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More housing associations than ever think Brexit will be negative, survey shows
More housing associations than ever think Brexit will have a negative impact on them, an exclusive survey of the social housing sector has shown.
Of 143 associations surveyed by accountancy firm RSM for Inside Housing, half said they think Brexit will have a negative effect, up from a third in the same survey last year.
The percentage of housing associations that didn’t know what the effect of Brexit will be has fallen a similar extent, from 61% to 46%, suggesting that the risks of Brexit have crystallised over the past 12 months.
Despite this increasing negativity, 82% of respondents said they are planning to increase development in England, a slight increase from 79% last year.
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Keith Ward, head of social housing at RSM, said: “There is increasing anxiety in the sector as to how disruptive an unorganised exit from Europe may be, but the overriding optimism regarding levels of development suggest most are expecting any negative impacts to be short term and manageable in the long run.”
Nevertheless, the increased pessimism about Brexit flies in the face of last week’s comments by housing secretary James Brokenshire, who warned against “talking down” the housing market in the build-up to Brexit.
Instead, he said shadow housing minister John Healey, who had asked about the possible impact of a no-deal Brexit on housebuilding, “should be talking up what we can do as a country”.
The survey also highlighted increasing concern in the sector about welfare reform, with 88% of respondents saying they think it will have a significant effect on housing associations.
This was an increase on previous years, which saw that figure stay roughly around 82%. RSM suggested the rise “is most likely due to housing associations increasingly seeing the effects in practice”.
RSM also asked housing associations about the ongoing fallout from the rise in the Social Housing Pension Scheme deficit revealed by Inside Housing last year.
At the time, experts predicted that many employers would shift employees from more generous defined benefit schemes to less favourable, defined contributions plans – a plan fiercely opposed by unions.
Last year’s RSM survey suggested that this was the most popular option, but this year’s survey reveals a shift in social landlords’ thinking, with only a quarter saying it was their preferred solution. In contrast, 57% said they planned instead to increase the amount employees are required to pay into their pensions.
