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Northern Ireland civil service requests extension to ONS reclassification deadline
Northern Ireland’s Department of Finance (DoF) has written to the UK Treasury asking it to extend the delay to the region’s housing associations being shifted to the public sector, Inside Housing understands.
In 2016, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced it would reclassify housing associations as public sector bodies from November 2017 – meaning their borrowing would count as government debt.
Ministers in England, Scotland and Wales have since passed legislation deregulating housing associations enough for the ONS to reverse its decision.
However, Northern Ireland has been without a functioning government for nearly two years, meaning no such legislation has come forward in the region.
Instead, the Treasury in Westminster put a derogation in place to postpone the ONS reclassification of Northern Irish housing associations – which is set to expire in March.
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The Treasury was due to decide whether to extend the derogation by the end of November but has not yet done so.
Inside Housing understands that civil servants from Northern Ireland’s DoF have now written to the Treasury on behalf of the region’s Department for Communities (DfC) to keep the exemption in place until legislation to reverse the ONS reclassification can come forward.
It is thought that the Treasury is yet to issue a response.
A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland DoF said: “As agreed by the previous executive, the Department for Communities has been progressing work on the necessary legislative changes.
“The Department of Finance continues to engage with HM Treasury on the way forward which includes exploring the potential to extend the current arrangements for a further short period, if necessary.”
Civil servants at the DfC have drafted a bill to end the House Sales Scheme – Northern Ireland’s equivalent of the Right to Buy – for housing associations in the region, in order to prompt the ONS to move the sector back to the private sector.
This legislation would have to be brought forward by ministers in Northern Ireland or Westminster – in the latter case, possibly as an addition to a budget for the region.
Leo O’Reilly, permanent secretary for the DfC, warned in October that if housing associations in Northern Ireland were moved to the public sector, there could be “a very considerable shortfall in the funding available for a social housing programme”.
The Treasury and the UK government’s Northern Ireland Office were approached for comment but did not respond.
