(Secretary of State for
Housing, Communities and Local Government):On 14 August,
my Department published our Social Housing Green Paper ‘A new deal
for social housing’ which proposes fundamental reform to
ensure social homes provide an essential, safe, well managed
service for all those who need it. The Social Housing Green Paper
was laid before Parliament on 14 August (CM 9671).
Everyone deserves a decent, affordable and secure place to live.
It’s the most fundamental of human needs. While we have made
important strides to build the homes we need in recent years, I
recognise we have much further to go when it comes to making our
housing market work for all parts of our society – not least for
residents in social housing. Our Green Paper is an important step
towards this.
It is based on conversations with almost 1,000 residents at 14
events across the country, with over 7,000 submitting their views
and ideas online. We have heard what people love about social
housing – stories of people’s pride in their homes and
communities. But we also heard what needs to change. The Green
Paper is underpinned by five principles:
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Ensuring that homes are safe and
decent. Residents were not only concerned about
safety, but also the quality and maintenance of their homes.
The Government has identified opportunities to accelerate a
social sector early response to recommendations in Dame Judith
Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire
Safety by supporting residents and landlords to engage on
issues of building safety. The Green Paper will also consider
whether the Decent Homes Standard is demanding enough and
delivers the right outcomes.
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Swift and effective resolution of
disputes. Residents raised issues about how
complaints were dealt with when things go wrong. We want to
make the process of handling and resolving complaints faster,
easier and more effective. As part of this, the Green Paper
asks whether the ‘democratic filter’ should be reformed or
removed. In addition, we want to explore whether more could be
done to strengthen mediation opportunities so landlords and
residents can resolve disputes locally, and help residents to
access the right advice.
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Empowering residents. We want to ensure
residents are empowered, with more transparency about the
information they receive from landlords. The Green Paper
contains proposals to assess landlords against standards that
matter to residents, to publish these assessments, and to
strengthen the regulatory framework for social housing. We want
to make sure the regulatory framework as a whole remains fit
for purpose and published a Call for Evidence which seeks views
on how the current regulatory framework is working, alongside
the Green Paper. We are also seeking views on how to ensure
residents’ voices are heard and strengthening their choice over
the services they receive.
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Elimination of stigma. Stigma was one of
the most consistent themes raised by residents. We are seeking
views on a number of proposals to tackle this including ways to
celebrate thriving communities, encourage greater
professionalisation amongst housing management staff and
promoting good social housing design. We are also exploring
options for improving neighbourhood management and addressing
anti-social behaviour, another key issue for residents.
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Boosting the supply of social housing and supporting
home ownership. Residents told us that they
wanted to see more affordable homes delivered. We published the
Right to Buy Receipts Consultation which sets out our proposals
for exploring new flexibilities around how local authorities
can use their Right to Buy receipts. We will also explore how
we can help people living in affordable home ownership schemes,
such as Shared Ownership, progress more easily to owning
outright.
After listening carefully to social housing residents, we are
proposing not to implement the provisions in the Housing and
Planning Act to make fixed term tenancies mandatory for local
authority tenants at this time.
We recognise the benefits of fixed term tenancies in the right
circumstances to help social landlords make best use of their
housing stock and that flexibility will remain. But we remain
keen to ensure that victims of domestic abuse do not risk losing
their lifetime tenancy if they are granted a new tenancy after
fleeing abuse. We will bring forward new legislation to ensure
that councils honour their lifetime tenancy in these cases.
In addition, on 16 August, I launched the £200 million Voluntary
Right to Buy Midlands pilot. The pilot will enable thousands of
tenants across the Midlands to buy their home from their housing
association, at a discount funded by the Government. The pilot
builds on the small scale pilot with five housing associations in
2016/17, and will test two key aspects of the voluntary agreement
with housing associations not tested in the initial pilot – the
portable discount and one-for-one replacement overall of the
homes sold. Eligible tenants in the Midlands will need to
register their interest on the MHCLG website, with the
registration open until 16 September. To give all prospective
purchasers an equal chance of participating, places on the pilot
will be allocated by ballot.
