Government £200m Brownfields Building Fund Falls Flat, As Number Of New Homes Declines

A £200million Government fund to pay for more homes on industrial land has resulted in the opposite effect, with fewer homes built on brownfield areas than before it was set up. Official Government’s land use change statistics show that the proportion of new homes registered on previously developed land has fallen by 4 percentage points since 2014, when the fund was set up. Yet over the same period the number of new residential addresses on supposedly heavily protected Green Belt land has increased by the same proportion - 4 per cent. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/19/government-200m-brownfields-building-fund-falls-flat-number/

Homelessness Surges 34% Under Tory Government

The number of families being declared homeless has rocketed by more a third since the Conservatives took power in 2010, analysis of new official statistics has revealed.  Between April 2016 and March 2017, 59,100 families were declared homeless by local authorities in England – a rise of 34 per cent on the same period in 2010-11. The statistics paint a bleak picture of the UK housing crisis and the impact a lack of decent, affordable homes is having on thousands of families. There has been a 60 per cent increase in the number of families being housed in insecure temporary accommodation. Read more on the Independent website.

Help to Buy Scheme – Parliamentary Written Answer

Lord Cooper of Windrush: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what has been the total cost of the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme since its introduction. 

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many (1) individuals, and (2) families, have bought homes through the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: The total cost of running the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme from its introduction in 13 October to 31 March 2016 was £11.9 million. This has been paid in full with the commercial fees collected from lenders. The Treasury routinely publishes Official Statistics on the performance of the Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee scheme. The most recent publication was on 30 March 2017. This showed 101,960 mortgages had been completed with the support of the scheme. We do not record whether mortgage applications submitted to the scheme are made by a single individual or jointly.

More Than 250,000 Are Homeless In England

More than a quarter of a million people are homeless in England, an analysis of the latest official figures suggests. Researchers from charity Shelter used data from four sets of official 2016 statistics to compile what it describes as a "conservative" total. The figures show homelessness hotspots outside London, with high rates in Birmingham, Brighton and Luton. The government says it does not recognise the figures, but is investing more than £500m on homelessness. For the very first time, Shelter has totted up the official statistics from four different forms of recorded homelessness.  Download the report from the Shelter website.

Not Even Low Unemployment Can Ward Off The Scourge Of Homelessness

Official figures show homelessness is rising. Against a backdrop of low unemployment yet slowing wage growth, there has been a 10% rise in the number of homeless households in England. That’s according to the latest figures from the CLG which revealed that local authorities accepted 15,170 households as being homeless during the quarter April-June 2016, compared to 13,840 during the same period last year. There has also been a sharp rise in families with children, or expecting children, unlawfully living in B&B accommodation for longer than six weeks. The level is now a worrying 29% higher than a year ago. Read more on the Huffington Post website.

Quarter Of Young Londoners Willing To Leave Capital Over Homes Crisis

More than four in 10 young Londoners are willing to quit the capital for a better chance of getting on the housing ladder. For more than a quarter, the crisis is so desperate that they would be prepared to leave the country altogether. The findings come shortly after official statistics showed the average house price in London jumped £15,000 in January to a new all-time high of £551,000. For first-time buyers the average stands at £432,000, according to the Office for National Statistics. The findings found 43 per cent of Londoners aged between 18 and 40 said they were prepared to move to a more affordable part of the country. Read more on the Evening Standard website.

Let Us Build More Homes To Help Us Tackle Homelessness

If councils are to be fully empowered to tackle homelessness then they must be allowed to build more homes, the Local Government Association (LGA), has suggested. The organisation, which represents local authorities in England, was responding to the publication yesterday of the latest official figures on statutory homelessness – showing a 6% in the October to December 2015 quarter over the same period a year before.  Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Home Ownership: The Lowest In A Generation?

63% of English households own the home they live in. The last time the proportion was lower than this was in 1984, according to government statistics. The rest rent privately (19%) or from a social housing provider like a council or housing association (17%). The number of owner-occupiers has fallen every year since peaking in 2005. The English Housing Survey notes that trends in home ownership have changed “radically” over the past century. Most households seem to have rented until the early 1970s. Since then, home ownership has become the norm, but peaked in 2003 when almost 71% of households owned their property. Young people in particular are increasingly unlikely to own a home. Read more on the Full Fact website.

Good Data Won’t End Homelessness But It’s A Key Part Of The Solution

A long-awaited report by the body responsible for safeguarding the quality of official statistics has concluded that the way in which homelessness data is currently collected and reported by Government requires significant improvement. And this amidst growing concern that official statistics misrepresent the true scale of the homelessness problem in England. The report, released by the UK Statistics Authority, found that statutory homelessness data need a range of improvements to retain its status as ‘National Statistics’. The CLG’s prevention and relief and rough sleeping statistics were also looked at as part of the assessment and were found lacking. Above all, the UKSA says that the Government needs to be more transparent about what the three datasets collectively tell us about the state of homelessness in England. Read more on the Crisis blog.

£45 Billion Raised From RTB Sales

Pressure is mounting on the government to explain official figures on social housing replacement. It follows publication of research commissioned by the Commons communities and local government committee into the impact of Right to Buy on social housing stock. More than £45bn has been raised in total capital receipts RTB sales up to 2010/11, according to the report. It goes on to say that the number of dwellings owned by local authorities in England declined by 3.4 million in 34 years between 1980 and 2014. This was due “both to the RTB and the transfer of stock from the local authority to the housing association sector.” Download the report from the Parliament website.

Private Sector Rents Continue To Rise

More evidence has emerged of the rising pressure in both the private and social housing sectors, with data showing a further spike in rents. Reports from two UK property firms based on official statistics pointed to further pressures for people on low incomes. Data released by Countrywide, based on figures from the Valuation Office Agency, revealed that the average rents in the UK reached £937 per month in July were up 4.6% on a year ago. The biggest increases were in the capital where private rents increased by 6.8%, taking the average monthly cost to £2,583. Read more on 24dash.

ONS Confirms It Will Examine Associations' Status

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed it will examine whether to reclassify housing associations as public bodies once the government has released details of its Right to Buy extension. If the ONS decides on reclassification, housing association debt would be counted as public borrowing, pushing £60bn on to the government’s balance sheet.  Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS, said the ONS would ‘certainly’ consider implications for the ownership of associations’ assets and liabilities. In a letter to Labour MP Clive Betts, Mr Athow said the government can submit fully-formed policy proposals to ask the ONS how they would affect the recording of official statistics. Read the letter sent by ONS.

Workers Reliant On Housing Benefit Jumps By 75%

The number of working people in the Black Country who rely on housing benefit has jumped by 75 per cent in four years, new figures show. Official DWP statistics show that the number of employed people in receipt of housing benefit has gone up from 10,627 in 2010 to 18,640 last year. The total number of people receiving the benefit, however, went up by just two per cent. Read more on the Express & Star website.

Inflation Gauge for Housing Costs Loses 'Official Statistic' Status

A measure of inflation launched to better reflect housing costs will no longer be treated as an official national statistic while it is being improved, the statistics authority has said. The CPIH index was introduced in March 2013 and had been touted as a future price stability benchmark for the Bank of England. The bank currently uses the consumer price index (CPI). The new measure was designed to address the fact that CPI does not include most housing costs faced by people who own their homes, including mortgage payments and maintenance. Last year the UK Statistics Authority upgraded CPIH from an experimental statistic - defined as being in the testing phase and not yet fully developed - to an official national statistic. But it has now said statisticians had found ways to improve CPIH and that the measure will revert to experimental status, suggesting its use as a benchmark for the BoE could be a long way off. Read more on Yahoo News.

Universal Credit Hiding the True Number of Unemployed

The introduction of the Government’s universal credit scheme has suffered from another embarrassing IT setback, after it emerged that claimants in a region piloting the new system had vanished from official statistics on unemployment.  Following disputes with auditors in recent months over computing problems that have cost taxpayers tens of millions of pounds, civil servants in the DWP have realised that the new system is incompatible with current methods of counting the number of jobless people in the country.  Statisticians currently measure unemployment by recording how many people are receiving jobseeker’s allowance – and counting universal credit claimants within the numbers of those seeking work would inflate the figures, because the recipients include people in employment who are receiving what was previously income support or working tax credit.  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.