ROOF Blog

Councils are considering plans to reduce their spending including by cutting up to 170,000 public sector jobs in anticipation of a dramatic downturn in their budgets. Dame Margaret Eaton, chair of the Local Government Association, said that local authorities were being hit by a ‘perfect storm’ in the recession with increased pressure on their services and a squeeze on their budgets. Privately, councils are looking at how to slash their budgets by 15% over the next three years, using projections on the cuts necessary to reduce the £178m public deficit drawn-up by the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has expressed concerns over the strength of the information collected on Decent Homes progress. It is estimated that over a million social homes have been improved by CLG’s Decent Homes Programme. The original target was that all social sector homes would be decent by 2010, but by November 2009, CLG was estimating that approximately 92 per cent of social housing would meet the standard by 2010, leaving 305,000 properties ‘non-decent’. 100 per cent decency would not be achieved until 2018-19.

A freedom of information request by Andrew Slaughter, London MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, has found presentations made by the Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council to senior Tory figures calling for limiting social housing to the old, infirm and disabled in a bid to solve the ‘concentration of deprivation’. Council leader Stephen Greenhalgh suggested a range of ‘radical reforms’ including wanting to see social rents rise to market levels; welfare payments based on need rather than rent paid; an end to tenure for life by those in need of social housing; five-year reviews of existing tenants to check on changing circumstances; and demolition of some of the borough’s largest council estates.

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has said private developers, local councils and housing associations must work better together to manage land supply more efficiently to boost the supply of affordable housing. It argues that a poor grasp of land economics, an over reliance on section 106 agreements and an aversion to risk is hindering the provision of land, and added that housing organisations must invest in skills to value land, assess a project’s viability and negotiate better.

A recent decision by Rushcliffe borough council to refuse planning permission for a 1,200 home development on green belt land has been overturned by communities secretary John Denham. The local authority had thrown out the scheme on the grounds that it would have created traffic and resulted in a loss of green belt land, however, the secretary of state said there was an ‘urgent need’ for the release of land for housing in Rushcliffe.

Homeless charity, Crisis, has been investigating the experience single rough sleepers face when seeking help from local councils. Most were discouraged from filing in formal applications to register as homeless, and many were deterred from even seeing a housing officer. A spokesperson from the charity said that there was widespread practice of councils using the priority need test as an excuse not to give single homeless people the minimum levels of advice and assistance to what they are entitled to.

For the first time in nearly 20 years English local councils are to begin constructing homes, following last week’s announcement by John Healey allowing town halls to retain rent from council housing and receipts from the right-to-buy scheme. Analysts predict that nearly 140,000 homes will be built in the next decade, as local authorities start applying for £350 million in direct funding made available from the government. Birmingham is planning to build 500 council houses a year within three years to become the biggest council house builder in England.

Guidance on renegotiating section 106 agreements is to be released by the Homes and Communities Agency later this month. The guidance for local authorities and developers is needed following a High Court ruling last year that quashed Blythe Valley borough council’s 30 per cent affordable housing policy and a similar High Court challenge currently against Wakefield Metropolitan district council.

The Institute for Public Policy Research, which has been researching housing allocation for the Equalities Commission since last year, has concluded that Gordon Brown’s pledge to provide more social housing for local people is ‘flawed’ and could open up councils to legal challenge. Its unpublished interim report notes that there was no evidence that allocation policies discriminate against white groups and there was only a small amount of evidence that some policies unintentionally discriminate against minority ethnic communities, but the perception otherwise could trigger legal challenges against local authorities by those who feel unfairly treated.

Housing associations could face higher loan repayments and reduced access to funds as a result of tougher banking rules, housing experts fear. The Financial Services Authority wants lenders to hold higher levels of capital and liquid assets in reserve, and this may push up interest payments across social housing as loan agreements allow lenders to pass the costs of additional regulation to their customers, and with ‘virtually all’ of the sector’s loans having the clause, costs for associations are likely to be impacted.