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Social Housing White Paper to be published this week
The government will publish its much-anticipated Social Housing White Paper this week, Inside Housing understands.
The policy document, which will outline post-Grenfell changes to regulation of the social housing sector, has been keenly awaited in the sector since the publication of a green paper in August 2018.
As reported by Inside Housing over the summer, the paper was ready for publication in the spring but was held back due to the pandemic, with a launch planned for autumn. It is understood that the paper will be launched in the early part of this week.
The paper is expected to include proposals to toughen the Regulator of Social Housing’s (RSH) role in policing services to tenants.
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The government first put forward the plan for a Social Housing White Paper in September 2017 following the Grenfell Tower fire in June of that year.
At the time, then-housing secretary Sajid Javid said it would be a “wide-ranging top-to-bottom review of the issues facing the sector” and the “most substantial report of its kind for a generation”.
A green paper was published in August 2018, with a consultation ending in November 2018.
In September this year, housing secretary Robert Jenrick said the paper would “include measures to further empower tenants and boost the supply and quality of social housing with greater redress and better more meaningful regulation of the sector”.
It is expected that one of the biggest changes to come out of the white paper will be around expanding the role of the RSH so it can become more involved in issues relating to poor standards of services to tenants.
This is something that Grenfell survivors have pushed for following the fire. In the months and years leading up to the fire, a number of residents had raised repeated complaints about the block and its refurbishment, many of which were not acted on by Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation.
The green paper also floated the idea of axing the ‘serious detriment’ test, which severely limits the circumstances under which the regulator can currently intervene in consumer affairs.
This was introduced by former housing minister Grant Shapps in 2010 and put the RSH’s focus almost exclusively on the governance and financial viability standards.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has been contacted for comment.
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