They think it’s all over...

Set against the backdrop of the World Cup 2010 and the much-anticipated emergency Budget, this year’s Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) conference and exhibition in Harrogate was always going to be eventful

With the dust still settling after the General Election and the new coalition Government at the helm the mood was one of nervous anticipation as delegates awaited news of where the axe would fall and what kind of future social housing faces under the new political regime.

Of course the recession and future financing were on the agenda with sessions entitled “Economic Realities” and “Do More with Less” and maintaining services with reduced budgets was a running theme throughout many of the seminars and keynote speeches.

“What does ‘I agree with Nick and Dave’ mean for housing” explored the coalition’s policies and principles, while new build, retrofit and the planning system were also areas of focus.

The conference opened with a speech from then CIHP resident Howard Farrand who acknowledged that the sector is learning to “live with considerable uncertainty” and must “face up to a prolonged period of austerity”, but spoke of a “desire for change” and hope for the future. “My biggest fear is that we’re reaching a time that equates social renting with broken Britain. And where we regard deprived communities as the price worth paying for tackling the budget deficit,” he said.

“Whilst we become more and more aware of poverty and disadvantage, of vulnerable people being left behind, we will also have to struggle with the harsh realities of running our own businesses in a climate of austerity, withdrawing services, losing colleagues and shelving projects.”

He said that this was the reality not just of recession or new political rhetoric but of a housing system that isn’t working and hasn’t been working for some time and which requires radical new thinking and while there has been intervention to stabilise the markets nothing has been done to address systematic problems.

“But in looking at the programme for government I do see some hope,” he said, speaking of the coalition’s “bold ambitions” including a new role for local government and local communities in actively shaping housing markets, fundamental reforms of the planning system, changes to local and national taxation and financial incentives to build local homes. But he warned careful implementation is needed and CIH will be applying its own tests to ensure delivery.

The sector needs to maintain a strategic view looking beyond local authority areas and can’t lose sight of the needs of all people including the vulnerable and unpopular. It must also work hard so that “devolved responsibilities don’t become a poisoned chalice for local councils, local organisations and local communities” by putting or keeping local capacity in place and not seeing it as an easy cut. It needs to be clear that localism doesn’t mean councils doing everything themselves, he said.

“In housing we have seen the advantages of housing associations, private companies, tenants’ organisations, community providers and statutory agencies all working well together. This needs to be strengthened under effective local leadership and accountability not diminished. And, as we pool budgets this will be even more important,” said Farrand.

“We need to take forward our ‘House Proud Campaign’ and make sure that local leaders know housing matters as much as health, as much as education. This is not an either or situation.

“We aren’t addressing the health problems of a patient if we discharge them from hospital back in to a run-down home. Free-schools won’t succeed if a child is trying to study in a two bed-flat shared with six other people. And an older person’s social care needs won’t be affordable and won’t be met if we don’t get their housing right.”

He went on to say that housing can play a part in the economic recovery and that building an extra 100,000 homes could mean almost half a million jobs, bringing in close to £6 billion in tax receipts and reducing the benefit bill, while retrofitting could stimulate manufacturing in places where traditional industries have declined.

Farrand said that it was right that the sector should face scrutiny on how it delivers value for money, including a closer look at how to unlock balance sheet capacity, adding the sector must deliver on its commitments to tenants to continue to improve the decency of their homes and to provide the right services – right first time.

Those in local government need to work with government on its review of the HRA and push hard at further reforms, he said. “CIH research has estimated that we could build an additional 100,000 homes in the next five years but only if government is prepared to bring public housing classification in line with our colleagues across Europe.”

Greater attention needs to be paid to the private rented sector he said. “With the recommendations of the Rugg Review having being ruled out, the onus shifts to us.”

While Farrand does not doubt that there are tough times ahead, he also believes that there are opportunities which should be grasped.

“Listening to colleagues over this past year it has struck me that there is a desire for change. Not just tinkering around the edges of existing policy but of more fundamental change,” he said. “Even in an environment of austerity the one thing we can still afford is better ideas. This new government has a genuine opportunity to make a real difference in improving the lives of tenants, residents and communities.”

It’s only just beginning...

Fundamental change is certainly here. It arrived personified as Housing Minister Grant Shapps, who testified in his meetings and public speaking to delegates at the event the nature of the changes the new government has in mind. Quite what the sector makes of this, or indeed is able to do with the powers (real or apparent) it has been promised can only be fleshed out in practice over time.

Shapps wouldn’t be a politician if he didn’t get a dig in at his predecessors from the other side, but for once his jibe was beyond reasonable doubt when he alluded to the rapid turnover of housing ministers in recent years. After all, as Sarah Webb earlier pointed out: “Minister, as I know you’re aware, our sector has unfortunately become accustomed to seeing someone new sitting in your seat each year.”

There’s a serious point, of course, that the sector has lacked the kind of consistent – indeed persistent – political focal point needed to build momentum, let alone houses. So Shapps, hoping that he’ll be around this time next year, is set to become that focal point.

“So, another year, another housing minister,” Shapps said. “I think it’s fair to say that there has been a long tradition of housing ministers coming to CIH only to find they they’ve been moved on by the following year’s conference. If a week is a long time in politics, then a year has proved an eternity for recent housing ministers... I’ve shadowed these ministers as they’ve been pulling levers, pushing buttons and blowing whistles – to no effect. And I’ve waited impatiently to be here. So what do I want to do now I have my hands on those levers? That’s simple. I want to hand the levers over to you.”

Given the oft-repeated warnings that ‘there’s no money left’ and the subsequent public spending cuts, it’s tempting to suggest there is precious little else that the Housing Minister can give to the sector. M aybe it’s not so ‘precious little’ at all, but rather – after an era of centralisation – it is the biggest favour the minister can grant the sector. Time will tell.

Some might call this government walking away from the frontline; indeed the question was raised as to whether this handing over of power wasn’t an abdication of responsibilities, but Shapps was having none of that. He sees his role as setting the framework, ‘compering’ the localism agenda, if it can be put in those terms, rather than directing from on high. It’s all about that localism, which the government has made its big ‘feel good’ theme to form a counter-point to its message of deficit-reduction cost cutting.

So, it’s over to the housing sector, in all its forms, to put the flesh onto the bare paper bones of this agenda. Certainly, this was food for thought for delegates at Harrogate, but for the intriguing possibilities that decentralisation brings, what is gained on the one hand, may slip out of the other if the revenue raising aspects of the Government’s thinking fails to materialise.

It may be refreshing for the sector to encounter a politician who expresses no ideological commitment (or philosophical preference, as the minister put it) to one form of housing provider over another, but without money on the table to deliver new homes and maintain services, it may be a moot point.

Still, the sector is used to putting the concept of more for less into practice. At Harrogate, it simply gleaned an insight into how much more intense that process must become. In one sense, then, it’s business as usual, just under tighter circumstances.

Times of rapid change are always bewildering. There are threats and risks aplenty in this new age, but the lay of the land that is promised may create much greater room for manoeuvre and inspiration for a burst of creative thinking. The one certainty for the sector is that there is work to be done.