A mad, mad world
Two weeks ago I asked Grant Shapps to reveal his plans for the regulation of the housing sector under a Conservative administration. He has yet to respond.
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The shadow housing minister has said on a number of occasions that the Tenant Services Authority ‘drives him mad’, but has offered no alternative vision. Mr Shapps is right to take time to reflect, but this wall of silence is, in turn, driving landlords slowly mad.
The news this week that the Conservatives are considering abolishing the TSA and placing the power to regulate housing associations in the hands of local authorities instead is unlikely to make association boards breathe any easier. Although it shows that Mr Shapps and his team are beginning to think about how they might approach the governance of a £160 billion sector, it demonstrates a worrying lack of appreciation of how social housing works in practice.
Many associations work over several local authority areas and most councils have a plethora of social landlords operating on their patch. The administration required would make the current regulatory framework look like a model of efficiency.
This plan should be nipped in the bud. But the hope that the Conservatives will somehow do the right thing by the housing sector seems forlorn - not least because the sector itself seems unable to agree on what this might be. One of the reasons that Mr Shapps has turned his quango-cutting intentions from the Homes and Communities Agency to the TSA is because of the howls of protest that have greeted the TSA’s almost every move. This is why social landlords should welcome ‘operation pink’ with open arms. Don’t be fooled by the tongue-in-cheek moniker - this is a serious rearguard action by some key industry players to convince the Conservatives of the TSA’s worth.
The Conservatives might also want to reflect on how abolishing the independent regulator for social housing might impact on the ability of all social landlords to deliver local services in addition to housing. An annual £500 million of investment seems likely to be lost and investors in associations and newly confident councils will be spooked. This hardly seems like the move of a party that claims the mantle of localism.