The Week in Housing: cross-party MPs renew call for 90,000 homes for social rent a year

Elsewhere, the chair of the G15 hit back at claims today that there is “widespread misuse of service charges” across the sector and highlighted the impact of building safety legislation, rising insurance premiums and uncapped utilities.

Fiona Fletcher-Smith, chief executive of L&Q and chair of the G15 group of London’s largest housing associations, addressed concerns raised to Michael Gove by another MP last month.

Instead, the G15 chair explained how the “important new building safety legislation has added an average of £177 a year to each resident’s service charge”.

She said: “Several of the measures we’ve introduced as part of this legislation also require ongoing maintenance, which brings in another ongoing cost.”

At the same time, building insurance costs have risen 92%, utilities by 73%, and professional fees 69%. Government policy is responsible for some of these increases (mini budgets, sanctions, inflation, wars etc), so it’s over to Mr Gove for a response.

Also waiting for a response from the housing secretary is the senior coroner for Manchester South.

The coroner has issued a warning to Mr Gove about the use of fixed window restrictors after a resident fell from the open window of his 16th floor flat.

There was some good news for the government in that it won the first legal action it brought under new building safety legislation against the freeholder of a 16-storey tower block over unsafe cladding.

Adding to the costs faced by landlords is the Regulator of Social Housing, which hiked the fees landlords pay by more than 70% per social home. Although the money is needed to help it deliver its expanded role.

Inside Housing has been out and about this week, dipping our toes in the water off the coast in Brighton, and had a brief stop to take in St Paul’s Cathedral back in London.

Just a stone’s throw away from the cathedral’s 365-foot dome, the chair of the LUHC Committee suggested that the target of building 90,000 social rent homes a year may need to be increased due to a lack of progress made since the goal was set.

In Brighton, a Labour and Co-op MP told delegates at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) conference why he thinks that poorly performing landlords should not be able to operate in the sector.

You can read Inside Housing’s dispatches from the conference here.

A senior staffer at the English regulator explained how there has been an uptick in referrals on “basic health and safety compliance”.

Will Perry, director of strategy at the Regulator of Social Housing, said: “We’ve had an uptick in referrals around basic health and safety compliance, around gas servicing. We thought we had those issues cracked 10 years ago – evidently we haven’t.”

Lastly from the conference, Charlotte Hilliard, policy lead for professionalism in social housing at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said the two-year period for managers to be enrolled in a course as part of the new Competence and Conduct Standard was still not decided.

She added: “We did hear that loud and clear through the consultation that people were very concerned about the impact of the timescales that have been set.”

The CIH and the National Housing Federation have published a 12-point guide for “rethinking” repairs and maintenance services.

It was published one year after the sector bodies’ Better Social Housing Review action plan and contains 12 “guiding principles” that social landlords can use to inform and improve the design and delivery of repairs and maintenance services with their residents and staff.

The Housing Ombudsman has appointed a new 1,500-strong resident panel in a bid to beef up and scrutinise its work.

The new members of the panel will come from across England to share their views on complaints within social housing and how the whole sector, including the watchdog, can make improvements.

There were a number of new appointments in the sector over the past seven days, including new chief executives at Great Places, Grŵp Cynefin and Southway Housing Trust.

A landlord in the South West appointed a new chair, and the chair of a specialist care provider resigned after just three months.

With the use of temporary accommodation at record levels in terms of use and spending, a charity has called for a ban on the use of hotels with no kitchens to house families with children under five.

In this month’s rundown of what the media is saying about housing, Inside Housing looks at stories on the candidates for mayoral elections, opposition to housebuilding, long-term mortgages and a change of leadership in Scotland.

And finally, we visited a regeneration project that has almost doubled the number of homes on site, including an increase in social rent.

Have a good weekend.

Stephen Delahunty, news editor, Inside Housing

Say hello: stephen.delahunty@insidehousing.co.uk

@StephenD_

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