What The Green Paper Means For Social Housing

The Social Housing Green Paper may well mark a seminal moment in the English housing sector. However, this may perhaps be more for what it ushered out than what it ushered in. A number of notable policies introduced during the Cameron-Osborne years have been unceremoniously dumped or reversed:

– The High-value Assets Levy that was to be paid by councils to cover the cost of replacing homes sold by housing associations under the voluntary Right to Buy – gone

– The Housing and Planning Act 2016 contained powers to require councils to implement fixed-terms to new tenancies – this policy has been scrapped

– Consumer regulation was pared back in 2010 with the Tenant Services Authority infamously being made into ‘toast’ by then housing minister Grant Shapps. The Green Paper explores a number of options to beef up consumer regulation so it is on a par with economic regulation

– Performance league tables are being considered to allow meaningful comparison between social landlords. This was last possible when the Audit Commission and its KLOEs (key lines of enquiry) was in its pre-coalition government pomp, before being abolished.

Read more on the See Media website.

http://see-media.co.uk/what-the-green-paper-means-for-social-housing/

Three-Quarters Of All UK Social Housing Blocks Found To Be 'Potentially Unsafe In A Fire' In 2011 Report

A report from 2011 warned that almost three-quarters of UK social housing blocks were potentially unsafe in a fire. As speculation mounts as to the possible cause of the devastating Grenfell Tower fire in West London tenants of the 24-storey former council block have said they warned time and again that the building was a “catastrophic event” waiting to happen. Carried out when Grant Shapps was Housing Minister, the 2011 survey revealed that 75 per cent of managers responsible for maintaining social housing buildings were not certain their blocks had undergone a proper fire risk assessment. Read more on the Independent website.

Home Ownership Incentive Schemes – Parliamentary Written Answer

Grant Shapps:  To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much has been spent from the public purse on advertising the Government's Own Your Home scheme.

Mr Marcus Jones: In 2015/2016 spend on the campaign has been approximately £4 million. Activity consisted of radio, press and consumer advertising, out of home on-street bus stop posters, digital and Facebook advertising and a series of 'How to' online videos promoted through You Tube. On average around 140 people are helped through government home buying schemes every day and over 335,000 households have been helped to buy a property since 2010, through schemes like Help to Buy and the reinvigorated Right to Buy.

New Campaign To Help Veterans In Council Housing

A new campaign is being set up to stop the “bias” against veterans getting council housing. Former housing minister Grant Shapps is the founder of the group, called Homes for Heroes Foundation,  aiming to ensure the best housing is available to veterans within the next four years, to coincide with 100 years since the original homes for heroes Housing Act was passed. The investigation into the campaign will find council housing priority is given to those with a strong local connection to the area and on the council waiting list. The campaign evidence suggests there could be a failing to apply statutory government guidance on prioritising veterans on social housing waiting lists.  Read more on 24dash.

Task Force Dedicated To Tackling Rogue Landlords Have Never Met

An official task force to tackle rogue landlords set up with great fanfare two years ago has not met once – and there is no plan for it to do so, ministers have admitted. The CLG announced plans for an expanded cross-government team to help councils deal with problem landlords in 2013. It was, they said, designed to build on the work of a previous task force that had been established to tackle so-called “beds in sheds” rentals – where unscrupulous landlords were found to be illegally renting out outbuildings to migrant workers. But Housing Minister Brandon Lewis has admitted that the new task force has not had a single meeting. Mr Lewis also admitted that its predecessor group had only met three times since it was established by the now Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps in 2012. Read more on the Independent website.

Social Housing in Crisis As Right-To-Buy Depletes Stock

An analysis of figures show that since right-to-buy was re-launched by the Government in 2012, more than 20,000 properties have been sold off, with discounts of up to 70 per cent on market value, and only one home being built for every four sold off. But over the same period, local councils have begun building less than 5,000 homes to replace those sold – despite a claim by the then Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, that “every additional home sold will be replaced by a new affordable home on a one-for-one basis”. Read more on the Independent website.

Clegg 'Spineless' On Bedroom Tax, Suggests Tory Chairman

Nick Clegg is “spineless” after announcing he is opposed to the so-called bedroom tax, Grant Shapps has suggested. The Liberal Democrats “suddenly changed their minds” on the policy, the Conservative Party chairman said, becoming the first Tory Cabinet minister to publicly condemn his Coalition partners over the u-turn.  Mr Shapps said: “People will come to their own conclusions when they see parties u-turn on policies they’ve stood up for in the past. I would have thought the Liberal Democrats with tuitions fees would have learnt that. Them voting for that, never in private or in public arguing against it, then suddenly u-turning on it, people will come to their own conclusions.” Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

A Quick Guide to New Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis

·         He's the fourth housing minister in three years - Into the revolving door of Tory housing ministers, he follows in the footsteps of Kris Hopkins (10 months), Mark Prisk (one year, one month) and Grant Shapps (two years, four months).

·         He holds both housing and planning portfolios - For the first time in five years, and the first time within the coalition, the housing and planning portfolios will be held by a single minister of state. Previously these closely linked areas were split between two different ministers, now they both fall under the responsibility of one fully fledged minister of state. With planning difficulties frequently blamed for slow housebuilding rates, people within the housing sector will hope that having a single person in charge will lead to better policy and an increase in development.

Read more on the Guardian website.

Miliband Drags Private Renting Into the 21st Century At Last

Ed Miliband rides to the rescue of ‘Generation Rent’ – taking the boldest of steps and bringing together a number of Labour’s big themes – by promising thorough reform of the private rented sector. For years now, people have been saying ‘something must be done’ about the private rented sector, and now ‘something’ is on the agenda. It’s the right thing to do, it’s audacious, it’s imaginative, and it’s not before time. And it will come under sustained attack from the Tories and from the less enlightened end of the landlord lobby. Already the lead Tory buffoon Grant Shapps has called it ‘Venezuela-style’. He has apparently never heard of Germany or Ireland, where rules similar to these have been successful and led to a much more stable private rented sector. Read more on the Red Brick blog.

Shapps: Bedroom Tax Savings to Be Used To Build New Homes

Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps has said that the money the government has saved through the bedroom tax will be used to build new homes for people on housing waiting lists. The former housing minister was defending the controversial under-occupancy policy in his constituency of Welwyn Hatfield, where rent arrears have soared by 60% since its introduction last April. It is thought to be the first time that a senior member of the coalition has outlined how the money the bedroom tax has netted for the government will be spent. Read more on 24dash.

B&B Use for Families Rises Again

The number of families forced to live in emergency bed and breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks has increased five-fold since the coalition government came to power. On 30 September 2,100 households with children were in B&B accommodation.  Statistics released by the CLG show that, as of 30 September this year, there were 790 families who had spent more than six weeks in B&B accommodation, compared to just 150 at the end of December 2010. The latest figure represents a four per cent increase since 30 June this year, when the figure stood at 760. In 2012, then housing minister Grant Shapps chastised councils when the figure trebled from 150 in December 2010 to 450 in December 2011. Read more on the Children & Young People Now website.

Tabloids Were 'Xenophobic' To Brazilian Bedroom Tax Inspector

The United Nations has slammed the "xenophobic" British tabloids for the way they treated a Brazilian official who criticised the controversial 'bedroom tax'. The UN said reports it had "slapped down" Raquel Rolnik were "pure spin" and attacked the "blizzard of misinformation" published about her visit.  Conservative Chairman Grant Shapps wrote to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, demanding answers and accusing her of political bias. After a reply was sent to Shapps, The Sun reported that the "firebrand Brazilian leftie" had been "slapped down" by the UN in its response. Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told HuffPost UK:  “I should make it clear that the Sun's take on it - that the 'The United Nations has slapped down' Ms Rolnik - is pure spin.” Read more on the Huffington Post website.

Shapps Requests Investigation into UN Housing Expert’s Actions

The Conservative chair has requested an investigation into the actions of the UN special rapporteur for housing Raquel Rolnik today in a letter to Ban Ki-Moon. The letter said Mr Shapps believes she has been influenced by ‘political bias’ and it also suggested that the UN should ‘withdraw her claims pending a full investigation’. However, bizarrely the letter also says that the UK legal system has ruled that abolishing the bedroom tax is legal: ‘The United Kingdom’s legal system has already ruled that the abolition of the Spare Room Subsidy is lawful’. Mr Shapps wrote that the UN has directly contradicted the decision of the UK courts. Read the full letter on the Scribd website.

Call to Axe Bedroom Tax 'A Disgrace' – Shapps

The Tory party chairman, Grant Shapps, has described as an "absolute disgrace" a call from the United Nations for the government to scrap the so-called bedroom tax.  Accusing Raquel Rolnik, the UN special rapporteur on housing, of having an agenda, Shapps said he had written to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, demanding an apology and an explanation of Rolnik's findings. The UN investigator had not been invited to Britain by ministers, and was biased, Shapps said. "It is completely wrong and an abuse of the process for somebody to come over, to fail to meet with government ministers, to fail to meet with the department responsible, to produce a press release two weeks after coming, even though the report is not due out until next spring, and even to fail to refer to the policy properly throughout the report.”  The CLG confirmed that Rolnik had met Eric Pickles, the secretary of state. She also met council officials in Glasgow. Read more on the Guardian website.

When Is a Bedroom Not a Bedroom?

When it’s in a Welwyn Hatfield Council area.  Welwyn Hatfield Council lies in the Constituency of Grant Shapps, former Housing Minister. The Cabinet of Welwyn Hatfield Council have decided to ‘Reclassify Bedrooms’.  According to the minutes of a recent Welwyn Hatfield Community Housing Trust Panel meeting “The Panel recommended that Council homes with one bedroom which was less than 50 square feet (4.65 square metres) be reclassified so that a room of this size or smaller was not classed as a bedroom for welfare reform purposes.

RESOLVED:

That the Panel’s recommendation be approved and Council homes with

one bedroom which was less than 50 square feet (4.65 square metres) be reclassified so that a room of this size or smaller”   Read more on the Michelle Kent blog.

Shapps Told Aides to Suppress Emails That Showed He 'Misled MPs'

A government department spent thousands of pounds attempting to suppress emails showing that civil servants believed their minister may have misled MPs.  Officials in the CLG battled for nearly a year to prevent the release of internal correspondence relating to the former Housing minister Grant Shapps. When they were finally forced to back down by the Information Commissioner and release the emails they showed that civil servants believed Mr Shapps, who is now Conservative Party chairman, had made inaccurate statements about the number of affordable homes being built in Britain.  Read more on the Independent website.

Conservative Claims about Benefits Are Not Just Spin, They're Making It Up

Government ministers like Iain Duncan Smith and Grant Shapps are misrepresenting official statistics for political gain.  In the past few weeks, readers of UK newspapers have learned a number of things about the UK social security system and those who rely on it. They have learned that 878,000 claimants have left employment and support allowance (ESA) to avoid a tough new medical assessment; that thousands have rushed to make claims for disability living allowance (DLA) before a new, more rigorous, assessment is put in place; and that one in four of those set to be affected by the government's benefit cap have moved into work in response to the policy. These stories have a number of things in common. Each is based on an official statistic. Each tells us about how claimants have responded to welfare policy changes. Each includes a statement from a member of the government. And each is demonstrably inaccurate.  Read more on the Guardian website.

MP Attacks Allocation of £1.4m of Right to Buy Cash

A former Labour housing minister has accused the government of favouring Tory areas when allocating £1.14 million of funding to promote the right to buy.  John Healey, the MP for Wentworth and Dearne, made the claim after questions he submitted in parliament revealed Welwyn Hatfield was one of the areas to receive funding. Welwyn Hatfield is the constituency of former Conservative housing minister Grant Shapps. The government has said right to buy marketing spending was allocated based on levels of housing stock, but Welwyn Hatfield comes 63rd on the list of stock holding councils. Read more on Inside Housing.

'Bedroom Tax' Plans Are 'Perverse', Says Labour

The government's proposed change to housing benefit rules, dubbed the "bedroom tax", is "perverse", shadow minister Stephen Timms has said. On BBC Radio 4, Mr Timms warned that "lots of people will face hardship when they should be getting support".  Conservative chairman Grant Shapps said this argument was "absolute nonsense".  Mr Timms used the example of Hull, which he says has 4,700 people affected but only 73 smaller properties for people to downsize into, to illustrate that in some parts of the country people won’t be able to move to smaller homes.  Read more on the BBC website.

Third of Public Land for Homes Allocated

The government has allocated a third of the expected public land for housing, a year after the scheme was launched.  Figures from the CLG show land for 33,000 homes has already been sold off to developers, although the department could not say how many hectares this was, or what the land was worth. DEFRA has released the most land - enough for 9,160 homes. The Ministry of Defence has sold land for 8,200 homes. The scheme to free up public land for housing was announced by then housing minister Grant Shapps in June 2011. He said the government would identify land for around 100,000 homes by 2015. Read more on Inside Housing.