James Brokenshire launches a new deal for social housing residents

A ‘new deal’ for social housing residents, as part of the government’s commitment to make a housing market fit for the future has been launched by Secretary of State for Communities James Brokenshire.

The Social Housing Green Paper aims to rebalance the relationship between tenants and landlords, tackle stigma and ensure that social housing can be both a safety net and springboard into home ownership.

Our Green Paper aims to start a national discussion to collect views on how to improve social housing, based around five core principles:

A safe and decent home which is fundamental to a sense of security and our ability to get on in life.

Swift and effective resolution so that when residents have concerns about the safety or standard of their home they see results.

Empowering residents and ensuring their voices are heard so that landlords are held to account.

Tackling stigma and celebrating thriving communities, challenging the stereotypes that exists about residents and their communities.

Building the social homes that we need and ensure that those homes can act as a springboard to home ownership.

The proposals will empower residents to hold their landlords to account and give them the support they need to seek redress when things go wrong. A tougher regulator will help drive up standards and ensure social homes are well managed and quality places to live.

With the experiences of those living in social housing brought to the forefront following the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, over 8,000 residents from across the country have shared their views of social housing as part of the government’s listening exercise.

Secretary of State for Communities the Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP said:

“Providing high quality and well managed social housing is a core priority for this government.

“Our Green Paper offers a landmark opportunity for major reform to improve fairness, quality and safety for residents living in social housing across the country.

“Regardless of whether you own your home or rent, residents deserve security, dignity and the opportunities to build a better life.”

The aspirations and concerns of thousands of residents have shaped the government’s new direction for social housing and are at the heart of the proposals in this consultative Green Paper:

· Steps to speed up the complaints process, providing access to effective dispute resolution when something goes wrong and giving tenants more support in accessing the redress options available to them.

· New reforms to make it easier for tenants to progress into home ownership, such as allowing them to purchase as little as 1% of their property each year through the government’s Shared Ownership programme.

· Strengthening the Regulator of Social Housing so it can focus on issues that matter most to tenants and has ‘sharper teeth’ to intervene when needed, ensuring social homes are well managed and of decent quality.

· Allowing councils to continue to have choice over their use of fixed term tenancies, enabling them to offer residents greater security in their homes.

· The introduction of performance indicators and new league tables, rebalancing the landlord/tenant relationship to hold bad practice to account and ensure residents are treated with dignity and respect.

This move is the latest action by the government to build a housing market fit for the future, after £1.67bn of new funding was made available in June to build 23,000 new affordable homes and social homes in areas that need it most.

The Green Paper launched today, gives everyone the opportunity to feed in views on proposals for the future of social housing and will run until 6 November 2018.

In a separate move, to boost the number of Local Authority homes, a consultation into how councils spend the money from Right to Buy sales has also been launched today.

This sets out proposals to make it easier for councils to replace properties sold under Right to Buy and build the affordable homes their communities need, continuing a programme that has helped almost 94,000 households onto the housing ladder since 2010.

-ENDS-

Notes to editors

· As part of the preparing for the Green Paper publication, previous Ministers led 14 tenant engagement events across the country with nearly 1,000 people directly feeding in their views. Over 7,000 people shared their views through our online engagement that closed on 16 March 2018.

· The Green Paper gives everyone the opportunity to feed in views on proposals for the future of social housing and will run until 6 November 2018.

· Legislation will be brought forward to put in place protections for lifetime tenants who have suffered domestic abuse. In the meantime, local authorities are strongly encouraged to give careful consideration to the welfare of victims of domestic abuse, by ensuring that where they are offering further tenancies to lifetime social tenants as a result of domestic abuse, such tenancies are granted on a lifetime basis.

· This Green Paper marks the start of a review of the regulation of social housing. A Call for Evidence launched today asks how well the current regulatory framework is driving safe, decent and well managed homes, by well governed and financially robust landlords.

· The Right to Buy consultation launched today seeks views on proposals for reforming the rules governing the use of Right to Buy receipts from the sale of council housing.

· Options examined in the Green Paper to reduce staircasing options to 1% would only apply for new purchases under the Shared Ownership Programme.

LGA RESPONDS TO SOCIAL HOUSING GREEN PAPER

Responding to the Government’s Social Housing Green Paper, Cllr Judith Blake, Local Government Association Housing spokesperson, said:

“This Green Paper is a step towards delivering more social homes but it is only a small step, compared with the huge and immediate need for more genuinely affordable homes.

“There is a desperate need to reverse the decline in council housing over the past few decades. The loss of social housing means that we are spending more and more on housing benefit to supplement expensive rents instead of investing in genuinely affordable homes. It has also come alongside an increase in homelessness, with 79,000 families, and almost 125,000 children, stuck in temporary accommodation.

“Councils are proud of their housing and their tenants and continually work to improve how they empower their tenants to achieve a positive and responsive relationship. However, they need the freedoms and powers to invest in new and existing housing that communities want for themselves and their children.

“The Government must go beyond the limited measures announced so far, scrap the housing borrowing cap, and enable all councils, across the country, to borrow to build once more. This would trigger the renaissance in council house-building which will help people to access genuinely affordable housing.

“We have long called for reforms to Right to Buy in order to allow councils to build more homes, and there are some positive signs in the consultation. But we must go much further so that councils can deliver the affordable homes that our residents need and deserve, including allowing councils to set discounts locally and to keep 100 per cent of receipts from homes sold.

“It is good that the Government has listened to our concerns and dropped plans to force the sale of council homes. We have worked hard to demonstrate the need to scrap this policy which would have forced councils to sell off large numbers of the homes desperately needed by low-income families in our communities.”

NOTES TO EDITORS

· In 1997, over a third of households lived in council housing, compared with just one in 10 today. As a result, more and more individuals and families are finding themselves pushed into an often more expensive and less secure private rented sector.

· In the last six years, more than 60,000 homes have been sold off under the Right to Buy scheme at a price which is, on average, half the market rate, leaving councils with enough funding to build or buy just 14,000 new homes to replace them.

· Around 12,224 homes were sold under RTB last year. Faced with ongoing borrowing restrictions and based on the levels of sales remaining consistent, recent analysis for the LGA estimates that in 2023 councils would only be able to replace approximately 2,000 of these homes.

· Just 2.48 per cent of homes built in 2016/17 were designated for social rent – down from 3.59 per cent of all homes built the year previously.

· The LGA’s report “Housing, Planning and Homelessness” sets out how the Government can empower councils to trigger the renaissance in council housebuilding needed to fix our broken housing market.