SO 12 'trailblazing' local authorities are to offer advice on training, employment and childcare to people looking for housing. The CLG announcement on housing options yesterday puts one of the key recommendations of the Hills Report into effect.

But anyone looking for the advice may be confused if they take a closer look at the local priorities for councils it published earlier this week. 

Take childcare - a key factor restricting employment opportunities and housing options. Only four of the 12 trailblazers make 'take-up of formal childcare by low-income working families' a priority.

Take concentrations of people on benefit - a key concern on housing and worklessness. Only five prioritise 'working age people on out of work benefits in the worst performing neighbourhoods'.

Or what about the supply of affordable homes? Even on this most fundamental issue, only eight out of 12 make 'number of affordable homes delivered (gross)' a priority.

Failing to tick the right boxes and speak the right management speak does not of course mean that the 12 will not deliver excellent advice. However, there is a crucial point to be made about 'options'.

As used in homelessness prevention, it has led to some invaluable work on helping homelessness people sustain tenancies and access the private rented sector. However, a strong suspicion remains among many advisors that in some local authorities homelessness prevention is really about homelessness application prevention.

Many people getting 'advice' on their housing and employment 'options' will have similar suspicions running through their heads about the real motivations behind it. And only two of the 12 authorities (Greenwich and Calderdale) can demonstrate those motivations by pointing out they make priorities of all three of the indicators above.

Posted by Jules Birch, July 4

Posted in Hills review, Local government, Social housing, Welfare

HOW can 73% of people say workless social housing tenants should risk losing their home at the same time as 59% say they should be allowed to stay in that home for as long as they want? 

The contradictory responses in this week's Inside Housing opinion poll [download PDF here] are a conundrum in which voters appear to agree with both the New Labour ultras and the bleeding heart Liberals at the same time. 

They clearly say something about the nature of opinion polls. Ask how many people still believe MI6 murdered Diana or that it was the CIA that blew up the Twin Towers and you'll get a pretty high response.

The way that questions are asked also has an influence. Saying yes to 'Unemployed tenants who are able to work and who live in social housing should risk losing their home if they are not prepared to take up opportunities for support and advice in seeking paid employment' is not quite the same as saying they should lose it if they turn down a job. 

The 73% response seems to show that Caroline Flint has picked up on a genuine feeling among the electorate. But does that mean that the great bulk of the housing profession is so out of step with public opinion that it needs to radically reappraise its opnions?

Some 72% of voters also believe social tenants should get more help to become home owners while 61% say those who can afford to rent privately should do so. So why not go with the popular mood - devote the lion's share of funding to home ownership initiatives and let social housing complete its transformation into purely welfare housing for the very poorest?

One way to look at it, as Kate Davies of Notting Hill Housing Trust points out, is to ask whether those who can afford private schools should be forced to send their children to them. Another recent Ipsos Mori poll showed that 57% of parents would send their children to private school if they could afford it. So why not do that, cut the education budget and use the savings to fund vouchers for private education?

Much as Thatcherite Ultras might think that's a great idea, only a small proportion of the electorate would. Housing may not be as universal a service as education or healthcare but my guess is that few people would support a shift to purely welfare housing either. Given the state of the housing market most would see the folly of subsidising people into negative equity too - even while they told the pollsters they believed in more home ownership help. Ask the right questions and you will get the right answers - but answers are not the same as solutions.

Posted by Jules Birch, June 6

Posted in Politics , Social housing, Welfare

AS ministers start to ponder the housing reform green paper due by the end of the year where can they turn for guidance on the complex issues generated by the debate about social housing and worklessness?

How about this? Living in social rented housing is not a barrier or disincentive to getting a job - in fact, many people find a secure tenancy brings them closer to the labour market and makes work a more viable option. However, it is not organised in a way that seeks to maximise that potential benefit.

These are the conclusions of a study for the Department of Work and Pensions by a team from Sheffield Hallam University centred on in-depth interviews with social tenants with recent or ongoing experience of worklessness and was commissioned in the wake of the Hills Review.

It found no consistent evidence of cultures of worklessness in deprived areas but did find some concentrations of worklessness in areas with strong communities and local identities with relatively low levels of population turnover. This was thanks to a combination of postcode discrimination, social routines and peer pressure that led to resistance to formal paid work and the availability of local resources to 'get by'.

In contrast to government concerns about giving preference in allocations to people moving for job-related reasons, the study found that mobility was not a barrier to work - basically because the jobs available to people were low paid and insecure and were not worth giving up established social networks for. 

However, the benefits system were found to be a clear barrier to working, with the complexities between housing benefit, tax credits and earnings making it impossible to work out the financial consequences of entering work. Few tenants seemed aware of housing benefit as an in-work benefit. The study argues that any reform should concentrate on making it clear that 'work pays'.

Other barriers included the fact that some social tenants faced multiple disadvantages, many of which were hidden from view, for example a drug or alcohol problem that was kept from service providers. Apart from explaining why the employment effects of living in social housing are being masked, this underlines the importance of integrated service provision.  

The study also concludes that there is potential for social landlords to expand their work into training and employment support but that two fundamental questions needed to be answered: why should they bother, when their primary role is housing management? And what role would they play and what partnership arrangements would be needed to help them play it? 

Posted by Jules Birch, May 19 

Posted in Social housing, Welfare

SO the rumours about a new housing market package were true. The details announced in today's draft Queen's Speech are still sketchy but it is clear that it will be on nothing like the same scale as its predecessor in 1992 - £200m not £577m to buy homes that will probably cost three times as much now means it's probably worth just 10% of that in real terms.

However, the same logic applies of acquiring homes for the social sector at the same time as preventing worse problems in the private sector. After Caroline Flint unwittingly revealed yesterday the government's view that house prices will fall by 5-10% this year and 'we can't know how bad it will get', action was clearly needed.

In fairness to her, it was actually a pretty sensible assessment of the state of the housing market - unless, of course, you're the housing minister on the way into a cabinet meeting.

The scenario painted in the snatched picture of her briefing notes (if you missed it, go here) would actually be pretty good news for the first-time buyers but the government cannot afford to contemplate the prospect of things getting any worse. 

One temptation must have been to steal an idea from Tory policy advisor Kirstie Allsopp and scrap stamp-duty for first-time buyers. But quite apart from the fact that yesterday's tax cut must have cleaned out the coffers, that sounds like a fruitless way of spending government money if prices are going to fall and help first-timers out more without it costing you a penny.

But there are some other policies in the draft speech [PDF here] that also appear to come from the blue end of the wardrobe. The original housing market package was of course also a Conservative idea and making all first-time buyers eligible for shared ownership schemes subject to an income limit comes bears some distinct similarities with Boris Johnson's programme for London. 

A statement from the CLG says all first-time buyers with a household income of under £60,000 would be eligible for Homebuy. Johnson's plan helps all basic rate taxpayers.

The details will be what matter. Where will the money come from (Gordon Brown suggested it would be reallocated)? What safeguards will prevent expanded equity becoming a route to negative equity for its customers? And how will this market package avoid some of the mistakes made last time?

On the last point in particular it could do worse than ask Anthony Mayer. Appointed yesterday as head of Oftenant, he was chief executive of the Housing Corporation at the time of the last package.

Elsewhere in the speech are plans to extend Oftenant to local authority tenants, a proposed housing reform green paper 'towards the end of 2008' setting out options to 'encourage people towards greater economic independence and social mobility', yet another review of housing benefit and reform of banking regulation.

Posted by Jules Birch, May 14 

Posted in Housing market, Politics , Social housing, Welfare, Tenants

The boot was on the other foot today when Boris Johnson accused his Labour and Lib Dem rivals of pulling out of hustings in the election for London mayor.

Johnson said Ken Livingstone pulled out of the event organised by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) because he did not want to be questioned about grants to the voluntary sector. All of which made a change from Johnson pulling out of events and being accused of not wanting to be questioned about anything.

It might all have had something to do with the Centre for Social Justice not being quite the independent organisation Johnson made out. Independent in its thinking? Possibly. In its political affiliations? Hmm. It is run by former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. 

None of which does much to advance the debate on a crucial issue for the future of housing policy. The CSJ has made much of the running on the Conservative side on the issue of welfare dependency, building on publication of last year's Breakthrough Britain. You may have noticed that the welfare reform wing of the Labour Party, including housing minister Caroline Flint, has also turned its attention to worklessness.

The big difference between them seems to be that social housing is very much at the heart of the Labour debate whereas it does not get a mention in Breakthrough London, the CSJ pamphlet published this week on social inequality in the capital which predictably stresses the importance of marriage and the two-parent family.

It would have been interesting to see whether Livingstone, Johnson (and Duncan Smith) agree with Flint's plans to penalise tenants who do not seek work - and what Duncan Smith thinks of Johnson's plans to extend housing subsidies to all Londoners paying basic rate income tax. Both would be good indications of the likely direction of a crucial debate whoever wins the next (general) election. 

Posted by Jules Birch, April 16 

Posted in Local government, Politics , Welfare