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Are we to see the end of lifetime tenancies in England, asks Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick and Dr Beth Watts
About two-thirds of new social tenancies in England are now offered with a probationary period of 12 or 18 months, according to the latest figures.
Since 2012, social landlords have also been able to use fixed-term (renewable) tenancies (FTTs) for an advised minimum of five years, or two years in ‘exceptional circumstances’.
These FTTs now account for 13% of new general needs social housing lets.
The ‘early adopters’ of FTTs have tended to be larger associations based in the south, and emerging findings from our five-year Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change research project give a flavour of these associations’ rationale:
“There was an incentive from the Greater London Authority (GLA), an expectation from the GLA that if you went into the affordable rent programme that you use fixed-term tenancies.” (Housing manager, London.)
Other housing associations saw FTTs as offering more flexibility in how they manage their housing stock and as enabling them to develop a different kind of relationship with tenants.
But is disillusionment now setting in? Our early findings suggest so.
The strongest argument in favour of fixed-term tenancies – making the best use of the declining social housing stock – only works if there is somewhere for under-occupiers to move to.
And there are strong arguments against: work incentives can be undermined by income-related renewal criteria, and social cohesion may be affected by more frequent turnover. Our key informants also raised issues of cost, bureaucracy and complexity, public law challenges, and potential financial risks.
Lack of security
Among the tenants we interviewed, some on FTTs were unaware of their tenancy type, or were not concerned by it. But many were anxious about their future:
“You’re always apprehensive because you don’t know what is going to happen. You can’t really sit back and enjoy the place – because you always feel like you’re on borrowed time, so you’re always on edge…. Those who initially had the lifetime, they can relax and see it as their home.’“(Older female tenant.)
“It always sits in the back of your mind that… if you ruffle their feathers basically they might say you have to go. Or at the end of the five years they might say, ‘We need to move you on as you have a spare room’.” (Couple with health problems and disabled child.)
In sharp contrast, in Scotland, FTTs are simply not on the agenda:
“It’s called the Scottish Secure Tenancy and somehow that signals… that the house is a home. And once you’ve been allocated that house, who is to come along and say, ‘You earn too much to live in that house, go away’.” (National stakeholder, Scotland.)
With the UK government now likely to scrap ‘lifetime tenancies’ in England, FTTs could be imposed on all social landlords. The practical arguments against them seem persuasive, but are apparently being overpowered by the ideological shift away from the vision of social housing as a mainstream tenure providing a ‘home for life’.
‘Pay to Stay’ measures can likewise be interpreted as a move towards a much more minimalist and conditional ‘welfarist’ model along US lines. On the other hand, the recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) decision to re-classify housing associations as ‘public bodies’, and the government’s subsequent commitment to ‘de-regulate’ them, might make the imposition of FTTs on all social landlords less feasible.
In any case, we are likely to see strong resistance from some parts of the sector, and increasing divergence between England and Scotland.
Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick and Dr Beth Watts, professor of housing and social policy research fellow (respectively), Heriot-Watt University