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From the archive - Labour plans to slash Right to Buy discounts
Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week five, 15 and 25 years ago
25 years ago
A management company won a competition to manage Rutland Council’s housing because the housing associations that bid for the contract were too costly.
Housing associations were eliminated at the first round of negotiations, Inside Housing reported, as being too expensive.
Orbit housing association’s bid was £56,000 more expensive than the eventual winner, a firm called CSL Managed Services, which said it could manage the 1,700 homes for £531,000 in the first round.
The firm then went up against another private provider, and cut its estimated costs further to £501,000, winning the contract. CSL’s bid was still £30,000 higher than the council’s estimate for keeping the service in-house, but Rutland expected a “quantum leap in performance”.
Keith Emslie, then chief executive of Rutland Council, said the association bid showed “a superficial knowledge of the housing management contract specification”.
15 years ago
Discounts under the Right to Buy were going to be slashed dramatically in London and the South East of England, Labour’s deputy prime minister John Prescott said.
The maximum discount available in 42 local authorities was going to be cut from £38,000 to £16,000, as a response to housing pressure. Local authorities were worried about a rush to cash in on the discounts before the rules changed.
Paul Jenks, then chair of the of Local Government Association’s Housing Executive, said: “If I’d wanted to comprehensively cock something up I think this is the way I’d do it.”
In a sign of ideological difference between the Labour government of the day and Tory opposition, the magazine also included an interview with the Conservatives’ shadow housing minister Geoffrey Clinton-Brown, calling for the Right to Buy to be extended to housing associations.
“Those people who rent public houses and who work hard obviously want to get on the housing ladder. This is a good way of them getting onto the ladder,” said Mr Clinton-Brown.
The Conservative government finally announced it was implementing this policy in 2014, although no date has yet been announced for it being rolled out.
Five years ago
One of England’s largest and most influential landlords concluded that the Green Deal would not work effectively in social housing.
At the time, it was a flagship policy of the coalition government to retrofit homes across England to make them more energy efficient, with a loan tied to the property. Days before the launch, Affinity Sutton (now Clarion, following its merger with Circle) concluded it would not take part or allow tenants to take part, in what Inside Housing called a “body blow” to the policy.
Hopes had been high for the policy to dramatically improve the warmth of English homes and reduce energy bills, but reception was “frosty”.
When the Conservatives were elected in 2015, the policy was unceremoniously scrapped by new energy secretary Amber Rudd. At that time only 15,000 green deals had been taken out.
