HCLG Committee Backs Blakeway As Housing Ombudsman

Richard Blakeway has been backed by the HCLG committee as housing ombudsman – but he’ll have to resign from roles with Homes England and a London borough council and face future committee evaluation. The committee has confirmed its support for Blakeway, despite pulling him up earlier this week over past “highly derogatory” views of social tenants. And the committee has told government of its “disappointment” that MHCLG neglected to consult members on the proposed selection process for housing ombudsman prior to the start of the recruitment campaign, and failed to send information set out in the Cabinet Office guidance within seven working days of the scheduled pre-appointment hearing. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/hclg-committee-backs-blakeway-as-housing-ombudsman/

Government Plans To Save A Further £3.6bn From Property Sales Over Next 20 Years

The Government is planning to save around £3.6bn in the next two decades by dramatically scaling back its property estate as part of a sweeping cost-cutting drive. The Cabinet Office will outline plans to move thousands of public sector jobs, including senior roles, out of London by 2030, reducing Whitehall buildings from around 65 to 20 over the same period. Around 20 so-called Government "hubs" will be set up in the regions by the end of this parliament in 2022. In total, the strategy commits to reducing the number of government-owned office buildings from 800 to under 200. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/07/11/government-plans-save-36bn-property-sales-next-20-years/

Drop In Social Housing Fraud Detection

The Cabinet Office has admitted it is disappointed with the decreasing amount of fraud related to social housing that its pan-public sector National Fraud Initiative has identified over the past two years. Its just-published report on outcomes from the initiative’s data matching exercises noted a 37% drop in the number of council and housing association homes taken back from tenants who had no right to live in them, compared with the 2012-14 period. The NFI draws on a variety of work, benefits and credit data to identify potential wrong payments with the aim of chipping away at some of the £20bn-£49bn estimated to be lost to the public sector each year. The latest data indicate that in 2014-16 just £6m in social-housing fraud was spotted, compared to £27m during 2012-14. Read more on the Civil Service World website.

Associations Given Head Start On Land Bids

Housing associations have become eligible for a two-month head start over private sector competitors when bidding for public land. An “unexpected but welcome” side effect of the reclassification of associations as public bodies last year means they have a new special standing, enabling them to bid for developable public land. The Cabinet Office has confirmed housing associations are now able to use a 40-working-day window before land disposed of by government departments is advertised on the open market. The government has committed to release enough public land to build 160,000 new homes between 2015 and 2020. Read more on Inside Housing.

Savills: Regen Model Could Create 360k Homes

Up to 360,000 extra homes could be created in London by redeveloping council estates to a higher density along street patterns, according to a government-commissioned report, Completing London’s Streets, carried out by consultancy Savills. The report compares a conventional approach to estate renewal, under which estates are replaced with new high-rise blocks, to an alternative ‘complete streets’ model. Under ‘complete streets’ estates are re-built in a street-based pattern. Savills estimates 1,750 hectares of London’s 8,500 council housing estates could be capable of ‘complete streets’ regeneration, leading to an increase in the number of existing homes of between 54,000 and 360,000. The modelling, carried out for the Cabinet Office, was based on a detailed study of six estates in London. Download the report from Savills website.

HCA To Channel All Government Land Sales

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has been given a central role in plans to sell enough government land to build more than 160,000 new homes, after it was announced a separate new body would be created to take on ownership of government land and property. The Spending Review said the new body would be launched in March 2017. The HCA has now confirmed that all land marked for sale would be transferred to the agency from the new body. The HCA previously acted as the disposal agency for the CLG and had an administration role for other departments. The initiative is being delivered by the existing Government Property Unit, with the Cabinet Office as the lead department. Read more on Inside Housing.

Action Needed To Prevent People Losing Their Homes

New Government figures show that between 1 January and 31 March 2014 there were 27,310 applications to councils for help with homelessness. Whilst this represents a fall of 1% from the same period last year, just 46% of cases were accepted.  Using Cabinet Office costings of on-going homelessness support, the 12,520 accepted applications in this past quarter could have cost in excess of £33m. There are signs that a shortage of affordable accommodation could be adding to the problem; there has been a 36% rise in the number of households housed in another area and a 3% rise in those housed in temporary accommodation, whilst 27% of those accepted for help became homeless due to the ending of an assured shorthold tenancy.  Read more on the Homeless Link website.

Charity Wins Funding To Encourage Homeless People To Vote

A homelessness charity has won government funding to encourage social housing tenants and homeless people to vote. Homeless Link, partnered with the Hansard Society, will use the £39,053 pot to run events designed to help social tenants and people living in temporary accommodation to join the electoral roll and engage them in politics. It is part of a £4.2 million Cabinet Office ‘innovation fund’ to ensure everyone in Britain is signed up to the electoral register. The fund is shared with four other national organisations. Concerns have been raised that a change to voting regulations this April, where people will register individually to vote rather than as households, will make it harder for people to vote. Read more on Inside Housing.

Flagship Benefits Scheme Faces More Delays

The government's flagship programme to shake up the benefits system is facing fresh problems in a battle between two departments at the heart of the scheme. Friction between the DWP and the Cabinet Office overseen by Francis Maude is now causing "high-level" risks to the delivery of the project, according to minutes of a Whitehall meeting. Maude's department, minutes of the government's universal credit board confirm, has also accelerated the pullout of its elite team of IT experts from the project after what sources describe as serious tensions over the progress of the £2.4bn overhaul. The DWP is now urgently searching for new IT specialists to keep the complex software project on track. As a result, future implementation of universal credit could now face delays and increased costs because of the pullout, senior civil servants have been told, according to the minutes. Read more on the Guardian website.

Boost for Vulnerable Young Adults and the Homeless

A radical approach to solving complex and costly social problems, which will also save the taxpayer millions, has been given a cash injection by the Cabinet Office.  Two new Social Impact Bonds, which will support teenagers at risk of going into care and help rough sleepers, are being introduced. This new £20 million fund will facilitate even more Social Impact Bonds, as part of the latest stage in the Government’s drive to tackle social problems through payment by results. Social Impact Bonds allow private investors and philanthropists to invest in a project to address a specific social problem; they are then only paid a financial return if the project is successful.  If not tackled early, complex and deep-rooted social problems, such as homelessness and youth unemployment, can lead to long-term dependency on the state and cost the taxpayer millions.  Read more on the Cabinet Office website.

Government to Review the Green Deal

Downing Street is about to review the government's Green Deal after warnings that it's liable to fail.  The Cabinet Office has been interviewing critics of the flagship scheme and is expected to report soon.  The Deal - to insulate the UK's aged housing stock - is designed to save carbon emissions, keep people warm, and make energy affordable.  But critics say it won't give enough help to the fuel poor, and warn it may waste £2-3bn of people's energy bills.  They say this is a scandal after the recent warning that the number of people unable to afford their energy bills is likely to rise to 8.5 million.  Critics say it makes no sense to insulate solid walls at approximately £7,500 a home when you can insulate lofts of the "fuel poor" for £500 a home. They also argue that the subsidies scheme will force low-income families to pay extra on their fuel bills to subsidise solid wall insulation for more wealthy homes. Complaints have been so widespread that a Cabinet Office team was detailed to interview the critics, who estimate that by pushing money towards solid walls rather than lofts the government could waste between £2bn and £3bn of energy bill payers' money in coming years.  Read more on the BBC website.

Cameron in Urgent Bid to Save Green Deal

David Cameron has stepped in to rescue the Green Deal by commissioning the Cabinet Office to put together an urgent briefing on how the scheme can be modified to avoid a collapse in insulation installations.  The move comes just weeks after the success of the flagship energy efficiency policy was put at risk by the prime minister’s intervention to block the so-called ‘conservatory tax’ that was touted by ministers as key to driving take-up of the Green Deal. The Cabinet Office has interviewed senior figures in the sector to establish what must be done to make the scheme viable amid increasing concern that it will prove a damp squib when it launches in October this year.  Read more on the Building website.

White Paper Reveals Proposals to Make ALMOs Independent

ALMOs could become fully independent under government plans to give more choice to tenants. The government has published the Open Public Services White Paper, dubbed the Big Society Bill, which draws together plans to give control of local services to communities. It said that ministers will explore ‘whether semi-autonomous public sector bodies should now be made fully autonomous, for example, by moving arm’s-length management organisations in social housing into the housing association sector.’ ALMOs currently operate on behalf of and are owned by councils. The paper also reiterated the government’s plan to promote tenant management models for social housing, and giving more profile and choice to the housing ombudsman. Download a copy of the White Paper from the Cabinet Office website.

Quango Reforms “Herald New Age of Accountability in Government”

The Tenant Services Authority has been abolished with its regulatory powers being handed to the Homes and Communities Agency, the Cabinet Office has confirmed.  The Cabinet Office has confirmed a total of 192 quangos which are to be scrapped under plans set out by the Government.  Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said a further 118 bodies would be merged and another 171 "substantially" reformed in the long-awaited "bonfire of the quangos".  Mr Maude said the changes would usher in a "new era of accountability" in government. TSA Chief Executive Peter Marsh said: "We welcome the Government's confirmation today that the regulatory functions of the Tenant Services Authority will transfer to a reformed Homes and Communities Agency. This starts to bring to an end a period of uncertainty for the housing sector and our staff.”  Maude also confirmed the abolition of the Audit Commission and the National Tenant Voice but reprieved the Housing Ombudsman. Find full details of the reforms on the Cabinet Office website by clicking on the logo below.

State of The Nation Report: Poverty, Worklessness and Welfare Dependency in the UK

The Department for Work and Pensions has issued a state of the nation report which set out a comprehensive assessment of poverty in the UK at the start of the new government. There are several direct references to social housing, including;
*Social housing waiting lists have grown by over 70% since 1997
*The rate of worklessness among those in social housing is more than double that of the general population
*3.2 million working‑age households now claim Housing Benefit each week
*Around half of all Housing Benefit claimants, and 40% of working‑age claimants, have been receiving the benefit for over five years
*Expenditure on working‑age Housing Benefit has increased by nearly 40% from £10.4 billion in 1996/97 to £14.2 billion in 2009/10 (both figures in 2009/10 prices)
*53,000 households are dependent on their local authority for housing having been accepted as homeless and placed in temporary accommodation
*Those most at risk of multiple disadvantage in key life stages include families with children living in social housing or rented accommodation.
Download a copy of the report from the Cabinet Office website by clicking on the logo below.