You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Housing associations in Northern Ireland saw their surpluses climb 16% over the last financial year despite rising costs.
Global accounts for the region’s 20 housing associations, published by the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA), show that the sector achieved an underlying surplus of £39.5m in 2018/19, up from £34.1m the previous year.
Combined turnover was £358.9m, an 8% increase from £331.1m in 2017/18, while the operating surplus grew 12% from £68.5m to £76.6m.
Operating costs rose 7.5% from £262.6m to £282.3m driven by increases in salaries and wages, NIFHA said, with an operating margin of 21.35%.
Ben Collins, chief executive of NIFHA, warned that “time is running out” for ministers to remove the threat of housing associations being reclassified as public sector bodies and called for action to extend welfare mitigation payments.
The UK government promised in February to intervene to pass legislation that would keep associations in the private sector and allow them to continue borrowing but a bill has not yet come forward, with the deadline currently March 2020.
Payments to insulate households from the effects of the bedroom tax and benefit cap agreed by Northern Ireland’s last government shortly before it collapsed in January 2017 are also due to end in March 2020.
Around 7,100 housing association tenants are deemed to be under-occupying their homes and so face a £5.6m shortfall between their benefits and rent if the mitigation payments end in March.
Northern Ireland minister Nick Hurd has said that the UK government does not have the power to extend the payments on behalf of the absent Stormont executive.
Mr Collins added: “Housing associations are resilient but, if reclassification is not reversed and welfare mitigations aren’t extended beyond next March, thousands more will struggle to keep a roof over their heads.
“More than 26,000 people already live in unsafe or unsuitable accommodation: more than 12,500 people are officially homeless. The time to act is now.”
Together, housing associations in Northern Ireland own 53,167 homes worth £4bn, having spent £404m on buying and building in 2018/19.
They completed 1,682 new social homes in 2018/19 plus 1,015 delivered for co-ownership – Northern Ireland’s equivalent of shared ownership – and made 1,786 starts.
The year also saw the introduction of regulatory judgements issued by the Department for Communities, with 17 housing associations receiving the top ‘Rating 1’ grading, one achieving ‘Rating 2’, and the remaining two deemed non-compliant at ‘Rating 3’ and ‘Rating 4’.
Housing associations in the region have total borrowings of £1.153bn, making the sector 29.5% geared – that is, indebtedness as a proportion of assets – up from 22.8% in 2016.