16 key points from the social housing green paper

The government’s newly released social housing green paper aims to “rebalance the relationship between landlords and residents, tackle stigma and ensure social housing can act as a stable base and support social mobility”. What are the key takeaways? 1. It waters down many of the cuts that Cameron and Osborne made under austerity… This is a green paper aiming to show the Tories care in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, mass protests against estate regeneration and the general all-round decline of the social housing sector. 2. …which means no more selling off high-value council homes… Under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, many councils would have been required to sell off higher value stock to fund building, though the policy was never implemented. The green paper says: “To increase councils’ confidence to plan ambitious house building programmes, we are confirming in this green paper that the government will not bring the Higher Value Assets provisions of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 into effect. We will look to repeal the legislation when parliamentary time allows.” 3. …and no more fixed term tenancies. Again a feature of the 2016 Act, which encouraged social landlords not to grant lifetime tenure to residents, the paper says this is not going to be implemented and the decision will be left to local authorities and landlords. 4. John Healey doesn’t like it According to the shadow housing secretary’s Twitter feed, he is not a big fan. Nothing in this social housing Green Paper measures up to the scale of the crisis. It’s pitiful that while Conservative cuts have driven the number of new social rented homes to a record low, there is not a single penny of new money to increase supplyhttps://t.co/kiLESZeXrF — John Healey MP (@JohnHealey_MP) 14 August 2018 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn did not even tweet about it. 5. Right to Buy is there, but leading to existential questions The government is in the quandary of wanting to continue Right to Buy, but also make sure social homes are replenished. The green paper says: “The fundamental challenge is to reconcile our ambition to extend the opportunity of home ownership to as many social tenants as possible, with the responsibility to maintain and increase the stock of social housing for those who need it.” This means more routes to home ownership – Right to Buy, Rent to Buy, shared ownership and more funding to replace to lost homes 6. Housing associations are a big part of building… The government is making it easier for them to access the lending market, by guaranteeing rent caps will be limited to CPI +1% up until 2025 (another Cameron policy). It’s also providing £3.3bn under the affordable housing guarantee scheme, and decreasing regulation. 7. …but there’s a review of the emerging housing association models. The rise of very large HAs and new for-profit business models, alongside other new types of HA and private sector operators entering the fray, means the government is undertaking a review of regulation – including economic regulation – to ensure lenders are assured. 8. This is a really good graphic for showing the migration between housing tenures 9. Estate regeneration barely gets a look in Despite being arguably the most contentious of social housing subjects, taking the majority of headlines, just 185 words are devoted to estate regeneration, stating a vague intention: “We will explore how the £400m government investment announced at Budget 2017 can attract wider local public and private investment into estates and the surrounding communities…” 10. Councils are going to build more There are a raft of measures – many of which have already been announced – but, in a nutshell, the government is going to allow councils to borrow more by raising the housing borrowing cap, giving them more flexibility over Right to Buy receipts and giving them certainty over rent caps. Or at least it is consulting on them. 11. “Stigma” is a really big issue In fact, it was the most consistent concern raised by residents. “We have a collective responsibility to tackle the stigma associated with social housing and treat everyone with respect, regardless of where they live or the type of home they live in. This green paper marks an important step towards that goal by celebrating social  housing, encouraging professionalisation in the sector and supporting good quality design.” 12. There’s going to be a league table of social landlords “For residents to be empowered they need good information on how their landlord is performing compared to others. “We consider that the most effective way of doing this is for the performance of all landlords to be assessed against a number of agreed and meaningful key performance indicators…” 13. A quarter of social housing tenants are in the PRS Of the 3.9m social households in the UK, consisting of around 9m people, over 1m are in the private rented sector receiving housing benefit. Other stats in the report include: ■ 43% of social households are in work – against the all household average of 60% ■ 14% of social housing is supported housing ■ There will be 220,000 new households added in the next few years 14. Tenant empowerment is important, funnily enough Government says it wants to “embed” a customer service culture in the sector, and is considering changing consumer standards to ensure landlords provide a better service for residents. This could give tenants stronger voice, a faster and easier complaints system, a national representative, and better consumer and customer care. Alongside encouragement for a professional PRS, it is all part of plans to clean up renting in general. 15. Safety was big on the agenda The government is consulting on whether private sector norms should be adopted in the social sector, and whether the Decent Homes Standard covers the right issues. 16. It’s just a green paper Which means it needs to be consulted on before it becomes a white paper, which then needs to be consulted on, before any of the proposed changes can become law. The full paper is available to view here To send feedback, e-mail alex.peace@egi.co.uk or tweet @egalexpeace or @estatesgazette Main image © Andy Drysdale/REX/Shutterstock