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Council House
Local Government
Chronicle - 26 June 2007
Is the council house about to make a come-back? Certainly some important decisions are pending which could life council housing out of the policy ghetto where it has languished for the best part of a political generation.
A decade ago mention of council houses conjured up visions of soulless estates, disembowelled vehicles propped up wheel-less on a pile of bricks, vandalised bus-shelters, and, too often, dysfunctional families. Right-to-buy gave a route into private ownership for the aspirational working-class; housing associations took over the role of building social housing; then transfer became the preferred means to deliver cash for investment.
The Labour Government barely deflected this trajectory. It made Right-to-Buy more restrictive but refused to end it. It allowed councils to shuffle their stock into Arms Length Management Organisations as an alternative to transfer. In 2005 it required councils to make an appraisal based on the three options of PFI, stock transfer or ALMOs. The demands of the hardy bunch of unrepentant Labour MPs for a “fourth options” of funding council repair and new build were swatted away with cursory regularity by John Prescott.
The term “council housing” itself seemed to slip from Labour’s vocabulary. By a process of verbal elision “affordable” became the catch-all phrase for housing at below-market rates while the Government recited the mantra of home ownership with an almost moral fervour.
Now Gordon Brown put housing alongside the health service as a prime ministerial priority and the bedraggled little army of Fourth Option apostles has dared to believe that it will yet see the second coming of the council house.
They may be disappointed. Gordon Brown might well say he will look at their case, but in the comprehensive spending review climate he may well find better ways of moving policy forward.
One of them is offered by the 103 local authorities who retain ownership of some 800,000 council houses. They include such models of socialist paternalism as Wandsworth and Westminster. Many have signed off on 30-year business plans and many have agreed pretty rigorous bench-marking arrangements. They are confident enough to have created the Association of Retained Council Housing a year ago to provide focussed lobbying of Government and Parliament.
Another is the 65-strong group of ALMOs (including Sheffield, Sandwell, Nottingham and a string of London boroughs) whose combined stock now tops 1m properties and is fast closing on the transfer associations. Given that the transfer policy is approaching its twentieth birthday whilst ALMOs have been around for five only it is clear where the momentum currently lies – and how fraught winning tenants’ ballots has become in face of a concentrated campaign from the Save Council Housing campaign.
The big decision for a Brown administration is whether to equalise the regimes the three big blocks of social housing providers work under. The recent Cave report suggests a common regulatory framework – transfer authorities fall under the Housing Corporation whilst ALMOs and retained housing authorities answer essentially to the Audit Commission.
But there is also a demand to loosen the financial constraints on councils retaining stock and on ALMOs. Housing associations can access social housing grant with a one-star performance: ALMOs need three stars to do this and two stars to receive decent homes funding. Most important, unlike transfer associations, they cannot get hold of private finance outside the public spending rules. Retained housing councils want to have the options of holding on to their housing revenue account receipts instead of handing it over to the Government and receiving grants for limited purposes. Across the piece enhanced rights for and participation of tenants is rising up the agenda.
The Government has promised to chew these issues over. It is already digesting the Hills Report on how social housing can promote social mobility. What is certain is that the world has changed since the broad consensus in favour of transfer held sway in the late ‘90s. The Barker Report (commissioned by Gordon brown) quantified the need for more houses to meet a growing and changing population and has undoubtedly shifted the debate. The escalating crisis of affordability has given it political edge. The emergence of localist agendas across the political parties provides a rationale. The need for regeneration so that social housing no longer traps people in catchment areas of poor performance offers a purpose.
A new consensus could just be emerging.
© Local Government Chronicle
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