ITV Exposes Weaknesses Of Housing Regulation – Again

This excellent HQN opinion piece by Roger Jarman, former Head of Housing, Audit Commission, neatly summarises the events of the last 13 or 14 years which has brought us to the point where the Regulator of Social Housing isn’t allowed to even speak to service users (or tenants as we know them). Roger relates how the Tenant Services Authority (TSA) came into being following the Cave Review in 2007, how it was scrapped by a Coalition Government which wanted little or no regulation, how – at the assistance of housing associations’ money lenders - this lead to a regulator more concerned with governance and financial viability than consumer standards. Then came the Grenfell Tower tragedy and the failure of this regulatory system was clear for all to see.

https://hqnetwork.co.uk/news/opinion-itv-exposes-weaknesses-of-housing-regulation-again-5553 

Help-To-Buy Scheme Pushes Housebuilder Dividends To £2.3bn

Britain’s biggest housebuilders paid out £2.3bn in dividends in their most recent financial year, as the help-to-buy subsidy pumped up their profits and house prices. The nine biggest housebuilders listed on the London Stock Exchange declared the dividend payouts in their last full financial years.   Help to buy, introduced in 2013 was one of the flagship policies of the coalition government. Former Conservative chancellor George Osborne hoped to boost home ownership among young people, as house price growth far outpaced wage growth. However, many economists believe the scheme boosted house prices without making a significant impact on the supply of new houses, enabling a profits bonanza for Britain’s biggest housebuilders and their shareholders. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/01/help-to-buy-pushes-uk-housebuilder-dividends-to-23bn

Affordable Housebuilding Up 12%

A total of 47,355 affordable homes were completed, including acquisitions, in the 12 months up to the 31 March 2018 – up from 41,530 in the previous year. Just 6,463 homes for social rent were completed – a 10% increase on 2016/17 but still the second lowest level on record. Most new affordable homes were for affordable rent, which can be set at up to 80% of market rents, as has been the case since 2013/14 after the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government introduced the product. There were 26,838 homes of this tenure delivered in 2017/18, 57% of the total affordable housing supply. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/home/affordable-housebuilding-up-12-59219

Changes To Housing Benefit Since 2010

After coming into power in 2010, as part of its deficit reduction programme the Coalition Government announced a package of welfare reforms aimed at reducing public expenditure. Housing Benefit was targeted as a key area for reform due to the increasing expenditure in this area (forecast to be £23.5 billion in 2016-17 - around 11% of total welfare expenditure).  This latest briefing paper details changes to Housing Benefit announced since 2010, including the under-occupation penalty ("bedroom tax"), limiting Housing Benefit paid to private tenants via changes to Local Housing Allowances and reducing social sector rents by 1% a year for four years from 2016-17.

Download the briefing from the Parliament website.

Housing Investment Cut Despite Soaring Housing Benefit Bill

David Cameron has warned “every penny you spend on housing subsidy is money you cannot spend on building houses”. However, a House of Commons Library analysis shows that the Government has in fact been spending more on housing benefit than its predecessors – and less on building houses. A lack of affordable homes is thought to be in part responsible for increases in rents that feed into higher social security costs. Despite Cameron’s warning, housing benefit expenditure grew from £20 billion in the last year of the Labour government to £24.3 billion in 2014/15 under the Coalition. The same analysis found that total Government housing development expenditure has fallen from £11 billion in 2009/10 to just £5 billion in 2013/14 and £6 billion in 2014/15. Read more on the Independent website.

Private Rental Sector Insecurity 'Causes Surge In Homelessness'

"Chronic" insecurity in the private rented sector in England has led to a fourfold increase since 2010 in the number of households forced into homelessness when tenancies end. Loss of a private tenancy is now the leading cause of homelessness in England, with the 16,000 households affected making up around a third of the 54,000 accepted as homeless by councils in 2014/15, the annual Homelessness Monitor by the charity Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found. They warned that local authorities were "struggling to cope" with rising numbers of single homeless people, with 88% saying they often or sometimes find it difficult to help those aged 25-35 and 87% those aged 18-24. Two-thirds of English councils reported that changes to the welfare system under the coalition government from 2010-15 had increased homelessness in their area. Read more on the BT website.

Sell Your Homes to Tenants and Champion Aspiration, Lewis Tells Housing Chiefs

It came as no surprise when housing minister Brandon Lewis urged the sector to embrace Right-to-Buy, or as he put – become “champions of aspiration”. Lewis made no bones of the Government’s commitment to aspiration – particularly the aspiration of people to own their home – and unapologetically so. He pointed out that, despite homeownership having declined from its 71% peak in 2003, the aspiration to own remained as strong as ever at around 85-86%, as he built up to his message on Right-to-Buy. He declared the reinvigoration of Right-to-Buy put into effect by the Coalition Government as a “new era of opportunity” before going on to declare: housing, “there is a problem”. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Welfare Reforms Failing To Move Social Housing Tenants Into Work

The Coalition Government's radical welfare reforms have resulted in very few social housing tenants being able to find jobs despite their aim of moving people dependent on benefits into work, according to a new LSE report. Only one in six tenants have either found work or increased their hours since the reforms were introduced in 2010. Those who found work most commonly worked for family members or became self-employed. The majority of new jobs were part-time with uncertain hours. One third of tenants are struggling financially as a result of the reforms. A majority, 63 per cent, said they were coping by reducing expenditure, in some cases on food, getting into debt to pay large bills or borrowing from family and friends. Download the report from the LSE website.

Local Authorities’ Spending Cut by Over 20% under Coalition

England’s local authorities have collectively seen their spending cut by 20.4% under the Tory-led coalition, a new report has revealed.  And the Institute for Fiscal Studies' (IFS) figures show that, taking into account population growth, spending per person has been cut by 23.4%.  But the government’s cuts have not been even across the country. Westminster City Council has suffered a cut of 46.3%, while North East Lincolnshire Council has experienced a more manageable cut of 6.2%. And according to the IFS, further cuts planned for 2015–16 will generally be focused on the same local authorities that have lost over the last five years.  Download the report from the IFS website.

UK Suffers 10-Year Slide As 13 Million Live In Poverty

The UK has slipped into a mire of poverty, joblessness, insecure work and private rented sector (PRS) housing over the last 10 years. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's (JRF) 'Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion' report shows that the coalition's alleged recovery of the UK's economy has left 13 million living in poverty - and half of all those living in poverty are in a working family. Though there has been a big fall in the number of over 75s living in poverty, the number of adults under 25 living in poverty has soared. Compared to 10 years ago, many more of those in poverty are now living in the PRS. The report highlights the way the housing market has had a negative impact on people in poverty.  Download the report from the JRF website.

Tories Plan To Deny EU Migrants Out-Of-Work Benefits under Universal Credit

Ministers are preparing plans to bar jobseekers from the European Union from receiving all out-of-work benefits once the universal credit system is completely introduced. Although universal credit – a merger of as many as six separate benefits – is unlikely to apply to existing claimants until as late as 2018, it will apply to new claimants sooner. The government is likely to argue that restricting access to universal credit is not in breach of EU rules since it is not a benefit primarily designed to facilitate access to the labour market. As a result, it is believed that access to its out-of-work benefits could be restricted without interfering with the free movement of labour, a central pillar of the European Union. Read more on the Guardian website.

Coalition Rolls Out Immigration Rental Check Scheme

The coalition government has begun an immigration rental check pilot scheme across five local authority areas in the Midlands. From 1 December, private landlords in the regions of Sandwell, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley will be required to check that their prospective tenants have a right to live in the UK before letting to them. Though the new rules will only apply to tenancies begun after 1 December, landlords that rent to anyone not legally entitled to reside in the country after that date will face a fine of £3,000. The new rules also apply to those who take in lodgers to "share their accommodation with a licence to occupy the property". Read more on the RLA website.

Wikipedia Bedroom Tax Entry Is Edited Using Computer in GOVERNMENT Department

A Whitehall computer was used to censor a Tory Minister’s Wikipedia page to edit out all reference to “victims” of the Bedroom Tax. The entry for former Housing Minister Kris Hopkins includes a section which referred to the “disabled victims” of the hated Coalition policy. But it has been edited to read “disabled people who would pay” the levy. Online records show the IP address responsible for the change matches one used to hide the IT networks of Government departments. Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

'Generation Rent' Suffers 10% Drop in Wages under Coalition, Claims Labour

Employees under the age of 30 have suffered a real-terms drop in weekly wages of around 10% under the coalition, according to an analysis released by Labour. Earnings for 18-to 21-year-olds have dropped by 10.3% since 2010, while 22-to 29-year-olds saw their weekly income fall by 9.4%, research by the House of Commons library shows. Chris Leslie, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said young workers are bearing an increasingly heavy burden as a result of coalition measures and neglecting them would put Britain's future prosperity in peril. A Labour government would set up a panel to assess the impact of its policies on the under-35s, often described as "generation rent" because they struggle to get on the housing ladder. Read more on the Guardian website.

Housing Benefit under the Coalition

Official Housing Benefit figures from the DWP record the figures up to May 2014 and the first four years under the coalition. Snapshot is:

·         Overall HB bill is now £24.11 billion up from £20.87 billion in May 2010

·         June 2010 coalition says it will reduce HB bill by £2 billion yet it has increased by £3.24 billion meaning the total HB bill is £5.24 billion more per year than the coalition promised the welfare reforms to HB of LHA caps, benefit cap and the bedroom tax would achieve

·         May 2010 cost of Housing Benefit to those in work was £2.90 billion and four years later that cost is now £5.13 billion per year.

Time for a closer look at just how bad these figures are for the coalition and, for once dear reader, we can read some FACT about Housing Benefit from the DWP’s own hand. Let’s start with the 3 points above. The overall bill -

·         The figures show that there are 4,985,741 HB claimants.

·         The figures show that the average each receive is £92.69 per week

·         Simple multiplication reveals the total HB cost is at May 2014 £24, 113, 196,250 or £24.11 billion

Read more on the Speye blog.

Green Belt: Doubling In New Homes Built Since Coalition Was Formed

The number of new homes built on the protected Green Belt has more than doubled since the Coalition was formed. Figures obtained by The Telegraph show that 15 new homes in England are now approved on Green Belt land every single day. Campaigners said the findings were “alarming” and called on the Government to intervene to save parts of the green belt from developers’ bulldozers. The National Planning Policy Framework, which was introduced in March 2012, was meant to introduce further protections for the Green Belt from developers. However, the figures will raise serious questions about whether the Green Belt is being appropriately protected. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

'In-Work Poverty' Soars By 59% As More Employees Claim Housing Benefit

The number of people in work and claiming housing benefit has rocketed by 59 per cent since the Coalition came to power and will cost taxpayers an extra £5 billion by next year’s general election. The figures, compiled by the House of Commons Library, highlight the growth of “in-work poverty” in recent years while wages fell in real terms and rents continued to rise. They also undermine claims by some Conservatives that benefit claimants are “skivers” because many people qualify for state help even though they are in jobs.  The number of housing benefit claimants in work rose from 650,561 in May 2010 to 1.03 million by the end of last year. The Commons Library estimates the cost of the extra claims at £4.8 billion by May 2015. Read more on the Independent website.

Build To Rent Scheme Falls Far Short Of Target

The coalition’s flagship scheme to build up to 10,000 homes for the rental sector has faltered, new figures reveal. The first phase of Build to Rent was supposed to involve 45 building projects with £700m spent on new homes, but the Government has admitted that only 17 developments will go ahead, costing £300m. There is now a question mark over where the remaining cash will be spent. The figures are revealed after it emerged that the coalition’s Get Britain Building plan, releasing money for affordable housing, has so far been involved in only 715 homes built since 2011, out of a target 16,000. Read more on the Independent website.

Nearly £500million Overpaid In Housing Benefit under Coalition

Nearly £500million housing benefit has been wrongly paid out and not recovered since the Coalition was formed, official figures show. The Government said that the "cumulative amount of outstanding housing benefit overpayments" have increased from £843million to £1.32billion between April 2010 and September 2013.Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow Work and Pensions secretary, said: “It’s staggering that when families are facing a cost-of-living crisis, the amount of Housing Benefit which is overpaid has gone up under David Cameron’s government to £1.3billion.”Labour also claimed that the number of government fraud investigators had fallen by five cent despite the rising figures. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Bishops Slam Welfare Reforms

In an unprecedented attack on the Tory-led Coalition, 27 Anglican bishops and 16 other clergy accuse the Tory-led coalition of creating hardship and hunger. For so many leading members of the clergy to launch such a direct attack on the Government of the day is unprecedented. It underlines the deep concern felt by the churches over the Coalition’s brutal welfare cuts which have left so many facing hunger and hardship. In a letter to the Daily Mirror, 27 Anglican bishops and 16 other faith leaders say the PM has a “moral duty” to act on the growing number going hungry. Read more on the Daily Mirror website.