The Governor – Summer 2019 by HQN Limited

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS SUMMER 2019

This climate emergency Why it’s time for housing to take a stand

Housing – The Green New Deal’s secret weapon The keys to effective tenant involvement Special pull out: Evidence

Contents Summer 2019

Special pullout: Evidence

Published by:

The latest edition of Evidence magazine incorporating topical housing research and analysis from leading academics.

HQN Rockingham House St Maurice’s Road York YO31 7JA

Editorial:

EVIDENCE update Issue 23 | Summer 2019

Alistair McIntosh Jon Land Colin Wiles Janis Bright George Bond

THE LATEST RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS – IN PLAIN ENGLISH

Welcome! Welcome to the second edition of Evidence as a joint partnership between the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), the Housing Studies Association (HSA) and the Housing Quality Network (HQN). There is no doubt that housing in the UK dominates policy making and the public consciousness in ways that were not the case just a few years ago. As a nation we are continuing to make sense of the Grenfell tragedy, there is a renewed, albeit restrained, focus on social housing from national government, homelessness continues to rise, and economic development continues to frame how we think about private sector housebuilding and renting in national and local contexts. All of this is happening against a context of continuing political uncertainty and instability. As a result, we need to work together and share evidence and knowledge now more than ever. Organisations like HQN, CaCHE and the HSA are working with their members and with other representative bodies to better understand, scrutinise and critique policies and practice in order to provide

Email: jon.land@hqnetwork.co.uk Tel: 07740 740417

Navigating a different minefield: Veterans’ experiences of the UK social security system Lisa Scullion from the University of Salford

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Cover features 5 – This climate emergency With the housing sector under fire for its lack of action on climate change, Colin Wiles says it’s time for leaders to take a stand and make it a top priority.

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11 – A life in 15 questions Elly Shepherd, head of housing and planning at London Councils, takes the ‘15 questions’ challenge and provides some revealing answers.

10 – The keys to effective tenant involvement Janis Bright highlights some of the key lessons from HQN’s work for the Welsh Government and Regulatory Board for Wales (RBW).

12 – The Green New Deal’s secret weapon In an exclusive article, George Bond from the UK Student Climate Network says housing is the bedrock of a carbon-neutral society and holds the key to unlocking public opinion.

the first substantive qualitative research in the UK to focus specifically on the experiences of veterans within the social security system. Over the course of this two-year project, we carried out a total of 120 in-depth interviews with veterans and their families. These interviews were supplemented with insights from a range of policymaker SUMMER 2019 |

Sam Wiggle

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Phil Brown Chair Housing Studies Association

In this issue: 1 Welcome / Navigating a different minefield: Veterans’ experience of the UK social security system 3 Land markets and speculative housebuilding 4 Impact of housing organisations on tenants’ health and wellbeing 6 Empowering citizens to judge housing outcomes 7 Celebrating the centenary of the Addison Act 8 In brief

In June 2019, we launched the final findings of a project called Sanctions, Support and Service Leavers: Welfare conditionality and transitions from military to civilian life. Funded by the Forces in Mind Trust, this project represents

All enquires to: hqn@hqnetwork.co.uk Tel: 01904 557150

analysis and support where it matters most. This issue of evidence demonstrates the diversity of the voices of those working in housing and related fields. What follows includes pieces on the impact of the social security system on ex-service personnel, the history of the 1919 Housing and Town Planning Act, strategies from the speculative housebuilding sector, tenants’ health and wellbeing, and evaluating housing outcomes as well as other updates from across the field. We at the Housing Studies Association endeavour to bring researchers together, from within and outside academia, to analyse the challenges we face and facilitate dialogue with policy actors and practitioners. Our annual conference and autumn lectures are our showpiece events but we also provide bursaries for smaller events and for individual researchers. We are keen to develop our membership and facilitate new opportunities for our members to share their research and generate new thinking. So if you are interested in joining us please have a look at https://housing-studiesassociation.org/

15 – The last word Colin Wiles explores the latest Policy Exchange report which includes a housing policy road map for the next Prime Minister.

“Our sector, to be frank, often does not see what is staring it in the face. We don’t learn from experience, do we?”

Getting on top of net zero is a big deal – and the buck stops with you OK, I know what you’re thinking: why didn’t you go for a nice easy topic for this year’s HQN conference. Climate change is a bit complicated and we might not have to do anything anyway. Boris tends to do, or not do, what Trump says, so it doesn’t matter. The good old USA has opted out and so will we. ‘We’ll look at this later, if we have to, thank you very much’ – I get all of that but if we are to be of any help at all to you, we need to spot the blots on the horizon. And I think net zero is the biggest one. Our sector, to be frank, often does not see what is staring it in the face. We don’t learn from experience, do we? We began to put cladding on towers in the 80s. By and large, that’s safe. Why is that not the case with newer cladding? What went wrong? We sacked all the experts to save money. That is the top and bottom of it. So, what’s the lesson? You need to hire the right people with the right qualifications to do the job. Get in some people that know

what they’re doing on climate change. You might have to replace gas heating with hydrogen. Find someone that knows their onions to help you or you’ll waste a lot of time and money. And it might be dangerous. What can we learn from how we went about stress testing? At the start of it no one looked into the future. Past performance really was our only guide to what was coming next. So, when the crash came it hit us like a lightning bolt. We need to get a lot sharper at scanning. I get a lot more out of reading New Scientist than anything in housing. It’s certainly opened my eyes to the pros and cons of where you get hydrogen from. If it comes from oil, are you any further forwards? Don’t delay, put an order in today. And then there’s VfM. At the end of the day all you had to do was send a few forms in. It’s as easy as signing up to Amazon Prime. Yet a lot of top boards could not get to grips with it at all. This inability to follow simple instructions is my biggest

worry of all. As an act of kindness, the RSH has made it even easier to comply. The RSH is in no position to set the rules on net zero for you. And why should they? Can you step up to the plate this time? I honestly think that getting on top of net zero is a big deal. The scientists don’t always agree. Some say that many deaths are due to toxic air. Others say this is nonsense. Politicians go one way or another. But the buck stops with you. It always does. Schools are getting powers to shut polluted roads nearby. Should you do the same? You’ll never forgive yourself if you make the wrong call here. So, that’s why the conference is on climate change. HQN’s worthless if we don’t help you to think about things like this. Trust me, it’s not a ruse to feed our members on Gregg’s vegan sausage rolls as some of you have suggested.

Alistair McIntosh, Chief Executive, HQN SUMMER 2019 |

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This climate emergency â&#x20AC;&#x201C; time for housing to take a stand The housing sector needs to wake up fast to the realities of climate change. And it should be leading the way, not lagging behind, argues Colin Wiles. >>>

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At the time of going to press, parts of Europe are gripped by a record-breaking heat wave. On 29 June a temperature of 45.8°C was recorded in the French town of Gallargues-le-Montueux. Of course, weather is not the same as climate. Climate is the sum of weather, but for climate change deniers (like the present occupant of The White House), extremes of weather have nothing to do with mankind’s impact upon the climate. But science tells us that these extreme weather events are part of a pattern of global warming.

Glacial change I first wrote about climate change back in 2007, in a booklet produced for the CIH called ‘The Future is Unwritten’. At that time the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) had concluded that: • The climate was warming • Most of the increase in global temperatures was “very likely” caused by anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Fossil fuels and agriculture are the main sources of these gases. This warming, said the IPPC, had led to more heat waves, stronger winds, a decline in permafrost, more rain and more droughts. A loss of ice cover in Greenland and Antarctica had likely led to increases in sea levels (warmer oceans expand so that also causes higher sea levels). The IPPC forecast that global surface air could, at worst, increase by between 2.4°C to 6.4°C during the 21st century. The CIH report set out the various actions that the UK housing sector would need to take to address climate change, including moving to low-carbon heating in new and existing stock, considering the vulnerability of homes to flooding, retrofitting existing stock to reduce carbon and to take account of hotter summers and warmer winters, giving up properties in low-lying coastal areas, saving and storing more water, installing more robust fencing and roofs to take account of windier conditions, providing cooler areas for older people (heat is more likely to kill older people than cold), fitting solar panels, painting external walls white to reflect heat, and so on. A year later, the Climate Change Act of 2008 set a target to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 80% by the year 2050. The 2015 Paris Agreement, signed by every country in the world, pledged to keep global temperature

increases below 2°C. (President Trump is now threatening to withdraw from this agreement.) The latest IPCC report (2018) concludes that the impacts and costs of global warming will be greater than expected. Since 2007, there have been recordbreaking storms, forest fires, droughts, coral bleaching, heat waves and floods. The average global temperature has increased by 1°C above pre-industrial levels. Warming will likely reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if the current rate of increase in emissions continues. The UN is therefore calling for urgent action to limit the increase in global temperatures to 1.5°C. Failure, it says, will lead to catastrophic impacts for millions of people, with rises in sea level destroying many low lying habitable islands and coastlines and causing mass migrations to more temperate areas.

Climate emergency In May, in response to ongoing street protests, and the activism of younger people like Greta Thunberg, who feel that the older generation is stealing their future, the UK Parliament passed a motion declaring a climate emergency. However, it would be wrong to claim that the UK has done “nothing” as some campaigners say. The UK’s total carbon dioxide emissions in 2018 were 43% lower than in 1990, mostly as a result of switching from coal and oil to natural gas, wind and solar. In fact they are back to 1890 levels. (However, critics argue this does not factor in emissions from international shipping and aviation originating in the UK.) In response to the UN’s warnings, Lord Deben and the UK Committee on Climate Change has called for carbon emissions to reduce to zero by 2050, a target accepted by the government. This would mean: no home, business or industry heated by gas, coal or oil; a significant switch to solar and wind power; better insulation in all properties; converting the petrochemical industry to green chemistry; switching to electric vehicles; reducing air travel; more carbon capture; reducing agricultural emissions; stopping bio waste going to landfill, and planting more trees. On a personal level, it also means people eating less meat, consuming less stuff, flying less often, and switching to greener forms of transport. The government has stated: “Most sectors will need to reduce emissions close to zero without offsetting.” That means you cannot avoid your obligations by, for example, planting trees (as Formula 1 has done in the past). The required reduction

“Regrettably, the housing sector has been slow to respond to the dangers of climate change. The Committee on Climate Change’s report ‘UK housing: Fit for the future?’ published in February is damning”

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in emissions will be absolute. Many of us feel that we can do little to impact the global crisis since our emissions are piffling compared to those of India, China and the US. In 2017 China was producing 13 times more CO2 than it did in 1960 and building dozens of coal-fired power stations every year. But this ignores the fact that the UK was one of the first countries to industrialise and our carbon legacy (since 1750) is the fifth largest of any country. The IPPC warns that historic carbon will continue to trap heat in the atmosphere for hundreds of years to come, so we therefore have a moral and historic duty to set an example and aim to lead the world on reducing our impact.

UK housing – slow to respond

The cost of change As a sector, we will need to eliminate carbon emissions entirely if we are to meet our climate change targets. The cost of these measures is likely to exceed £15 billion but this would be offset by savings in other areas. For example, the Committee on Climate Change estimates that the annual cost to the NHS of poor housing conditions is £1.4–2 bn in England. Adapting our stock would make homes more liveable and, together with other outcomes such as improvements in air quality, an increase in cycling and walking and improved diets, health would improve. Vehicle noise would reduce, and there would be an opportunity to end fuel poverty by achieving significant reductions in annual heating costs. Meeting the climate change targets could also allow the UK to lead the way in innovating in new electric technologies and other low carbon products, which could boost jobs. Action on climate change is both necessary and potentially beneficial to health, equality and survival.

Going backwards

Unfortunately, in recent years the overall policy agenda has been heading in the opposite direction. For example, cuts in local authority funding have impeded the necessary investment in infrastructure for cycling, HQN survey walking and electric charging of vehicles. Government funding for existing housing stock has This sluggish response of the housing sector to climate also fallen way behind what is required. Around 4.5 change is confirmed by HQN’s own survey of housing million homes overheat, even in cool summers, and 1.8 organisations, which found that almost three quarters of million people live in areas at significant risk of flooding. Average UK water consumption is higher than in many other European countries. Home insulation programmes have stalled, the ‘zero carbon homes’ scheme has been reduced, and policies to encourage flood protection, water efficiency and window shading are feeble. UK building regulations are weak, overcomplex and not enforced, and local authorities, under-funded for years, are unable to plan strategically for climate change. Significant policy changes are therefore required to put the UK on track to meet its targets. The future depends upon it. Climate change activist Greta Thunberg and Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Photo: Clive Barda 2018

Photo: The European Parliament

Regrettably, the housing sector has been slow to respond to the dangers of climate change. The Committee on Climate Change’s report ‘UK housing: Fit for the future?’ published in February is damning. It concludes that UK homes are not fit for the future and calls for a range of actions to retrofit 29 million existing homes and build new ones to a much greener standard, using heat pumps and heat networks, boosting the level of insulation and shading, and improving the efficiency of water consumption. Energy use in homes accounts for around 14% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions, so the sector can make a big impact. The Committee also criticised the design and quality of new homes, calling for stronger building regulations and standards. The report also identified a skills shortage within the sector to deal with the required changes.

respondents felt their own organisation was not doing enough to cut carbon emissions. Only half had a climate change strategy and only 40% had set climate change targets. “Operationally and strategically, on the whole my organisation is blind to this issue” was one typical response.

Climate Change

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A climate change checklist As a sector we clearly need to do more to respond to this existential crisis. Below, therefore, is a nonexhaustive checklist of all the actions that your organisation should be taking. First, and most importantly, the Board and senior executives of your organisation need to take a lead. Effective leadership is critical if this issue is to be taken seriously. Then you need to put in place a robust and achievable climate change strategy that will achieve carbon neutrality within the government’s timeframe. This should include the following elements:

Retrofit

all existing homes, improving insulation, replacing gas boilers with electric heat pumps, hydrogen boilers and other forms of sustainable energy. This will need to take account of the end costs to residents and seek to avoid fuel poverty.

All new builds to be carbon neutral (no new homes can have gas boilers after 2025).

Developers should make more use of wood in new builds to displace high-carbon materials such as cement and steel.

All

new homes should be built around infrastructure that minimises car use and encourages walking, cycling and public transport.

The

average daily water consumption per person across the UK is around 140 litres, much higher than many other European countries. Drier summers will make water storage more important. Households should make better use of water. Grey water from sinks and showers could be recycled for toilet flushing.

Roofs,

fences and other external features will need to be strengthened to withstand stronger winds and heavier rain. Vulnerable wooden boundaries will need to be replaced, for example by bricks or railings.

Your

vehicle policy should be reviewed. New diesel and petrol cars will likely be phased out after 2030. Reduce the amount of travelling wherever possible, for example with video conferencing – hold fewer meetings! Review the use of individual cars, and use car-pooling and car sharing.

Ensure that your contractors are compliant with all aspects of your strategy.

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Consider

whether stock swaps could help to reduce travel by staff and contractors. (The sector could look at employing geographical mathematicians to model how this could be achieved. Perhaps the Regulator could make it compulsory as part of a national climate change strategy?)

Review

whether any of your stock is vulnerable to flooding or coastal erosion and take appropriate action.

the future, more people in Europe are likely to die from heat than hypothermia, so buildings will need to be well insulated to stay cool in summer. Reflective paints for external walls and roofs and providing cooler outdoor areas, perhaps with water features, could help to keep people comfortable. ‘Green’ roofs will help to keep buildings cooler in summer and warmer in winter and will absorb excess rainwater. Large windows will need to be shaded with awnings to reduce heat and the demand for air-conditioning will need to be managed.

Rainwater goods will need to be re-modelled to cope with surges of water.

Hotter

summers could lead to ground shrinkage, heave and subsidence so existing properties may require underpinning and new stock may need stronger foundations.

Ensure

your organisation has the skills and expertise to implement your climate change strategy.

Encourage

staff and residents to change their personal behaviours by flying less, switching to electric heating and vehicles, buying less stuff, eating less meat and so on. But whatever you do, don’t preach!

EVIDENCE update Issue 23 | Summer 2019

THE LATEST RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS – IN PLAIN ENGLISH

Navigating a different minefield: Veterans’ experiences of the UK social security system Lisa Scullion from the University of Salford In June 2019, we launched the final findings of a project called Sanctions, Support and Service Leavers: Welfare conditionality and transitions from military to civilian life. Funded by the Forces in Mind Trust, this project represents

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and practitioner stakeholders. In 2011, the UK Government published The Armed Forces Covenant, ‘a promise from the nation that those who serve or have served, and their families, are treated fairly’1 when accessing public services. The DWP has made a series of initiatives and adjustments to Jobcentre Plus (JCP) services as part of its commitment to the Covenant. While these are welcome, our research suggests a disparity between the commitments on paper and the reality on the ground for those actually experiencing the benefits system. In particular, it highlights the difficulties veterans face navigating the benefits system, concerns around the assessment of capability for work, and the need to ensure that appropriate and tailored support is provided to veterans. Navigating the benefits system Overwhelmingly, our participants found the benefits system complex and difficult to navigate. They routinely struggled to understand the benefits that may be available, the conditions attached to continued eligibility, and how to apply for and manage their ongoing claims. For many, it was the first time they had interacted with the social security system, or their prior experience had been many years (or even decades) previously, when a very different system had been in operation. It was evident that information about the system and their eligibility for benefits was largely absent

from the information provided during transition: “When you join the Armed Forces … you lose track of what’s going on, especially in the benefits system. Like myself after 15 years’ service, and I came out… I’ve ended up on benefits, but it’s a minefield.” As such, we recommend ensuring that guidance on the UK social security system is included as a routine part of the resettlement support provided to those leaving the Armed Forces. Assessing capability for work Across the sample of veterans that we interviewed, physical and/or mental impairment was a significant factor affecting their ability to enter and sustain paid work. As a result, a large proportion of respondents had undergone a Work Capability Assessment. Their experiences of these assessments were overwhelmingly negative, which related to the perceived focus on physical rather than mental health; the perceived lack of qualification of the assessors to assess Service-related impairments; and inconsistencies in the use of Service medical records and other relevant medical information: “When you go there they ask you irrelevant questions. ‘Can you lift your right hand? Can you lift your left hand? Can you sit down, can you stand up? Can you stand here?’ That’s irrelevant to me. It’s not your physical, it’s what’s in your mind.” “I was scored zero out of 15. It went to the appeal. The Appeal Board have said that the person assessing me wasn’t qualified to assess me… I went in for an ESA assessment with both a medical record and a mental health record. Neither were looked at. Was that person qualified to score me zero without looking at the documents?… the military document?” For many respondents it was evident that the process was very stressful, and people were often nervous about a pending assessment or fearful when awaiting the outcome. In some of the more extreme examples, the fear of the assessment process had devastating consequences: “I rang them up and I say, ‘I’m unfit to travel to an assessment’, and they said to me, ‘No, but you’ve got to come in … You’ve got to provide evidence that you’ve got PTSD’. I said, ‘Doesn’t my War Pension evidence count?’ He says, ‘No, because you’re claiming for a different benefit’. Unfortunately, I put the phone down, and my anxiety levels were so high I tried popping a couple of diazepam and that wouldn’t work… I took a serrated knife to my arm.”

Images from graphic novel of veterans’ experiences commissioned as part of the research https://bit.ly/2YqRpJD 1 https://bit.ly/2NkCjob

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We recommend an urgent need to review the assessment process to ensure that assessors are suitably qualified, but also a need to ensure that Service Medical and other relevant supporting information is consistently included within the process.

A benefits system in transition Finally, we need to recognise that the social security system itself is in a period of significant transition. Over the course of our fieldwork, some people moved from legacy benefits to Universal Credit. All of them had found it problematic, reiterating widely acknowledged issues around the waiting period for the first payment, reductions in benefit entitlements and difficulties with the ‘digital by default’ system: “I was on the ESA and I went over to Universal Credit, everything was online… I’m 54 years old, I wasn’t sure what to do, and things weren’t made very clear. I forgot to go online, onto my account, apparently, and tick a box or put an X in the box… so I was sanctioned.” However, a significant number of our participants were still claiming legacy benefits and will eventually transition to UC over the coming years. They expressed concerns about what would happen when they moved to UC. As such we recommend that additional support should be provided to veterans as they transition from legacy benefits to UC. This support should be tailored and/or enhanced to reflect the unique circumstances of those who have served in the Armed Forces. With the ongoing ‘managed migration’ of claimants to Universal Credit, the time is right to ensure that veterans and their families are appropriately supported within the social security system.

JOIN NOW! The Housing Studies Association (HSA) is a UK-wide membership organisation which brings together researchers, practitioners and professionals to promote the study of housing. HSA runs a programme of events including our annual conference and our public lecture on housingrelated themes. The Association also offers: • Events grant scheme enabling members to disseminate and discuss their work, • Seminar Series grant competition • Conference bursaries to early career and/or nonwaged housing researchers and practitioners • The prestigious annual Valerie Karn prize for best paper by an early career housing researcher. Become a member from just £25 a year and access these benefits plus reduced rates to our events. See www.housing-studies-association.org Follow us on twitter @HSA_UK.

Full report https://bit.ly/2Ne41mb More information from Professor Lisa Scullion l.scullion@salford.ac.uk

Land markets and speculative housebuilding The supply of new housing presents a major challenge in the UK, aggravating the housing shortage, writes Gareth James. The lag between planning approvals and housing completions is often cited as one explanation for the slow speed of new private housing delivery. Yet build-out rates form only one part of a much more complex set of processes that determine the speed and mode of housing delivery. How housebuilders interact with land markets, make product selection choices and manage construction programmes are also likely to influence supply outcomes. Without a clear understanding of how UK speculative housebuilders acquire, process and build out housing land, policymakers cannot hope to fully address the UK’s housing supply problems. For this reason, a team of CaCHE researchers set out to evaluate some of the key strategies of the UK speculative housebuilding sector in relation to land, planning and development. The study drew on evidence from literature published between 1997 and 2018. This evidence review is structured around four lines of enquiry.

Land acquisition methods and processes There is relatively little evidence on this subject. Existing evidence suggests, inter alia, UK housebuilders most commonly use options and conditional contracts to access land for residential development and they utilise the land use planning process to target options and contracts on land likely to be released. They also appear to rely more on external networks and contacts than markets to acquire land. Conventional practices and skills used for acquiring greenfield sites differ from those required for brownfield sites. And, the size and type of a firm can also influence how it responds to policy initiatives intended to influence its business practices, as well as the opportunities it enjoys. Smaller housebuilders, for example, tend to be disadvantaged when it comes to accessing finance for land acquisition. Land portfolios and land ‘banking’ The land portfolios of housebuilders and land banking practices of the housebuilding industry have been a

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longstanding topic of interest in both academic and policy circles, as well as in the media. Again, the review reveals limited evidence. Existing evidence suggests the role of land banks in speculative housebuilding practice varies according to their geographical distribution, location and time span. Crucially, UK housebuilders’ business models do not appear to depend upon profiting from land banking. Instead, increased reliance on land banking has been linked to planning uncertainties, but land portfolios are also important for security against debt, are critical for balance sheets, and influence investors’ confidence in particular housebuilders. Product selection and delivery mode Existing evidence on the mode of delivery of new private housing is characterised by two dominant lines of enquiry: standardisation and customisation. There is an embedded culture of standardisation in the UK speculative housebuilding industry, which is resistant to public policy switches; and greater levels of customisation are difficult given issues around funding and regulatory frameworks. There is a reluctance to depart from standard house types, but a form of customisation could be achieved through the use of house type substitution. Existing evidence also suggests most housebuilders still need to be convinced of the strength of the demand for greater customisation and energy efficient homes. Speed of delivery There is substantive recent evidence about the speed of delivery of new private housing, commonly termed ‘build-out rates’. This evidence suggests the pace of delivery depends more on how fast newly-built homes can be sold, rather than on how fast they can be produced. Larger sites appear to have lower buildout rates. There is conflicting evidence on whether greenfield or brownfield sites are built out more quickly.

However, sites with more affordable housing do tend to be developed faster. The most common explanation for the pace at which new private housing is developed revolves around the concept of market ‘capacity’ or ‘absorption’. Alternative explanations include the reluctance of most UK housebuilders to innovate, adopt supply chain strategies and demonstrate supply chain awareness or move over at any scale to modern and offsite methods of construction. Conclusions In addition to the top line findings outlined above, the review highlights three further fundamental points worthy of reflection. The first is the dated nature of the evidence. This is particularly evident in relation to housebuilders’ product selection and the mode of delivery, where the deep-seated tendencies of housebuilders toward standardisation of product and process and the minimal inclusion of customer choice and preference have not been substantially revisited since the early 2000s. In contrast there is substantive evidence on the speed of delivery of new private housing. The second is the tendency to homogenise the industry and focus investigations on mainstream housebuilders. Whilst industry concentration is an endemic feature of UK speculative housebuilding, housing providers such as retirement, regeneration and sustainability specialists are often overlooked. The third is the tendency for research to be geographically benign and underplay the distinctions in policy and spatiality. A significant amount of evidence purports to be UK or British based but there was very little, if any, discussion of Welsh or Northern Irish housebuilding. In contrast, Scottish housebuilding is reasonably well represented in the research. Based on research by Gareth James, Sarah Payne, Bilge Serin and David Adams https://bit.ly/2Nhy2lj

Impact of housing organisations on tenants’ health and wellbeing Dr Steve Rolfe from the University of Stirling and Dr Lisa Garnham from Glasgow Centre for Population Health report on their study of housing, health and wellbeing. The existing evidence base is very clear that housing has a significant impact on health and wellbeing. Homelessness and poor quality housing have been shown to damage physical and mental health in a range of ways. However, there are also subtler, more complex ways in which housing can affect health, which are less well researched. We set out to examine some of these less tangible links between housing and health in a study that followed more than 70 tenants renting from three different social and private housing organisations in and around Glasgow over the first year of their tenancy.

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Our data showed most tenants were experiencing a notable improvement in their health and wellbeing, as Figure 1 illustrates. Since you moved into your new property, would you say your health and wellbeing is... 50 45

Percentage of participants

tenancy, as with this tenant who moved into a property with damaged plasterwork: “The walls in here are pretty bad and at one point I phoned the housing officer and I says to her, I’m going to have to give you that house back. That’s far too much work for me… I feel dead unsettled and anxious. I still can’t sleep at night in it.” Sensitivity to all housing costs

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

2-4 months A lot worse

A little worse

9-12 months Much the same

A little better

Much better

Figure 1 – Health and wellbeing change from start of tenancy

Through qualitative interviews, we discovered that the crucial factor for tenants was whether they felt at home in their new tenancy. And we found that there are four key foundations for this sense of home which housing organisations can deliver. A good relationship The tenants involved in our research told us how important it was to be able to deal with a named member of staff, who knows them personally and understands their situation. This was particularly true when tenants had had difficult experiences in the past: “How can I describe it? I feel I have some good people in my life now that I can depend on and I feel very comfortable in the situation that I’m in right now. There’s no deception there, there’s no sleazy landlords, nothing like that.” Where landlords built a positive relationship, this not only helped tenants to settle and feel at home, but also gave them confidence to get on with the rest of life – finding work, reconnecting with friends and family and trying new things. Focus on property quality Basic minimum standards are important, but the tenants in our study emphasised that the finishing touches are also crucial in making somewhere feel like home. However, people have different expectations, aspirations and capacities. Some tenants told us that they needed a property which was already well furnished and decorated, while others wanted an empty shell to refurbish in their own style. So landlords need to understand these differences and give tenants the support they need. Where this goes wrong, it can undermine the whole

Concerns about housing affordability tend to focus on rent levels or fuel poverty, overlooking other housingrelated costs. Tenants told us how stressed they were by the costs of moving, furnishing and decorating their new property, and generally coping with the financial chaos of a new tenancy. Again, landlords need to have a relationship with tenants, so that they can understand their financial situation. Where landlords were able to offer flexibility and support to tenants with paying the rent and managing other housing costs, this helped to sustain the tenancy – which not only contributes to tenants’ health and well-being, but also maintains rental income for landlords. “The fact that they are looking out for my own wellbeing… helps me get through. I mean, money’s stressful, especially when it’s tight. So when you know your landlord is not just… wanting the money through the door every month, he’s actually hoping that you’re okay and you’re able to afford it, it’s reassuring. It helps… keep the stress levels down.” Offer choice in location It may be cliché, but our research shows that location really is important. When tenants have a choice of where to live, it can make a real difference to their health and wellbeing. For some participants in our study the key factor was being close to friends and family, while for others it was more about peace and quiet: “I’m 100% happier. I’m basically not depressed anymore, as soon as I moved out of that flat in [previous area] and moved here it was such a huge change… I want to go outside and meet people and stuff like that, whereas back there it was ‘I don’t want to go out, I just want to curl up in a ball, I’m dying for this to all go away’. So now it’s just like aye, bring on life!” What does this mean in practice? Clearly there are substantial challenges for all housing organisations in delivering these four foundations for the health and wellbeing of tenants. In order to address these challenges, we co-produced our final recommendations with housing professionals, policy makers and tenants. More information and recommendations: https://bit.ly/2LnfvS1 SUMMER 2019 |

EVIDENCE - 5

Empowering citizens to judge housing outcomes We need new ways of evaluating housing policies, says Chris Foye. ‘I have – I won’t say happy – not unpleasant memories of the camp. I remember a lot of the casual brutality and beatings-up that went on, but at the same time we children were playing a hundred and one games all the time!’ Ballard, J. G. (2013). Miracles of life: Shanghai to Shepperton, an autobiography.

Credit: Franklin Reyes/J.Rebelde

These reflections of the author J G Ballard on his teenage years spent in a Second World War internment camp in Shanghai came back to me at a conference I attended recently. An academic was presenting her research on the experiences of people living in the Barrios in Caracas, Venezuela. Clinging onto the mountainside these self-built ‘ranchos’ are the very image of precarity, housing some of the poorest in society, and yet residents were apparently happy there, buoyed by a sense of social belonging. This may seem a world away, but in the UK too, our CaCHE report (“How should we evaluate housing outcomes?”, with David Clapham) shows that there is very little difference between the housing satisfaction of those in ‘Decent’ and ‘Non-decent’ homes . These likely cases of adaptation – where individuals are happy because their expectations are low – put policymakers and practitioners in an awkward situation, torn between two competing moral rationales. On the one hand, we may conclude that if the subjective metrics tell us Barrios-dwellers are happy with their ranchos then there is no injustice, and no need for

EVIDENCE - 6

| SUMMER 2019

society to intervene. But this prompts the question of why someone should be left to live in poor and unhealthy housing conditions simply because they have come to terms with a bad situation. On the other hand, we may want to act in that individual’s best interest by moving them out of the nondecent home into somewhere that is healthier, safer and more secure. However, in defining success from the top-down using objective criteria, practitioners risk unreasonably prioritising their own vision of a ‘good home’ over that of the citizen. The ethnographer Ellen Pader (1994, 2002) has demonstrated how overcrowding regulations in the USA are used to impose a Westerncentric view of how space should be used on immigrant populations – many of whom share the same room out of choice rather than economic necessity. How then do we manage these competing tensions when deciding on a policy’s objectives and evaluating its progress? In our report, we argue that when it comes to socially uncontroversial yet technically complex aspects of home, top-down approaches to defining success are reasonable. Most of us want our homes to be structurally sound and would entrust an engineer to define and enforce a set of objective construction standards on our behalf. A top-down approach is too blunt, however, for designing and evaluating policies which involve the complex, diverse and often ambivalent relationships that individuals have with their homes and neighbourhoods. This bluntness was very apparent in the case of Housing Market Renewal which was targeted at two objective metrics - house prices and vacancy rates – neither of which paid any attention to individuals’ subjective experiences. In these cases, we suggest that an empowered deliberative democratic approach to defining and evaluating policy objectives may prove fruitful. Broadly defined, deliberative democracy refers to the idea

that legitimate law making issues from the public deliberation of citizens. It generally involves a representative group of citizens being empowered to make an evidence-informed and considered judgement about what success looks like for that community. It differs from representative or direct democracy in that it insists citizens justify and reflect upon their views and engage with critical and expert perspectives. Empowered deliberative democratic models have been used to shape the Icelandic constitution, inform the choices for the Irish referendum on abortion law and make budgeting decisions in Brazil and Scotland. In housing, deliberative democratic forums were also used to develop Shelter’s Living Home Standard in 2016,

and the recent Labour Party report “Land for the many” proposed using citizen juries to inform local plans. In the report, we suggest that they might also help break the impasse on some other politically contentious issues. When it comes to a significant piece of public land, or an estate in need of physical repair, local authorities could allow a citizens’ jury to decide which planning proposal represents the best long-term value to the community. A similar process could be undertaken for determining local authority social housing allocations policies, or at a national level, the proportion of land value uplift a landowner should be entitled to as a result of gaining planning permission. Full version of report: https://bit.ly/2XcJkvR

Celebrating the centenary of the Addison Act Bob Smith from Cardiff University considers this groundbreaking legislation on social housing, and what we can learn from it for the future. This year is the centenary of the 1919 Housing and Town Planning Act, often referred to as the Addison Act (after Christopher Addison, the Minister who introduced the legislation). It is an opportunity to celebrate the Act, which marks the start of the first significant period of social housing development in the UK, underpinned as it was by Treasury subsidy. And also to reflect upon the lessons we might draw from this ground-breaking legislation. At the end of the First World War Britain faced acute housing shortages, a housing system dominated by the private rented sector, a housing stock which was seriously sub-standard and many people living in severely overcrowded conditions. The government had anticipated some of the post-war housing problems and had established the Tudor Walters Committee which in 1918 made its own recommendations as to the future design of housing for the working classes. It established minimum building standards and argued for the layout of estates on Garden City principles. The Addison Act, with its radical introduction of exchequer subsidies for council housebuilding, marked a watershed in the political commitment of the UK government to intervening in housing to tackle problems of shortages and to raise the standards of new housing to be built. The ambitious national programme was to build half a million “homes fit for heroes”, to paraphrase Lloyd George, in just three years. Whilst the bold spending plans were scaled back in the early 1920s, in a period of economic recession, and only just over a third of the target number of homes were built, there are some lessons to be drawn from the

implementation of the Act and the subsequent history of social housing in the UK. The public purse Firstly, the Addison Act recognised for the first time that government, both at central and local levels, should play a key role in ensuring the provision of good quality, well-designed, affordable homes to meet housing needs, and that it was appropriate that this should in part be funded from the public purse. The growth of the social housing sector over the next half century or more, to a point where at its peak it provided homes for almost a third of all households, was underpinned by government subsidies. Its dramatic decline in both proportionate and absolute terms over recent decades has made addressing serious housing need much more difficult. However, since the tragedy of Grenfell Tower in June 2017 there has been a widening consensus that there is a need to increase the supply of genuinely affordable social housing, challenge some of the negative images and perceptions of the tenure and ensure that the voices of tenants are listened to and acted upon. These concerns are well reflected in the current research priorities of the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE). A renaissance in social housing, and the reemergence of new council housebuilding programmes, provide opportunities to build good quality, well designed, innovative and sustainable new social housing. The development of modern methods of construction and advances in public procurement offer the prospect of building high quality homes more quickly. However, in reflecting on the lessons of a century ago, we should beware the lack of planning (a common criticism of the early social housing estates was poor planning and overly hasty decision-making, as well as the lack of provision of essential services). The adequacy of resources – financial, labour and materials – also undermined the implementation of the Addison Act, and a hundred years on it will be critical to ensure that the resources (and skills) are available to support increased social housing provision. SUMMER 2019 |

EVIDENCE - 7

Quality and security Financial stringency has long been typical of the UK experience in delivering social housing and even the harshest critics would surely recognise that social housing has sometimes been constrained in its design and subsequent management and maintenance by changing economic and political circumstances and financial constraints, so that what has been delivered hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always been precisely what was intended. The role of social housing in the UK has also been undermined by sales of existing stock, particularly under the Right to Buy (now ended in Scotland and Wales), and by restrictions on investing in new social housing development. But much social housing provided in the UK over the last 100 years, by both local authorities and housing associations, has been of high quality and provided secure, affordable homes for generations of households in need of housing. The current UK housing crisis is somewhat different from the one faced in the immediate aftermath of the First World War and has been decades in the making. However, a century on from the 1919 Housing and Town Planning Act there is cause for celebration of the achievements of state-subsidised social housing. In looking forward there are grounds for optimism that social housing can learn from the past and develop in ways which will help to address some of our current housing challenges. Bob Smith is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University and a Knowledge Exchange Broker for the UK collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE).

In brief Support into work

Homelessness conference

Housing associations provide vital help in supporting people into work. And they are more likely to experience success when investing up to ÂŁ30 into employment support services, for each household per year, says a new report from the University of Salford. Details: https://bit.ly/2REYLqB

Registrations are open for the European Observatory on Homelessness annual conference on 20 September in Sweden. Details https://bit.ly/2xj1NHA

Regeneration and health

Having a form of social structure or communal management system is pivotal to retaining social capital in self-build schemes, new research finds. Without a formal social structure and continued shared visioning within self-build housing communities, social cohesion was found to deteriorate. Details: https://bit.ly/2JLfyYM

Area regeneration programmes in Scotland did not improve the health or employment prospects of people in those areas, compared with other disadvantaged places, new research finds. Reported in People Place & Policy: https://bit.ly/2KGvwmF

Evidence newsletter editor: Dr Janis Bright www.hqnetwork.co.uk email: evidence@hqnetwork.co.uk ď&#x201A;&#x2122; follow us on twitter @hqn_ltd

EVIDENCE - 8

| SUMMER 2019

Self-build

New for 2019!

Bespoke stress testing – made easy You’ve all got to do stress testing. That’s what the regulators are saying in England, Scotland and Wales. No wonder, as there’s such a lot on the horizon. Is Brexit a known unknown or an unknown unknown? Whatever it is you’ve got to make plans for it. And we can help. To find out more contact Anna Pattison on 01904 557197, or anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk

The keys to effective tenant involvement By Janis Bright

You say tomato, I say Gardener’s Delight. You say for discussion. Repeated references to authenticity, customer engagement, I say tenant involvement. Words genuineness, commitment and honesty suggest can be a bit of a problem, as we found recently in our that residents and professionals alike want to see work for the Welsh Government and Regulatory Board organisations being open to dialogue and committed for Wales (RBW). to making the changes that residents feel are needed. Tenants at the Heart is the RBW’s review of how That will involve some power sharing and compromise. housing associations involve residents in decision Asking about trust and respect in our focus groups making and shaping services. As part of this, we at moved the discussion into a series of related issues HQN were asked to survey tenants, other residents, of openness, power, accountability and above all board members, staff, and other stakeholders, and hold dialogue. Notions of trust and respect came across as focus groups to explore the issues. fundamentally about the culture of an organisation, the When it came to the words to use – customers, mindset of staff and its leadership. residents, tenants, engagement, involvement, The need for specific structures cannot be participation – we were reminded of Shaw’s comment discounted: associations will still have to decide on on two nations divided by a common what frameworks and responsibilities language. But some tenants cut will best embrace, embed and through all that to urge us not to be “We argue that the purpose promote resident involvement, and, preoccupied by terms and instead of resident involvement is as one participant noted, frameworks look to the core of what’s needed. within which to conduct dialogue With that in mind, let’s move swiftly not primarily to bring about and take action will underpin the on to what we found – the RBW finds specific practical outcomes. work. It was noted that structures are that there can be no “one size fits all” Rather it is to engender important to ensure improvements for involvement, because language, become embedded and can survive methods, purpose and structure are a relationship of mutual changes of leadership. all “contested territory”. trust, built through honest How do we know that tenant That said, we did find some dialogue and respect, and involvement works? Participants answers to the key question of what in our study felt they would know tenant involvement is for. Words embedded at every level” it was working by both practical that came up frequently included: results and achievement of better sharing, talking, listening, honesty, trust and mutual understanding. This could be summarised as ‘Listen, act, respect. Although a few residents (and some staff/board learn’. members) mentioned “power” or “empowerment”, When asked to summarise in a few words the key most did not. Demanding respect and receiving it ingredient for successful engagement, “listening”, came across as a key point, with the onus on housing “communication”, “trust”, “transparency” and organisations to create the conditions in which tenants “honesty” were the top choices. feel able to express their wishes and be heard. We asked where participants think we are now on the So we argue that the purpose of resident involvement resident involvement journey, and how far there is to go. is not primarily to bring about specific practical Some expressed a feeling that the relationship is difficult, outcomes. Rather it is to engender a relationship of and power very unbalanced. But results from an exercise mutual trust, built through honest dialogue and respect, where we asked people to rate their organisation were and embedded at every level. more positive, suggesting that housing associations in Tenants, staff and board members alike told us they Wales are, overall, doing quite a good job. wanted quick and easy ways to communicate. There’s an appetite to build trust by seeing that action is taken swiftly when needed. Successful tenant and resident involvement – three Asked about the sort of dialogue they wanted, key ingredients: participants returned to the theme of “listening” and building relationships. Tenants wanted to be properly 1. Actively listen to what your tenants and residents informed, and to have the chance to give their views, are saying to you, take action on what is said, and object if necessary, and have a genuinely open learn – be ready to change. discussion. 2. Work to create a culture of respect, at all levels We also found that it’s not enough simply to hear what of the organisation, to enable you to build a tenants are saying. They want to know firstly that housing relationship of trust. associations have acted on what is said. And secondly 3. Monitor your progress in building a relationship of they want to know that the organisation has learnt, so trust with tenants and residents, develop techniques that problems don’t keep recurring. for measuring success, and feed back the findings The culture of organisations was also a key topic into further improvement.

| SUMMER 2019

A life in 15 questions Elly Shepherd

The Head of Housing and Planning for London Councils discusses her career and reveals her passions outside the day job, including a love of Nick Cave and her ‘secret’ life as a horror writer.

Q1 – Tell us about your career and how you ended up in your current role I love my job – it’s intellectually stimulating, and you can make a big difference to people’s lives. I started out in housing with a secondment to housing policy when I worked at Camden Council, having previously been in their communities team. The secondment really worked for me, I moved on to a more senior role (via a brief bit of work heading up the Leaders’ Office on an interim basis) before moving to London Councils. I am at heart a local government / housing geek.

Q2 – Describe yourself in three words Local Government Goth (or as goth as one can be and still believably deliver a briefing on water rates).

Q3 – Favourite place on earth? I love London’s green spaces, especially the wilder ones like the Great North Wood which is minutes from my house. I see woodpeckers and other rare birds, right in the middle of zone three.

Q4 – What would you change about yourself? I would give myself the superpower of saying no to biscuits.

I would recommend signing up to Nick’s Red Hand Files, I find them interesting and useful.

Q9 – If you won £1 million on the Lottery what would you spend it on? A house of course. I am as in thrall to the idea of home ownership as most people.

Q10 – Biggest achievement?

Elly Shepherd

“Biggest regret? I never saw Nina Simone or Leonard Cohen live” Q5 – Describe your home I rent a small attic flat in Crystal Palace. I recently found out that before I moved in it was leased by a housing association as Temporary Accommodation. Potentially I am part of the problem I am trying to solve, much of the focus of my work has been increasing the supply of TA…

Photo: Bleddyn Butcher

Q6 – What makes you angry? Bad policy making.

Q7 – Most treasured possession? My Nick Cave red hand pendant. I love the Bad Seeds and all his music and writing.

Q8 – Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Nick Cave

Linked to the above, in the film ‘One more time with feeling’ Nick Cave talks about how after the loss of their son, he and his wife Susie made a decision to be happy. I think it is quite a revelation when you realise you can do that, that you have more power there than you think.

Working with boroughs and MHCLG to set up Capital Letters – a joint procurement company for 13 of London’s boroughs, and hopefully more going forward. It just procured its first property. As well as bringing more resources into London for homelessness prevention and relief, it’s going to create a more efficient service keeping families at least a little closer to home.

Q11 – Biggest regret? I never saw Nina Simone or Leonard Cohen live.

Q12 – Most overused phrase? ‘omg’ or ‘lol’.

Q13 – Recommend a book ‘Open City’ by Teju Cole, he writes exquisitely, and the novel has quite a sting… (presuming everyone has already at some point been recommended Elena Ferrante’s ‘Neapolitan Trilogy’). Poetry wise, Ocean Vuong and Sharon Olds.

Q14 – The best piece of television in the last 12 months ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ – I love Shirley Jackson and it really captured the unsettling feeling of the book.

Q15 – Tell us a secret about yourself I am a writer. I run an Arts Council funded programme of writing residencies in odd or abandoned spaces (The Liminal Residency) and am featured in the Best Horror of 2018 international anthology. SUMMER 2019 |

Housing is the Green New Deal’s secret weapon By George Bond, UK Student Climate Network

managed housing cooperatives that maximise the use of public green spaces stewarded in commons. We need to make use of densification in our towns and cities, creating resilient locales with real, devolved agency. The majority of the housing transition can be achieved through managed socialisation of the industry where agency and resource are brought into the commons, where democratically structured management of the new housing system will futureproof the sector.

“It is vital that we ensure a Green New Deal for housing isn’t watered down by opportunists looking to accrue unreasonable wealth” Where deep transformative changes in energy supply lack obvious appeal other than the abstract concept of emmissions mitigation, a wholly different housing system has immediate and obvious benefit to everyone in society. In this sense, a Green New Deal for housing really will be the driving factor in creating the social mandate for the policy platform as a whole. Equally, the prospect of stronger communities created under a different housing system means that local and grassroots support for a just transition away from an extractive economy will become stronger and stronger, which means, as needs to happen urgently, political transformation is inevitable.

A UK Student Climate Network protest in London

| SUMMER 2019

Photo: David Holt

Recognition of the Green New Deal is burgeoning in the public and political consciousness on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s a radical policy doctrine; a viable and just plan to totally transform the economy from the bottom up on a scale commensurate to the climatic emergency that our global economic systems are faced with. A sort of eco-Keynesianism inevitably attracts doubt and criticism over its fiscal viability; however, much to the delight of grassroots campaigners everywhere, the Green New Deal pioneered in 2019 isn’t pitched in a flurry of unintelligible economic projections and jargonpacked modelling. Instead, it’s shared as the Green New Deal that we all want. One that serves our communities and ourselves providing free and comfortable zero-carbon public transport, high-quality jobs in green industries so that the transition away from fossil fuels is just for all of those in society, and, perhaps with the least recognition, a Green New Deal for housing providing millions of affordable, beautiful, sustainable homes. As noted by Daniel Aldana Cohen in his article ‘A Green New Deal for Housing’, tackling homelessness and the climate crisis are inextricably linked as those without adequate shelter are most at risk of injury and displacement from extreme weather induced by climate systems breakdown. It is vital that we ensure a Green New Deal for housing isn’t watered down by opportunists looking to accrue unreasonable wealth; we must create a housing guarantee so that all those going through the taxing process of seeking a home in a rigged market can be sure they have the shelter they need. Ultimately, the housing aspect of the Green New Deal, if pledged on the radical scale it necessitates, will prove to the public that mobilisation of a size unprecedented in peacetime is not only justified but profoundly beneficial. The narrative surrounding climate justice needs to start acknowledging luxurious housing for all as a baseline; the climate movement needs to be clear that housing justice is not an optional add-on: it will form part of the bedrock of a just, zero-carbon society. It will need a plan to incorporate community-led mass rewilding to confront another inherently linked crisis: land ownership. We need horizontally organised, tenant-

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6 November 2019

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Equality and Diversity Network Summit

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5 December 2019

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Result for Rochdale A big congratulations to Rochdale Boroughwide Housing who have recently been accredited for their income management services. HQN’s Gill Stead and the panel noted that: “The accreditation panel was impressed by so many aspects of Rochdale’s service including: • Its overall dynamic and progressive approach • The considered, well thought through plan to help the team meet the challenges of Universal Credit • Its really strong approach to working in partnership – including with tenants and residents • Outstanding recharges recovery performance.” Adam McNee, Rents and Payments Co-ordinator, said: “I am delighted that RBH have been accredited by HQN. The format of the documentation really helped us to prepare well. It is really clear and thorough; this really aided us to gather our supporting evidence. Tony Newman, our accreditor, was thorough but extremely helpful in guiding us through the process. At the time of the accreditation process we were nine months on from full UC roll out in Rochdale and we had made many changes to systems, structure and procedures to prepare for the impact and mitigate risks. Tony is extremely knowledgeable and experienced so

it was really helpful getting an independent view as to how we were performing and what we could do to make even more improvements. The final report has helped identify the improvements for next year and has motivated us to expand on what we are already doing well. It has been a really positive, insightful and rewarding experience which I would not hesitate to repeat in the future. We are looking forward to the follow up visits that are part of the accreditation process so that we can continually improve and provide a better service for our residents and customers.” Congratulations again and keep up the good work!

Gill Stead, HQN, with the team at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing

To find out more about our accreditation services please contact Anna Pattison on 01904 557197 or anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk

| SUMMER 2019

The last word A glimpse at future housing policy under the next PM? people voted in the 2017 General Election” (broadly, renters are less likely to vote Conservative than owners).

Colin Wiles Policy Exchange is the Conservative Party’s favourite think tank. Formed in 2002 by Michael Gove and Nick Boles, it has been responsible for policies such as free schools, police commissioners and garden villages. It has also been judged one of the least transparent think tanks in terms of its sources of funding. As a free market outfit it is instinctively hostile to social housing. One of its reports in 2010 stated that “social housing increases child poverty, mental health issues and inequality of opportunity and wealth”. The author, Alex Morton, became a special advisor on housing to David Cameron. To be fair, Policy Exchange represents that section of conservative thought that wants to liberalise planning laws and build thousands of new homes (300,000 a year), and this sets them at odds with traditional conservatives who want to conserve everything and build nothing. Their latest report, ‘What do we want from the next Prime Minister?’, is the first in a series, setting out new ideas that aim to restore Tory fortunes by uniting a divided country and addressing the needs of the “Just About Managing”. The reports seek to “build a national consensus” among “polarisation, anger and declining trust”. There is an entire chapter on housing, a recognition perhaps that housing problems are very much at the forefront of Conservative Party thinking. The report highlights the fact that “housing tenure was one of the strongest indicators of how

Proposals include: • Defining good design in the National Planning Policy Framework and giving preference to developers who bring forward the best designs. Too many new estates have been “soulless”, “cheaply built” and “little boxes” says the report. Policy Exchange’s own polling shows that 48% of the public favour traditional terraces with tree-lined streets. Do this, and the NIMBY protestors will melt away, the report argues. (From experience, possibly a tad optimistic!) • Building more homes for older people to encourage downsizing. The government should encourage a new intermediate sector to appeal to elderly people in the middle tiers

from the report how residential and business uses could be successfully integrated. • Carrying out a strategic review of government aid for first-time buyers, ultimately to replace Help to Buy. The report recognises that Help to Buy has inflated prices (hurrah!) and made the housebuilding industry dependent on state subsidies. The furore over the huge profits made by one housebuilder and the mega-salary paid to its CEO are referenced, although Persimmon is not actually named. • Building “15 beautiful new towns” on the edge of London along major transport routes, with new Development Corporations for each. They would assemble land, and plan the town, using a local design code. Some Green Belt land would be taken, but this would be replaced elsewhere. The chances of this happening? Slight.

“There is no mention of investment in social housing; no mention of regulation or the PRS; no mention of safety... Instead, the primary objective is creating the Tories’ cherished dream of a genuine property owning democracy” of the housing market. This could replace affordable housing in larger schemes. The government should remove the 2% stamp duty band – which is levied on those buying homes between £125,000 and £250,000 – for older homeowners. • Encouraging big brownfield developments around city centres, redeveloping areas such as retail and business parks – dubbed “Boxland” by Policy Exchange – into new mixed-use neighbourhoods. In London there are 1,220 possible sites with an area of 6,122 hectares of big box “sheds”. By increasing densities, up to 300,000 new homes could be provided and existing businesses retained. It’s not clear

Overall, the proposals in this report are small beer. There is no mention of investment in social housing; no mention of regulation of social housing or the PRS; no mention of safety or a host or other important topics. Instead, the primary objective is creating the Tories’ cherished dream of a genuine property-owning democracy – building more homes for owners and thus more Conservative voters. But the report includes contributions from some big figures – Lord Richard Best, William Hague, and Lord Wolfson – and it has to be taken seriously. Policy Exchange is very influential and as a sector we need to keep an eye on what they are saying. Today’s dotty ideas could become tomorrow’s policies. SUMMER 2019 |

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