Government ‘Should Drop Last Year Of Rent Cut’ To Fund Fire Safety Work

At the National Housing Federation finance conference in Liverpool Waqar Ahmed, group director of finance at L&Q, said the government could “by a switch of their pen” scrap the 1% rent cut in 2019/20 and this would generate £2bn for the sector to help pay for fire safety work. David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said the sector had “heard a lot of noise” from government but seen “very, very little concrete action”. He added: “It’s very difficult to point to something and say as a result of Grenfell the government has done this.” The government could decide not to charge VAT on fire safety work carried out by landlords, Mr Orr said. Read more on Inside Housing.

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Sector Scorecard Gets Industry Backing

A pilot scheme designed to improve efficiency in the affordable housing sector has received backing from industry leaders. The Sector Scorecard aims to create an agreed set of metrics upon which housing providers can compare their performances and ensure they are providing value for money for their customers.  The scheme has received the backing of Housing Minister Gavin Barwell and NHF chief executive David Orr. The Sector Scorecard will measure 15 indicators across five general areas focusing on: business health, development, outcomes delivered, effective asset management and operating efficiencies. Read more on the Home Group website.

Supported Housing: Sector Warns Of Uncertain Future

Housing bodies and charities have warned of an uncertain future for supported housing, following the government’s announcement of a funding plan. David Orr, chief executive of the NHF, led the warnings – saying he is “not confident” in the new system which will see funds passed to councils. Mencap and St Mungo’s also reacted cautiously to the plans. The sector had been campaigning to change the government’s policy to restrict housing benefit in supported housing to the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates available to private tenants. Damian Green, the work and pensions secretary, announced the government will press ahead with applying the rates, however it will distribute a ‘top-up’ fund to local authorities.  Read more on Inside Housing.

£9bn Housing Benefit To Private Landlords Is 'Madness'

David Orr has branded a doubling of housing benefit paid to private landlords over 10 years as ‘madness’, as he renews calls for more flexibility for associations. The NHF has published an analysis of government figures on housing benefit claimants. It calculates the number of housing benefit claimants living in the private rented sector has increased 42% to 1.5m over the 10 years to February 2016. This compares to a 4% increase in social sector claimants over the same period. Private landlords received £9.3bn in housing benefit last year, more than double the £4.6bn in 2006. The research also shows it costs £21 a week more to house a family in a private rented sector home than in a social home. It also found 47% of all private renters claiming housing benefit are in work, up from 26% six years ago. Download the briefing from the NHF website.

Cameron Makes A Great Case For Abolishing Bedroom Tax

The final government report into the removal of the spare room subsidy, the policy known as the bedroom tax, was released on the last day of parliamentary business in 2015. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt what everyone, from David Orr to Sajid Javid has known all along: By the criteria against which the policy was drawn up, it is an unmitigated disaster.  Let's put aside the Prime Minister's new, shiny and bellicose statement of intent to literally destroy social housing by tearing it down and replacing it with something else. Frankly there are no policy details in the sink-estate clearance proposal, despite him setting out his slightly rabid ideological stall. All we can really be sure of is that either the physical regeneration will never come to pass, or it will leave in its wake a lot of “unintended consequences” that will be widely publicised but never heard. Read more on 24dash.

Update On Local Housing Allowance Caps On Social Housing Rents

David Orr wrote to Lord Freud and Brandon Lewis seeking urgent clarification on how supported and sheltered schemes will be protected, and pressing for long-term security. He stated that we would like to see the cap only applied to working age tenants in general needs housing, with provision for some highly vulnerable younger people to be excluded from the under 35s shared accommodation rate.

Lord Freud, Minister of State for Welfare Reform, has responded stating that:

‘the exact formation of this policy is currently under development. We will of course carefully consider comments regarding supported housing schemes, along with findings from the supported accommodation review that the Department has jointly commissioned with the CLG which looks at the size and scope of the supported housing sector. The results of this research will guide our consideration for future policy development.’ Read more on the NHF website.

Association Quits NHF Over RTB Deal

A housing association has opted to leave the National Housing Federation (NHF), claiming it has lost trust in the body following the vote in favour of the voluntary extension of the Right to Buy.  Westfield Housing Association recently voted in favour of not renewing its membership. Westfield said smaller associations had become “marginalised” in the run-up to the vote in October, claiming they were not given the advance warning of the voluntary deal received by larger landlords. The association claimed the NHF agreement with government on a voluntary extension showed it had bowed to pressure from its larger members, after opposing the plan to extend Right to Buy. It also accused NHF chief executive David Orr of “cranking up” the threat of associations being re-classified as public bodies by the Office for National Statistics, and potentially losing independence, if the voluntary deal was not approved. Read the full statement on the Westfield website.

Tenants To Get A Say On RTB Deal

Tenants will be able to air their reservations to David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation at a TPAS hosted roundtable event.  TPAS have made the point repeatedly over the last few weeks that the voice of tenants has not been heard enough in all the discussions on the Right to Buy voluntary deal. They have also become increasingly concerned that tenants are not being consulted enough in helping organisations to manage the impact of the 1% rent cut on the services they value most from their landlord. Decisions have, and are, being taken that may fundamentally change housing associations and the nature of services they provide. Yet the people that receive those services, that pay the rent, that may want to exercise the right to buy have not been consulted on their views. Read more on the TPAS website.

RIPsnorter of a Housing Debate

On 2 November, The Housing and Planning Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons. The Right To Buy extension, while in the Bill, is subject to a “voluntary” deal offered by NHF and so avoids parliamentary scrutiny and, significantly, Greg Clark the Minister stated that this applied to ALL housing associations including those who voted against the deal despite assurances from David Orr saying they would not!  Yet far more important was the announcement on Friday that the ONS had reclassified housing associations as public sector bodies. Healey asked Clark twice as to when he knew about the ONS reclassification – and twice Clark refused to answer. The NHF was stitched up like a kipper and David Orr sold them down the river with his assurances on independence, on the discretion he claimed they would have and on those voting No to his deal would not have to sell their properties. Read more on the Speye blog.

'Regulator's RTB Powers May Need Reviewing After ONS Decision'

The government may need to “look again” at the regulator’s proposed powers over Right to Buy to ensure housing associations do not remain public bodies, David Orr has said. This would be to ensure housing associations can escape their public sector reclassification.  He said the powers included in the Housing and Planning Bill would now need to be “looked at very closely”. It follows the ONS decision to reclassify housing associations as part of the public sector, based on regulatory changes introduced in 2008. Mr Orr said he was confident the issues raised by the ONS, particularly the regulator’s power to consent to sales, “would go” in the bill. However, he added that the introduction of a new regulatory standard for home ownership introduced to help enforce the Right to Buy extension would also have to be analysed. Read more on Inside Housing.

HAs To Set Their Own Rents By 2020

Speaking at the Commons CLG select committee inquiry into the extension of Right to Buy, NHF chief David Orr revealed plans to table an amendment to the welfare bill which would allow housing associations to set their own rents. Orr said that HAs should be independent to set their own rents, and the NHF will lobby for an end to government-set rents by 2020. He said the government “should not be in the area of setting rents” and Whitehall’s involvement in this area for 17 years had been “an abject shambles”. I’m not convinced that it should be right for government to decide the income of charities in this way,” Orr said. Read more on the Parliament website.

Government Confirms Right To Buy Deal

The government has formally accepted the NHF voluntary offer on Right to Buy. The joint announcement confirmed that ministers had accepted the verdict from Friday’s vote by housing associations to sign up to the deal brokered between NHF chief executive David Orr and the CLG team. Prime minister David Cameron predicted the scheme would be under way by next year. He said in his speech to party conference: “Some people said this would be impossible and that housing associations would never stand for it. Today we have secured a deal with housing associations to give their tenants the Right to Buy their home.” Read more on 24dash.

Orr Some Deceits Of NHF Over “Offer!”

David Orr has deceived 1,100 housing association boards and proves this by his own hand in an article in the New Statesman clearly written AFTER the deceits were emailed to all NHF members last week. David Orr and the NHF believe – with astonishing incredulity – that this POTENTIAL ‘offer’ will see the Conservative government agree to the right to buy 

ONLY IF THE HA LANDLORD AGREES! 

What planet is David Orr on? Many HAs north of Birmingham cannot afford to sell and replace as this will cost them tens of thousands for each property due to house prices.  As a result they will not replace even if they ALLOW (ahem!) the sale in the first place.  The Orr ‘ deal’ is THE most surefire way to have housing associations renationalised as public sector landlords. Read more on the Speye blog.

Eight Days For Sector To Decide Its Future Under Orr And Clark’s Right-To-Buy Deal

Housing associations have been given an eight-day ultimatum to decide the future of the sector – and of its tenants –after David Orr and communities secretary Greg Clark revealed they’d brokered a deal on Right-to-Buy . The proposed deal  effectively offers housing associations a way to swallow the bitter pill of RTB on their own terms – and indeed to potentially benefit from it commercially – but where it leaves the sector's poorest tenants over the long term is as yet open to question. This is a quid pro quo deal; in return for accepting RTB, it claims to offer housing associations full compensation for properties sold, claims to guarantees the sector's continued independence, and deregulate its operating framework to give it more flexibility in the types of homes its builds. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.