How DLUHC and DWP mark their homework

Posted: October 29, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Civil service, Fire safety, Homelessness, Housebuilding, Rough sleeping | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

With a new secretary of state, a new department and a new name, what are the government’s real priorities when it comes to housing?

Some big clues dropped in an intriguing supplementary document published alongside the Budget and Spending Review this week.

Spending Review 2021 – Policy outcomes and metrics is meant to tie spending and performance together. Each department has an Outcome Delivery Plan that sets out their priority outcomes and the metrics they will use to measure their performance against them. Effectively, this is their homework how they want it to be marked and the measures used are highly revealing.

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Time running out for temporary fixes

Posted: May 28, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Coronavirus, Fire safety, Private renting, Rough sleeping | 1 Comment

Originally posted on May 28 as a column for Inside Housing.

What then? It’s the question that’s been left hanging in most of the housing elements of the government’s response to the Coronavirus and much more besides.

There was a partial answer on what happens to thousands of temporarily accommodated rough sleepers as the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) accelerated funding to make 3,300 housing units available over the next 12 months.

There was an answer of sorts for leaseholders living in unsafe buildings as MHCLG opened registrations for its new £1 billion Building Safety Fund that extends help to other forms of dangerous cladding as well as Aluminium Composite Material (ACM).

And there was a welcome one for millions of home owners with mortgages as the Treasury extended the chance to apply for a payment holiday by another three months and Financial Conduct Authority guidance made clear that banks should not start of continue repossession proceedings until the end of October given the uncertainty faced by customers and government advice on social distancing and self-isolation.

But there is still no answer for millions of social and private renters asking what will happen when the moratorium on evictions ends on June 25.

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MPs call for action on rough sleeping and renting

Posted: May 22, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Coronavirus, Legal, Private renting, Rough sleeping, Section 21, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The government will miss a ‘golden opportunity’ to end rough sleeping once and for all if it fails to turn temporary measures into something more permanent.

And ministers must beef up ‘toothless’ plans to protect renters in the wake of the Coronavirus crisis or risk a new wave of homelessness.

Those are the top-line messages from an all-party group of MPs today. But an interim report on protecting rough sleepers and renters from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee also goes much further in endorsing calls by campaigners for wider changes to the housing system.

They recommend:

  • A dedicated funding stream to end rough sleeping, likely to be at least £100 million a year
  • Improved support for councils to help people with no recourse to public funds who will otherwise end up back on the streets
  • Boosting the supply of suitable housing by re-establishing the National Clearing House Scheme set up after the financial crisis for unsold homes and giving councils more flexibility to buy them
  • Turning the increase in the Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile from a temporary into a long-term measure and looking at the impact of raising rents further.

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Funding the end of rough sleeping

Posted: May 19, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Homelessness, Rough sleeping | Leave a comment

Originally published as a column for Inside Housing on May 19.

The row over rough sleeping looks like it could be a preview of many more to come over the housing and homelessness part of the government’s response to Coronavirus.

It began on Thursday night, when Jen Williams of the Manchester Evening News reported that the Everyone In scheme was being ‘wound down’ and scrapped. This was based on a leak of an internal report to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority that central government had ‘drawn a line’ under the scheme.

Cue a furious response from the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHLCG) that went well beyond a denial.

The full retort went up on the new MHCLG media blog, which seems reserved for stories that have particularly annoyed ministers or special advisers or both.

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Which way will Johnson jump?

Posted: February 13, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Council housing, Home ownership, Housebuilding, Planning, Rough sleeping, Social housing | Tags: | Leave a comment

Originally published on February 11 on my blog for Inside Housing.

For the moment at least all things seem possible when it comes to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives and housing.

Arguments apparently continue between those who want to shift further towards home ownership and those who see council housing as the focus for blue collar Conservatism.

The party seems to be facing in two opposite directions on new development, with some arguing for planning restrictions to be swept away while others see ‘beauty first’ as the key to winning local consent.

And these are just part of a wider battle between those who see Brexit as a chance to complete the Thatcherite revolution and those who think they must reverse some of it.

As an indication of the breadth of the possibilities, the Sunday Telegraph even reported that Johnson and chancellor Sajid Javid are considering imposing a mansion tax in the Budget.

The symbolism of taxing the well-housed in the South to spend more in the North could not be denied but would they really steal a policy from Ed Miliband’s Labour to screw their own supporters?

The first forks in the road are coming up soon with choices to be made about who will hold key ministerial positions in the reshuffle this week and what will be prioritised in the Spring Budget and in the Spending Review to follow.

In the meantime, though, what might a Boris Johnson housing policy look like?

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10 things about 2018 – part one

Posted: December 21, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Grenfell Tower, Homelessness, Regulation, Rough sleeping, Temporary accommodation, Tenants, Universal credit, Welfare reform | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Originally published as a column for Inside Housing on December 21.

It was the year of three housing ministers and two secretaries of states (so far), the year that the department went back to being a ministry and a new government agency promised to ‘disrupt’ the housing market.

It was also the year of the social housing green paper and the end of the borrowing cap, of Sir Oliver Letwin and Lord Porter and of some significant anniversaries.

Above all, it was the year after Grenfell and the year before Brexit. Here is the first of my two-part review of what I was writing about in 2018.

1. New names, new ministers

January had barely begun when the Department for Communities and Local Government became the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The name harked back to the glory days when housing was ‘our first social service’ and housing secretary Sajid Javid became the first full member of the cabinet with housing in his title since 1970.

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‘Housing week’ off to an uncertain start

Posted: August 13, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Homelessness, Housing benefit, Rough sleeping, Social housing | Tags: , | 1 Comment

For once this is a silly season that has some substance. If you can tear yourself away from the sun lounger or the latest pronouncement by the Etonian Katie Hopkins, mid-August sees a trio of government announcements that are crucial for housing and homelessness.

Last week featured another big benefits u-turn: confirmation that housing benefit will continue for supported accommodation removes a cloud that has been hanging over projects including homeless hostels and women’s refuges.

Monday saw the launch of the strategy that the government says will enable it to meet its target of halving rough sleeping in England by 2022 and ending it by 2027.

And what is billed as ‘housing week’ is set to continue on Tuesday with the launch of the social housing green paper – originally promised in the Spring, then before the parliamentary recess last month, but now appearing while most MPs are on holiday.

The timing does at least ensure some media attention, including an uncertain performance by James Brokenshire in the TV and radio studios on Monday morning.

After a lively appearance on Good Morning Britain, the housing secretary struggled on the Today programme when asked whether government policies are to blame for the relentless rise in rough sleeping and floundered when asked how much of the promised ‘£100 million plan’ is new money. (Somewhere between none and not much was the eventual answer).

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Rough sleeping initiative deja vu

Posted: April 3, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Rough sleeping | Tags: | Leave a comment

Originally posted on April 3 on my blog for Inside Housing.

If the new initiative to reduce rough sleeping sounds vaguely familiar it’s because we have been here before.

The package of measures announced by Sajid Javid over Easter includes a new Rough Sleeping Team made up of external experts, a £30 million fund for 2018/19 with further funding for 2019/20 targeted at areas with high numbers of rough sleepers and £100,000 of funding to support frontline workers across the country.

It’s a welcome news just as the Homelessness Reduction Act is about to come into force, and it comes on top of existing investment in homelessness programmes, piloting of Housing First and closer collaborative working inside and outside government.

But it also made me think back to the last time a Conservative government faced a rough sleeping crisis and announced a Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI).

In 1990 the number of people sleeping rough in central London soared in the wake of a recession and benefit cuts that hit 16- and 17-year-olds in particular.

Then as now, ministers denied that benefit cuts were to blame. Then as now, the sight of people sleeping in doorways and makeshift camps got national media and political attention.

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