It was the decade of reviews, inspections and targets, stakeholders, policy silos and holistic visions. Here are rest of my top 10 lessons from the noughties.
6) There are limits to homeownership
2000: More than 70% of us own our own homes. By 2005 Gordon Brown is boasting about creating a million new homeowners and pledging to create another million by 2010.2009: The actual total is down 163,000 by the end of 2008. The percentage of households who own has fallen to 68.3% - lower than when Labour took power in 1997 - and the first decline since records began. Given that the number of outright owners has risen, the fall in the number of families buying with a mortgage is even greater: 500,000 over the decade.
7) Prevention is not always better than cure
2000: Homeless acceptances rising steeply thanks to affordability problems. Legislation in England removes restrictions introduced by the Conservatives and expands the categories of priority need by also introduces ‘homelessness prevention’ and greater use of the private rented sector.
2010: By the end of 2008 homeless acceptances are half what they were in 2000. In 2008/09 local authorities say they helped 130,000 families through prevention and relief work. However, many question the fact that applications and acceptances are still falling even during a recession. A mystery shopping exercise by Crisis accuses some councils of gatekeeping – preventing homeless applications rather than homelessness itself.
8) The decade of private renting
2000: Despite 12 years of deregulation we still seem to be resisting the new golden age of caring landlords and happy tenants. The number of private tenants in Britain is the same as in 1988 when assured shorthold tenancies were introduced.
2010: Thanks to – take your pick - the boom in buy to let, house prices that are out of reach of many, increased use by local authorities and a social housing shortage, private renting is the unquestioned winner in of the noughties. We are on course for a million extra private tenants by the end of the decade. Regulation is struggling to keep up – three years after the introduction of HMO licensing more than half of properties are still unlicensed - but the private rented option helps keep down repossessions.
9) You’ve (almost) never had it so good
2000: Labour’s decision to stick to draconian Conservative spending plans means gross social housing investment in Britain slumps 20% in its first three years.
2009: Successive increases in spending mean investment is at its highest level in 15 years. According to the UK housing review, when private finance and stock transfer investment are taken into account, the total is the highest since 1990. Repossessions were not as bad as in the 1990s crash either.
10) Maybe we should celebrate while we can
2000: Few guess that the noughties will be the first-ever decade of Labour rule. The first few years are all about decent homes, anti-social behaviour and homelessness reforms but new homes are seen as a top priority by the end of the decade - and even council housing is making a comeback.
2010: That 20-year high in investment is just as well, since cuts seem inevitable whoever wins the 2010 election. A Conservative victory looks the most likely outcome and the party is pledged to sweep away many Labour innovations, including regional spatial strategies and targets set from Whitehall, in favour of a new era of localism. The big question is how far the Conservatives will go with a more radical agenda including changes to security of tenure and the homelessness legislation.
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Readers' comments (3)
aburke | 29/12/2009 2:03 pm
11) The Audit Commission and inspection are caught without clothes
2000: The Audit Commission inspection regime, nominally independent yet with leaders chosen by politicians and advised by the financial consultancies was being built at this time. Originally Best Value (4 C’s etc) as this was not found to work as desired the CPA was devised for councils and associations.
Public sector bodies were to be judged as part of an inspection regime and be scored to assess the quality of services. Quality was judged on how well it met a series of prescriptions or best practice. Good organizations set targets, set standards, benchmarks, had clear job roles, policies and procedures, had tight governance with measures that related back to the inspection regime scores. Everybody had a place and everything should be in its place on the basis of centrally prescribed frameworks. Scored based on these management criteria were handed-out to organizations and those who scored well got more money and freedom (to follow the prescriptions closer). Best practice and recommendations became enshrined as Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs).
2010: After a decade of following inspection prescription, the costs of servicing the inspection industry increased whilst service quality decreased. Bizarrely at the same time as the centrally-set targets told stories of great performance (at odds with the true experience of services). Housing organizations full of intelligent people quickly learned that to copy recommendations and what was found in the KLOES equaled higher scores. The Audit Commission unlikely to score organizations poorly when they were following Audit Commission advice. Organizations became full of targets, standards, benchmarks, job-roles, policies and procedures, and had tight governance all in neat self-referencing packages. Criticisms of the inspection regime came to be seen as criticisms of the bodies that had created the regime. Then with the creation of the TSA a new enlightened regime began to emerge.
The elephant wearing net curtains of course is that no post-mortem or acknowledgement of the failings of the previous inspection regime have ever been properly voiced. Instead of being quietly dropped it would be better to be publically examined and evidence collected to show why it was such poor method.
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Joe Halewood | 02/01/2010 1:50 pm
So no mention of supported housing in the top ten of the noughties?
SP with its promise to provide a secure legal and financial basis for delivering support services to the vulnerable that didnt materialise at all. Ironically it was used by many councils as the forerunner of inspection, review, target setting, outcome based funding. (alleged) cost-effectiveness all through the AC - the only body that correctly stated it was erroneously focused on immediate term savings to the detriment of short/medium/long-term costs to the public purse and very damaging to the vulnerable people it was supposed to support.
SP - the programme that promised to secure support for vulnerable people and didnt. In fact it lost 200,000 vulnerable people in its first 3 years - almost one in six - a catastrophic failure for which the housing sector will be paying more for years at the same time that support issues become more acute and even more costly.
Homelessness within SP - no mention that 40% less hostels are being funded - so just how any govt are going to address homelessness in this light is an issue of national importance. It will also cost so much more to use the misnomer that is "B&B" to temporarily accommodate homeless people and so directly SPs lack of investment here will lead to tougher eligibility to be accepted as homeless and in priority need. It is these nearsighted decisions of councils (that largely didnt and still dont understand supported housing) that will lead to much higher financial and other costs of homelessness in the future.
The noughties saw the SP experiment - an experiment that has harshly dealt with the needs of vulnerable people in need of support that will provide a massive negative legacy to the housing sector - so its exclusion (now theres an irony!!) from the top ten is very remiss.
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Jules Birch | 04/01/2010 11:50 am
Have to hold my hands up and say both should have been included - along with two more lessons.
13) Never compile a list when you are going down with flu
and 14) Never claim to be definitive - somebody else will always think of something better.
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