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Green paper must focus on social landlords' entire operating environment
The Social Housing Green Paper needs to avoid “doing a Dispatches” by only focusing on part of the story, argues Martin Hilditch
Over the past year the tenants and residents of social landlords across the UK have been talking to government officials about the housing associations and councils that house them.
After a year of conversation, it is now finally time to see the end result (unless the government collapses shortly after the time of writing, of course).
The sector is about to get a direct insight into the areas that tenants and government think need to be improved.
We don’t know yet exactly what the final draft of the Social Housing Green Paper will contain but we do know some of what has been considered.
One of the more eye-catching ideas is a league table of housing associations, that would rank them on key topics, such as the time taken to complete repairs, customer satisfaction or complaints.
“It is absolutely right for individual and collective decisions to be scrutinised, such as whether landlords have maximised the amount of genuinely affordable housing”
The sector shouldn’t shy away from this – but it is vital the government gets the metrics right, if it proceeds down this route.
For example, it is important that any measure doesn’t provide an incentive for landlords to make it difficult for tenants to register complaints – or mean that those that encourage honest feedback find themselves languishing at the bottom of the table.
But in a week where housing associations were given a right old kicking by Channel 4’s Dispatches, there are other, ultimately bigger issues to watch out for.
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Dispatches caused controversy not because of the issues it flagged up, but because it failed in any meaningful way to let its viewers know about the policy and operating environment that associations have been operating in.
It is absolutely right for individual and collective decisions to be scrutinised, such as whether landlords have maximised the amount of genuinely affordable housing they could within the system. However, if the impact that government policy has had isn’t factored in, a big part of the picture is missing – along with a vital part of the solution. All of which leads us back to the Social Housing Green Paper.
If it is to succeed it too needs to consider the entire environment in which social landlords operate. Yes, this involves regulation – and there is widespread acknowledgement that consumer regulation has been so light touch in the past it has been open to ridicule.
But it also needs the government to look inwards as well as outwards.
What impact have issues like welfare reform and the channelling of the majority of resources into homeownership products and affordable rent had on living standards and life chances for tenants or the stigmatisation of social housing?
This is not to say that social landlords don’t deserve scrutiny. They do – and various pieces of work over the past year from the National Housing Federation, the Chartered Institute of Housing, and Network, Clarion and L&Q have acknowledged where some of the challenges lie.
But if the Social Housing Green Paper turns out to be Dispatches Mark II it, like the programme itself, will have failed to get to grips with the full story
Martin Hilditch, managing editor, Inside Housing
Click here to read our piece about the fall and rise of social rent
