The basic issue for me is that CBL is predominantly about the property, when real choice should be about both the property and the services a landlord can offer.
What is needed is a CBL scheme for specialist housing organisations such as BME associations, and those specialising in, say, mental health or HIV/AIDS. This could run alongside traditional geographical CBL schemes and therefore allow everyone access to real choice suited to their individual needs.
This will have the added advantage of preserving the role of the specialist landlord and help to ensure that new tenants are more likely to benefit from the tailored services on offer.
This plays to the unique strengths of diversity within our sector and will not result in specialist organisations catering for tenants that don’t need their enhanced services, while other applicants in need remain with less suitable landlords.
Could this be an opportunity for one of the excellent specialist organisations such as Odu-Dua to set up such a scheme and deliver on behalf of the collective?
Simon Walton, director of housing services, Broxbourne Housing Association (writing in a personal capacity)
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Readers' comments (13)
Joe Halewood | 14/08/2009 2:36 pm
This is not widening CBL at all - and the basic fact is that CBL cannot increase the supply of property just increase the number of applicants.
Landlords should partner many more specialist support servive providers (HIV, MH etc) that also deliver the basic hosuing management service. Yet that is not widening CBL it is widening options for tenants in need of such support services.
Yet that wider choice available to general needs tenants will and must mean less choice from the available supply of properties. So widening CBL is not the issue but widening choice of accommodation AND specialist services is. Though this has to mean less choice for those who only need bricks and mortar from the finite supply.
Choice is one of those words bandied about willy nilly yet is a misnomer. Increasing choice for one person decreases it for another person or group (see the RTB as a classic example). The ONLY way increased choice can happen is with increased SUPPLY. To say or posit anything different to this is patently misleading and erroneous.
How the general public is duped by saying CBL or RTB or LHA or any other housing term increases choice is an outright deception. Only increased supply alone can increase choice, nothing else.
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worried well | 14/08/2009 7:02 pm
I don't agree with Simon.
What he proposes is just another scheme, so instead of one scheme, there are two.
Of course what he fits into is a top-down paradigm of regulation, where the different types of lettings process neatly conform to some tick-happy demented inspector's tick-sheet.
We don't want just one or two different lettings schemes. We want loads of them, each looking to improve and learn to meet people's needs better. Let us escape from this top-down view of the world and really create some diversity into our sector!
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Joe Halewood | 17/08/2009 4:37 pm
By defintion employing a CBL scheme for specialist housing would have to mean more provision available than their currently is. Again by definition specialist provision is more costly to run than generic provision. So, the average cost of delivering specialist provision would have to rise to account for an overall higher void rate.
What is needed is more specialist service provision that is flexibly applied to generic 'bricks and mortar' as this would enable a better use of resources. Yet to do that the support provision has to carry spare capacity, which again has to be costed into the overall provision of such support which again raises the cost of that support. Moreover, such support is only funded currently by SP normally that is seeking bizarrely more than 100% utilisation rates from provides and not less than 100% so this could not happen as spare resource capacity is not allowed as it is seen as inefficient.
Finally, there is very little in the way of capital funding available to develop the bricks and mortar needed for many specialist housing clients. So again this is unlikely.
So CBL as one allocation method is not going to change any of the above, all it may do is allow residents from outside an area move into the locale that has the provision. The same funding following the person that is supposed to work in the NHS but doesnt.
This article seems more a case of blind adherence to CBL as I restate the ONLY way to increase choice is more supply.
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worried well | 19/08/2009 5:29 pm
I disagree with Joe Halewood.
I would argue that the entire thrust of so-called 'choice' in choice based lettings, is not real choice. Without even pumping more accommodation into the mix, you could give residents real choice and access to properties.
I would argue that a real choice based lettings scheme should be about the person and finding the right property that suits them. This increases sustainability (it literally costs less because a person in the right property stays there longer).
So yes add more properties into the mix (and actually build houses instead of tiny 'units') but introduce real choice and you will have real choice
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Joe Halewood | 20/08/2009 9:10 am
Aburke - no issue at all that finding the right property that suit will increase sustainability and also agree it will cost less too. Yet to do so would mean the applicant widening their location to find this suitable property.
Choice means having options by definition - so the universality of CBL as one method is not choice by definition. "Real" choice means nothing. But if it is assumed to mean the ability to choose in real terms then lets discuss that.
At present we have very limited choice due to limited supply. So limited choice cannot equal real choice a point we agree upon. If we then look at your ideal or wanted system where a genuine or person-centred selection that i agree aids sustainability, the applicant will have to look further afield than his or her locale. This is because of the limited supply.
If i was an applicant and wanted and needed a 3-bed property but lived in London - a high demand / low supply I have more chance of finding a 3-bed property in an area or less demand or higher supply - again that is obvious. I would have real choice in my housing options to move to say Carlisle (used purely for argument).
But is that real choice? Of course not. Apart from the huge deccision to move with my family there etc, what this means is no more than transferring a potential applicant from a high demand area to a lower demand area. Yet that scenario is the reality of CBL and any extension of CBL.
Does it give more access to properties? I would strongly argue not and in practice it may only serve to increase the number of applicants for each available property thus reducing the current 'choice'. If a 3-bed property came available in London for example and the entire UK system was CBL, then how many people would bid for such a property? Far more than now as many from outside London would bid for it. (In reality that scenario would happen anywhere in UK given the dearth of 3-bed properties.)
The same would happen with a 2-bed property in London too.
So - as now - the reality would be the undesirable properties, aka difficult to lets and the small ones at that would be the only properties anywhere that are available. So all CBL would achieve is to advertise DTLs nationally - thats not tenant choice at all.
CBL in theory and in practice provides better access to available properties you say. It doesnt in my view at all. Where is the better access for tenant choice? CBL may advertise properties to a wider audience, but that is not CBL itself but purely the increasing availability of the internet as free advertisement for landlords. In other words why call this anything other than what it is - wider promotion not CBL. Every applicant is thereb y competign with more applicants and that is less choice and less access.
Choice, real choice or any variant of increased choice can only happen with increased supply and not with any fandangled sophistry, which is what the misnomer CBL actually is.
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worried well | 20/08/2009 10:13 am
Hi Jo
As I said yes to adding more properties, but I will continue to claim that CBL does not equal real choice.
CBL is an internet-based bidding scheme. In effect points equal prizes. Many of those on the waiting lists are chancing their arms on a maybe basis.
Many people just bid to get into a property, because once in they go onto the transfer list or sit tight just glad that they got a property.
When providing properties based on listening to truly what matters to a person looking for a property, then the chances of the person staying in that property, and it being more sustainable increase markedly. As quality goes up costs go down. There are no adverts in the paper costing tens of thousands annually.
The problem was that the government and the audit commission said that CBL was 'best practice' and pushed it carrot and stick (carrot £100,000 for the software - stick - get beaten up if don't do what told). Innovation flees, learning stops....
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Joe Halewood | 20/08/2009 2:37 pm
We dont disagree on CBL then, ok. The problem is the lack of alternate ways of allocation 'systems' or procedures in the context of the housing law framework, aside from the dearth of supply that is.
Within that framework and constraint, the meritable points we agree upon leave little but subjective solutions that can only be arbitrary to a certain extent . Im willing to be dissuaded from this view with alternatives...
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AC Preston | 21/08/2009 2:46 pm
CBL is flawed from the start. As public awareness increases and if it is allowed to continue indefinately then everybody would have made an application just in case and then properties will be let to the oldest person.
Scrap CBL which only serves to marginalise the most vunerable and introduce something more person centred!
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Chris | 22/08/2009 1:34 am
I have ten boiled sweets in my bag.
Teacher says I must share them with my thirty classmates. I could give them to the ten I like the best. I could give them to the ten who look the hungiest. Either way 2/3 will go without.
Teacher say that if I allow my classmates to bid for the sweets that this will be fairer, as I can assess their qualities and their needs and choose which ten to give the sweets to. But still 2/3 will go without.
Teacher says, I know, why don't we widen the choice so that the kids in the next class can bid also.
BUT THERE ARE STILL ONLY TEN SWEETS YOU MORON!
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Chris | 22/08/2009 1:34 am
I have ten boiled sweets in my bag.
Teacher says I must share them with my thirty classmates. I could give them to the ten I like the best. I could give them to the ten who look the hungiest. Either way 2/3 will go without.
Teacher say that if I allow my classmates to bid for the sweets that this will be fairer, as I can assess their qualities and their needs and choose which ten to give the sweets to. But still 2/3 will go without.
Teacher says, I know, why don't we widen the choice so that the kids in the next class can bid also.
BUT THERE ARE STILL ONLY TEN SWEETS YOU MORON!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment