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From the archive – privatisation of council housing, inadequate housing for disabled people, and the Elphicke-House Report
Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week five, 15 and 25 years ago
25 years ago
South Oxfordshire District Council became the first in the country to award a contract to manage all of its housing stock to a private company – making front-page news for Inside Housing.
The five-year contract went to a French firm called PS Executive Consultancy, owned by Générale des Eaux (now known as Veolia). The company bid £6.35m, which was expected to save the council £1.25m.
PS Executive Consultancy beat 11 others to the contract, including seven housing associations. The council itself did not bid.
“Price came out as the overridingly important factor,” said Tim Hammond, housing services officer at the council at the time.
Today, South Oxfordshire District Council does not own any council housing, after transferring all its stock to Sovereign in 1997.
15 years ago
Social landlords were strongly criticised for failing disabled people in a report by then-prime minister Tony Blair’s strategy unit.
The report noted that disabled people were increasingly dependent on social housing because it was so difficult to buy property or rent privately.
However, “much of the [social] housing is physically unsuitable” for disabled people. Instead, many disabled people were stuck living in residential care rather than living independent lives.
The report noted they were often considered to be “adequately housed” and so didn’t meet allocation criteria for social housing.
In the foreword to the report, Mr Blair said that by 2025 disabled people should have the same life chances as everyone else.
Habinteg said that there was a “chronic undersupply of housing for disabled people” in the sector. The problem has not yet been resolved.
Last year, a report by the housing association warned of an “accessible housing crisis”, with not enough new homes being built to be accessible, particularly outside of London.
Picture: Peter Searle
Five years ago
Councils were told to do more to push housebuilding, Inside Housing reported five years ago.
This was based on the release of the much-anticipated ‘Elphicke-House’ Report, by Natalie Elphicke (above) (then a housing finance expert and now a recently elected Conservative MP) and Keith House (then and now Liberal Democrat leader of Eastleigh Borough Council).
Councils should become “housing delivery enablers”, the report stated, creating the right conditions for new homes to be built in their areas.
The review ordered by government had been told not to include the option of removing caps on how much councils can borrow, which was seen as one of the key obstacles to local authorities building a new generation of council housing.
