approach understanding the combinations of disadvantage by dividing workless social renters into groups according to their characteristics, disadvantages and distance from the job market.

We found the cluster of people closest to the job market accounts for about 28% of currently workless social housing tenants (or nearly 1.1m people) including women with dependent children, unemployed men with some qualifications and men with health problems who are already looking for work.

These groups are most likely to be helped by existing employment support programmes without requiring any specific additional intervention. Housing associations should use their existing relationships with tenants to offer more personalised support to them in the job search and application process.

On the other hand, the groups furthest from the labour market include older people and people with multiple or long-term health problems, poor mental health and disabilities. This group comprises almost 800,000 people

The groups further away from the labour market will need more targeted and personalised support in order to help them prepare, look, get into and stay in work. People with disabilities could benefit from supported employment through intermediate labour markets, whereas those out of work for a longer time would benefit from more training or the introduction of return-to-work bonuses to help with additional employment costs due to caring responsibilities or ill health.

People who are not working are not a homogenous group that can simply be labelled unemployed and consequently they can’t be helped into the labour market with a one-size fits all approach.”

Veronika Gstir wrote this article  – he is a research manager at the National Housing Federation.

“The G15, in its submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the financial viability of housing associations, called for “greater freedoms” to allow associations to more easily develop homes. It believes landlords will have to take on more risk to develop in the wake of a 1% annual rent cut and theRight to Buy extension.

It warned the near collapse of Cosmopolitan Housing Association in 2012 has led to a “risk-averse culture”.

The group, which manages 410,000 homes, believes regulator the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) should focus its resources on poorer-performing or high-risk organisations and instead give “high-performing” developing landlords freedoms from regulation.

It said: “These [freedoms] could be used to explore new models for developing homes, includinginnovative partnerships with the private sector, and rise to the challenges of the new operating environment.”

Brendan Sarsfield, chair of the G15, said associations could be given more flexibility to change the tenure of void properties without seeking permission of the HCA and more scope to dispose of properties and to enter joint ventures.

The G15 believes the regulator’s scope should extend to promoting the delivery of new supply, not just focus on protecting public investment.

David Montague, chief executive of L&Q, said: “The world is changing, the Budget blew a hole in the side of the sector. All of us will be taking on more risk and bearing down on costs to plug that gap.

“As a consequence, we will push closer to existing regulatory boundaries – all we are saying is it’s time for another conversation.”

The Department for Communities and Local Government and the Homes and Communities Agency have both been approached for comment.

In a separate, joint submission to the inquiry, the National Federation of Arm’s Length Management Organisations and the Association for Retained Council Housing, called for councils to be allowed to keep receipts from Right to Buy and other property sales to re-invest in housing.

The organisations also called on councils to be allowed to keep extra income from Pay to Stay.

UPDATE: 08.09.15, 9.12am

A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “Regulation of the housing association sector is working well and has supported the delivery of 260,000 affordable homes since 2010.

“However, we are not complacent and will continue to listen to their concerns.” ”

The idea of the ‘northern powerhouse’ has captured the national imagination in a way that is rare for political policymaking. Nonetheless, the prospects for its long-term success rest not on its political salience but on its potential to generate genuine economic prosperity for its businesses and citizens.

Far from giving businesses cause for despair, our analysis reveals the potential that could be derived from properly directed investment and change.

• If the North had matched the national increase in economic output per head since 2003 then its economy would be £5 billion (1.8 per cent) bigger today.
• If the North was able to halve the gap between its own economic output per head and the national level then its economy would be £34 billion (11.9 per cent) bigger.
• If the North could reverse its net outflow of people to other regions then, by 2030, its population would be 264,000 (1.6 per cent) higher than is currently forecast.
• Productivity gains arising from the HS2 high-speed rail investment could be worth £2.1–3.2 billion per annum in the north of England by 2037.
• If the government invested the same proportion of its total research and development spending in the North as businesses do then it would spend £179 million more than it does now, or more than twice as much (112.8 per cent).

Business has a key role to play in driving the changes required to capitalise on this potential. The relationship between city authorities and businesses and the way these organisations learn from one another are key dynamics in a prosperous modern economy.

We identify four key drivers of growth in the northern economy:

1. infrastructure and connectivity
2. human capital
3. innovation and business support
4. leadership and policy development.

Business leadership is also critical. There is an important question about how businesses can or should engage across the wider geography of the North, particularly in relation to issues of connectivity, infrastructure, innovation and inward investment, which often require strategic planning at a higher, ‘mezzanine’ level. Unlike in London, for example, there are very few bodies that exist at this pan-northern level – and none representing business.

We argue that there are three things required to ensure that the rhetoric and potential of the northern powerhouse is converted into reality: investment, leadership and urgency.

Specifically, this means that:

• The forthcoming spending review must make a step-change in commitment to the north of England, with large-scale government capital spending of up to £50 billion that can be used to leverage even greater private investment.
• Scope exists for greater business leadership in strategic planning at a pan-northern level, particularly in areas such as transport connectivity.
• There is an urgent need for more detail and more action to support the pan-northern vision – ‘one north, one economy’ – to ensure that business, public and civil sectors are galvanised to act now to sustain the momentum behind devolution and take advantage of this unprecedented window of opportunity. “

This is the take from IPPR on what they think the Chancellor will do:

the-chancellors-choices_Aug2015

The chancellor made clear in the July budget that he wanted to make progressive choices in the 2015 spending review. This report shows, through detailed analysis of the figures, that he could choose to protect social care, expand free childcare, protect education for 16–19-year-olds, support young people into work, and invest in housing, science, energy efficiency and the northern powerhouse – while still reaching a surplus in 2019/20.

The report also demonstrates that the chancellor could choose to avoid destructive 40 per cent cuts to other public services, such as the police and the courts, by doing two things. First, he could target a slightly lower surplus than the £10 billion he is currently aiming for in 2019/20. Second, he could make modest extensions to three of the tax changes he announced at the July budget: slightly reducing tax relief for the pensions of the richest; aligning capital gains tax for high earners with the new dividend tax rate; and bringing the insurance premium tax closer to the rate of VAT.

The recommendations presented in this report would, if adopted, make government spending more preventative, integrated and devolved, while boosting employment and economic growth. They would also, crucially, leave the UK as well prepared as possible (within the constraints of the government’s fiscal rules) for the economic, demographic and social challenges of the 2020s.

While IPPR does not agree with the rate of spending reduction planned in this parliament, and would prefer a deficit reduction programme that is more responsive to the wider economy and operates over a longer time-horizon, the recommendations presented in this report are nevertheless consistent with the government’s fiscal mandate.

The fully costed recommendations in the report include:

• holding funding constant for the revenue support grant, the public health grant and the Better Care Fund in cash terms, to relieve the pressure that the underfunding of social care is placing on the NHS, and to ensure that rising demands on the care system do not cut too deeply into funding for other local government services
• introducing an entitlement to 15 hours of holiday childcare for an additional 10 weeks of the year, targeted at 2–4-year-olds in families that fall within the poorest 40 per cent of the income distribution, to support employment and improve families’ finances
• protecting 16–19 education on a flat cash-per-pupil basis, to better support school-to-work transitions
• guaranteeing a job for six months, paid at the minimum wage, for all under-25s who have claimed jobseeker’s allowance for more than nine months, to combat youth unemployment and improve skills
• establishing a ‘troubled lives’ programme to join up services around severely excluded adults who use both homelessness and drug and alcohol services, and to act as an exemplar of service integration
• tripling the budget of the Homes and Communities Agency, with the aim of grant-funding the building of approximately 50,000 social rent homes per year, to reduce the housing benefit bill and help solve the housing crisis
• financing the ‘One North’ package of integrated investment in road and rail capacity in the north of England, to put it on course for completion in 2030, thereby driving economic growth
• accelerating investment in energy efficiency measures for low-income households, upgrading a third-of-a-million homes per year with the objective of upgrading all low-income households by 2030
• protecting the science budget, which is vital to UK productivity, economic growth and research and development, in flat cash terms.

Once the difficult task of eliminating the deficit is complete, the settlement outlined in this report can be built upon to prepare the UK for the economic, demographic and social challenges of the 2020s.”

With hospitals creaking under the strain of seemingly endless demand, it is not surprising that stories tackling the issue often come with shocking statistics.

This is a useful article from foundation in a health special from Local Govt news:

“The final line of an article covering a study by Healthwatch England on the problems caused by a‘revolving door’ approach to hospital discharge delivered exactly that.

It quoted Janet Morrison, chief executive of Independent Age, who said: ‘With two-thirds of readmitted patients returning to hospital within a week, we need to start making changes now.’

Read through the study itself and you’ll find ample statistics that tell you human and financial burden of this revolving door. Emergency readmissions cost the NHS more than £2bn a year and some 6,000 patients remain in hospital longer than clinically necessary.

The picture painted by Healthwatch England’s report is of a hospital discharge system with little consistency or certainty for far too many users. What makes this situation particularly frustrating is that there are effective solutions already out there making a huge difference to people’s lives – we just need to make them the norm.

Foundations, is the national body for more than 200 home improvement agencies (HIAs) and handyperson service providers in England. They deliver home support to vulnerable people to enable them to live independently, manage long-terms conditions and, ultimately, stay out of hospital.

By carrying out adaptations, providing information and advice about issues ranging from debt to dementia and ensuring people live in dry, warm homes, they are on the frontline of preventing hospital admissions.

But a number of them are also working with partners to tackle that revolving door syndrome. In many cases it’s a question of providing practical support that makes it easier for people to return home. For example, in York, a handyperson scheme run by Yorkshire Housing offers a service to fit aids and adaptations to enable hospital discharge within 48 hours.

In Carlisle, Hospital at Home creates a ‘virtual ward’ by providing care in a patient’s home in order to avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital. The service is supported by community services and initiatives like ‘community neighbours’, a volunteer befriending scheme run by an HIA, Homelife Carlisle.

Hospital at Home enables someone to make the choice to remain at home, keeping contact with friends, neighbours and family, while receiving care that would normally be provided in hospital.

However, in Manchester things have moved up several notches and it now has a model that could provide a blueprint for other areas.

Manchester Care and Repair (MC&R) – an HIA and registered charity that works across Greater Manchester and is supported by local authorities, the NHS and many others, has been running a Home from Hospital service since 2012.

It has staff running services from North Manchester General Hospital, Manchester Royal Infirmary and Wythenshawe Hospital and it is also co-located within the integrated discharge teams working closely with NHS and Manchester City Council staff.

MC&R workers provide telephone follow-up calls offering non-medical, low level support to smooth the transition from hospital to home and to help to prevent readmission for the over-60s.

The approach proved so successful that MC&R was asked to put forward a proposal for an enhanced hospital discharge support service. North Manchester Clinical Commissioning Group and Manchester City Council commissioned the service as a one-year pilot in 2014.

After supporting more than 1,450 people in its first year, it has since been extended with exclusive support from the North Manchester Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and the service’s success contributed to MC&R winning the Home Improvement Agency Service of the Year Award in June.

It means residents in the city aged over 60 who are being discharged from North Manchester General Hospital have access to a seven-days-a-week personalised discharge service.

The idea was to tackle the very problem identified by Healthwatch England’s report: that too many vulnerable people leave hospital feeling abandoned and isolated. What exacerbates that feeling – and can greatly increase their chances of readmission – is that fact that their home environment isn’t appropriate. Cold, damp and draughty properties with multiple trip hazards are unlikely to foster a speedy recovery.

Patients leaving North Manchester General Hospital receive an assessment to gauge what’s needed to support their recovery and ongoing independence and wellbeing.

As Karen Kennedy, MC&R’s Home from Hospital manager, explains: ‘Any patients identified as possibly benefitting from the service are supported and prepared for their discharge home. We also transport them home and settle them back in. The discharge support service will assist the patient to warm the home, make necessary adjustments, prepare beds and a simple meal, shop for immediate essentials and re-connect with services relatives or friends – in short “that little bit of extra support” that a close relative or friend would seek to provide to someone in recuperation. This is followed up by regular telephone and direct contact as necessary for a period of up to six weeks by staff and volunteers.

‘The overwhelming response to the introduction of this service from both patients and North Manchester General Hospital staff alike has been positive. Most people cannot understand why such a service hasn’t been available until now as it is clear that a little bit of extra support, reassurance and help with practical tasks can make a massive difference to vulnerable patients.’

What makes MC&R’s achievements remarkable is hat they come about during a time of unprecedented austerity for local government – one of the key funders of home improvement and handyperson services. By late 2014 it was facing a potential 58% cut in local authority funding. But the effectiveness of its approach has led to fresh financial support from Manchester’s CCGs and the city council’s housing investment team.

With so many competing priorities, it can be hard for organisations like MC&R to make their voices heard among commissioners. It has therefore lobbied elected members and health commissioners, built strategic relationships and backed up the case for investment by compiling evidence of its impact.

One of the key reasons for its success on the ground brings us back to that Healthwatch England report.

Among the ‘five reasons things go wrong’ with hospital discharges that it highlights, number one is the lack of co-ordination between different services. That is precisely the issue MC&R and its partners tackle head on and it is the kind of approach that needs to be replicated if we are to close the revolving door.”

Roy McNally is a development manager at Foundations.

However, lone parents and families with more than two children are likely to see their living standards stagnate or fall even if they work full-time, as are low-income families with one main breadwinner. Those who are out of work face a sharply growing gap between their income and the amount they need for a basic living standard.

Will the 2015 Summer Budget improve living standards in 2020?, written by Donald Hirsch from Loughborough University, uses JRF’s Minimum Income Standard (MIS) to track how the living standards of low-income households will change by 2020. The report is based on what the public say is necessary for a minimum socially acceptable standard of living.

The introduction of the National Living Wage (NLW), which will raise the minimum wage to £9 per hour for workers aged over 25 by 2020, will drive an increase in living standards for low-paid workers without children, who by 2020 will typically have incomes close to or above what they need. Some of those who currently qualify only for small levels of support will be lifted out of the benefits system entirely by a combination of higher wages and reduced entitlements. But most low-income families with children will see their living standards continue to stagnate or decline as reductions to in-work benefits, also announced in the Summer Budget, outstrip wage rises.

While most households with two parents working full time on the NLW will be better off than they are on the National Minimum Wage (NMW) now, only 6% of low income families with children have this working pattern.

Families with one full-time and one part-time earner – a more common model of family life – will fall as far short of MIS in 2020 as they do now.

The report identifies the following winners and losers (in the case of working households, based on comparing those on NMW in 2015 and NLW in 2020; all figures are adjusted for inflation and expressed in 2015 prices):

Winners

• A single person aged over 25 who works full time will have 97 per cent of what they need in 2020, leaving them just £6 short of what they need every week, compared to £39 (79% of MIS) in 2010 and £54 (70% of MIS) today.

• Double-earner families who both work full time and have two children will have 93 per cent of what they need in 2020, leaving them £34 short of what they need, compared to £45 (89%) in 2010 and £75 (84%) today.

• Pensioners will have 106 per cent of what they need in 2020, leaving them with £15 more than they need every week, compared to £4 more (102%) in 2010 and £9 less (96%) today.

Losers

• A lone parent with one child who works full time on NLW will have 71 per cent of what they need in 2020. This will mean they are £80 short of what they need every week, compared to £7 short (97%) in 2010 and £39 short (86%) today.

• Dual-earner families with one parent who works full-time and one part-time will have 82 per cent of what they need in 2020. This will mean they are £82 short of what they need every week, compared to £57 short (87%) in 2010 and £90 short (81%) today.

• A single person who claims out-of work benefits will get 35 per cent of what they need in 2020. This will mean they are £118 short per week, compared to £107 short in 2010 (41%) and £110 short (40%) today.

• An out of work couple with two children will have 52 per cent of what they need in 2020. This will mean they are £221 short of what they need, compared to £163 short (62%) in 2010 and £197 short (57 per cent today.)

Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said:

“The Summer Budget has transformed the relationship between pay, benefits and work incentives. The National Living Wage is a game-changer for some on low incomes as the new, higher rate will make work pay for more people.

“But the wage rise comes hand-in-hand with changes to in- and out-of-work benefits. Families will only be able to make ends meet if they have two parents in full-time work, but those who are able to find extra work will face a difficult juggling act as they try and make longer hours fit around family life. Lone parents, even those working full time, and people who are searching for work face a decade of sharply declining living standards.”

Donald Hirsch, Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy, Loughborough University, and author of the report, said:

“When you step back and look at the overall impact of benefit changes in the present decade, it becomes clear that the social safety net is changing profoundly. For example, in 2010, families with small children were helped to get almost to the Minimum Income Standard if they worked, but fell a third short if they did not. By 2020, some working families, including many lone parents and families with three or more children, will be around a third short of the standard even if they work full-time on the National Living Wage. That is, they will be as badly off in work in 2020 as they were out of work in 2010 – while those not working in 2020 will become even worse off, falling around 50 per cent short of what they need.”

For couples the work incentive is clear: in order to move out of poverty and have a better standard of living, parents on low incomes will both have to work full time.  In order to support parents to do this, JRF calls for:

• more high quality, flexible, affordable childcare

• action to boost productivity, creating better paid, secure and flexible jobs which offer good career progression for people on low incomes

• employers to pay the higher, voluntary Living Wage where affordable

• a greater supply of genuinely affordable homes “

“Consultancy Savills has calculated the potential impact of the policy, under which tenants earning over £40,000 in London and £30,000 outside the capital will have to pay rents at up to market rent level.

The consultancy estimates 60.1% of the 27,108 affected households in London will neither be able to afford market rent or be able to buy their house under the Right to Buy. In the East, South East and South West regions of England the figure is 49.1%, 43.4% and 26.6% respectively.

However, the research shows all those affected in the three northern regions would be able to stay in their home by buying it under the Right to Buy or by paying full market rent.

In the North East, 86.3% of the 11,227 households affected would have enough income to buy with a Right to Buy discount. The figure ranges from 59.7% to 68.5% in all the other non-south English regions. Savills used adjusted government data on rents, incomes and property values. It used an assumption of 35% of income spent on housing costs as a measure of affordability and assumed a mortgage four times income to gauge who can buy, taking Right to Buy discounts into account.

The figures are likely to strengthen calls for the policy to be ‘tapered’ to ensure those slightly over the threshold are not hit by a hike to full market rent.

Chris Buckle, associate director at Savills Residential Research, said: “Some people in the south are going to struggle with their housing costs if Pay to Stay comes in as a ‘hard barrier’ rather than as a taper.”

The National Housing Federation said that a sliding scale would be fairer but could lead to “administrative costs outweighing the benefit from the increased rental income”.

Inside Housing has previously reported that the policy is “likely” to be tapered but the government has not confirmed this.

A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: “We’re introducing Pay to Stay to ensure high-income social tenants pay a fair rent that better reflects their ability to pay. This will put an end to the situation where the high-income social tenants benefit from taxpayer-funded subsidies of up to £3,500 per year on average.” ”

Source: Savills Residential Research

This is what CIH chief executive Terrie Alafat is thinking as she takes a look at what parliament might have in store for housing.

From CIH news:

“It’s been a busy summer in the housing world following the wide-ranging changes affecting our tenants and organisations announced in the summer budget.  As I’m sure has been the case in many other organisations, my colleagues at CIH have been busy with submissions to the spending review, the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, the Communities and Local Government select committee inquiry into the future of housing associations and the government’s consultation on tackling rogue landlords and improving the private rented sector.

This afternoon the Commons and Local Government select committee will question housing minister Brandon Lewis on the planning proposals outlined in the government’s national productivity plan, ‘fixing the foundations’. It’s good to see the government putting new homes at the heart of its productivity plan – planning reforms designed to get more desperately needed homes built will be a vital part of tackling the housing crisis.

We have already heard about some significant changes for our sector, but as I wrote in Inside Housing last week, the pace of change isn’t going to slow down any time soon. We have a re-energised government confident in its mandate, in a hurry to get going and to implement its new policies. What then of the much anticipated Housing Bill? Earlier this year the Conservative party pledged to introduce legislation to extend the right to buy to housing associations within its first 100 days in government.  The bill, which was initially announced in the Queen’s speech in May, promises to include more details on some of the announcements made in recent months, such as the expansion of the starter homes scheme and the extension of right to buy. Perhaps the government will use the annual Conservative party conference in October as a platform to unveil it.

As we detailed in our submission to the Communities and Local Government select committee inquiry into the future of housing associations, we estimate that around 145,000 housing association tenants will exercise the right to buy during the first five years of the policy.

Our initial analysis is that about 1.45 million tenants will be eligible for the scheme and about 10 per cent will take advantage of it. This is based on experience with the original local authority right to buy in the 1980s, taking into account that the proportion of housing association tenants in employment now is lower than was the case with council tenants then. We expect most of these sales to be in years two and three

While we understand the government’s desire to encourage people to become home owners, we’re concerned about the loss of social rented homes at a time of increasing demand for affordable housing.

New sales of housing association properties will be in addition to right to buy sales by local authorities and conversions of homes to affordable rents. And of course high-value council homes will be sold to fund the discounts.

An alternative option for the new right to buy would be giving tenants portable discounts they could use to buy properties of their own choosing, so that social rented stock could be kept and used to help people unable to afford to buy their own homes.

Following the publication of the Housing Bill, we look ahead to another big milestone – the spending review at the end of November.  We have already heard about some big changes for our sector, including the cut in the benefit cap, the reduction in social housing rents and the introduction of ‘pay to ‘stay’ – but it would be a mistake to fail to prepare for more.”