245
Housing Policies in the Light of Change THE FUTURE BILL WOOF,
Director, Housing Services Advisory Unit, Department of the Environment, Hon. Treasurer and Fellow of the Institute of Housing HENEVER ONE looks into the future there is
/ need
to refer to both past and present in order · to set the scene. This paper therefore starts with a brief backward glance and a short reference to the present day. Everyone seems to enjoy housing
expertise of one kind or other. It is a subject which finds popularity in debates and discussions at all levels. It is a fact that health and housing have long been interrelated. Indeed, when great squalor and disease existed in overcrowded and insanitary housing con-
ditions earlier this century, the combined forces of health and housing were marshalled to relieve the problems. For example, in one industrial town tuberculosis was rampant with almost one in five households seeking accommodation, having one or more members of the family suffering from pulmonary T.B. The almost total eradication of T.B. as a major killer is one of the great success stories of modern times. Had that level of success been achieved in solving housing problems then much of today’s debate would have been unnecessary. Successive governments have provided the legislation and financial framework within which local authorities, new towns, and housing associations have worked and indeed responded well. A quick look at the past quarter of a century reveals the substantial changes that have taken place. In 1950 there was a great shortage of dwellings almost everywhere. Little building during the war, allied to losses by bombing, contributed heavily to this problem. The immediate post-war building programme, great effort though it was, had little effect on the gross shortage. Slum clearance had been halted and there was a legacy of unfit properties. A huge increase in the number of new households (over 4 millions) took place from 1950 to the present day. Changes in social attitudes, with single head households and more importantly single person households emerging, rapidly threw up new housing problems. The increase in life expectancy created problems of another kind producing heavy demands for elderly persons accommodation. Politicians joined in the numbers game whereby the government of the day tried to build more houses than the last. This appeared to be an attractive solution, with targets being set and chased with great fervour by central and local government, and housebuilders.
policies and strategies were applied, the making decisions on what was needed and housing authorities responding to the demands placed Broad brush
centre
upon them.
Changes of direction, changes in standards, changes in fashion have all played their part. ’Bevan houses’, pre-fabs, the ’MacMillan’ house, deck access, high-rise, industrialized building, Parker Morris, yardstick are but a few of the influences which have affected the housing scene.
There has been too a considerable change in patterns of tenure. Today, 31 per cent of dwellings are public sector rented, 16 per cent are still in the private sector and 51 per cent are owner occupied. In 1951 the corresponding figures were 19 per cent public sector, 50 per cent private and 31 per cent owner occupied. HOUSING TODAY THE PUBLICATION of the Housing Policy Review allowed for the drawing together of the many strands of housing. In particular the technical volumes trace the history, review the current situation, give medium term forecasts, examine expenditure on both public and private housing, look at housing finance overall, examine the private sector, look at the housing stock and review foreign housing policies. The Housing Policy Review was the most comprehensive examination of housing ever attempted. Crude shortages have now been overtaken by crude surpluses and there is a tendency for certain people and organizations to glibly talk about the housing problem having been solved. From other sources representations continue to be made that far from a solution being achieved, the housing problem has got worse. There is no single housing problem balance sheets may show that there are more houses than householders but this plain fact conceals a whole range of housing difficulties. It is something of a paradox that whilst the vast majority of the population are better housed than ever before there remains a substantial minority in unacceptably low standard and poor housing and homelessness is still a daily news item. It is true however that there is now a great opportunity for standing back and taking a comprehensive review of policies and priorities. The picture varies from area to area and the shift from central broad brush strategies to local
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on June 4, 2015
-
246
strategies is embodied in the Housing Investment Programme (H.I.P.) approach. The main battle to overcome slum clearance has for the present been won. Housing action general improvement area action, home improvement grants, repairs grants, now bring great influence on decisions of whether to clear and demolish or rehabilitate. Large scale improvement of council-owned stock from 1969 to 1974 has brought about dramatic changes in the overall condition of much council housing and councils in their Section 105 spending since 1974 have continued to give high priority to improving their own ’between the wars’ stock. Indeed some post-war (1939-45) housing which showed signs of being difficult to let, now figures prominently in bids for improvement spending monies. To a very small degree there has been selective demolition of property which councils have decided is no longer manageable or lettable. The failure of such developments to survive has recently been the subject of research by the Social Research Division of the Department of the Environment under a label of ’Difficult to Let’. In the private sector the need for direct lending to allow access to unlettable, unimproved and usually unsellable (from the Building Societies standpoint) has seen councils re-directing priorities away from new build. Cuts in Local Authority direct lending meant for many councils a complete review of lending arrangements. The success of the Building Society Support scheme has been sporadic this year should see better results as Local Authorities and Building Societies ’get to know each other’ a little better. There is a growing awareness of the needs of special and vulnerable groups: the elderly more infirm, the single, the homeless, the disabled, ethnic minorities and battered wives. The Government have been right to emphasise the plight of such groups. We are seeing the emergence of tenant power with tenants associations, co-operatives, action groups and such like demanding more involvement in management and participation, greater freedom, greater security and response to rising expectations. The H.P.R. recognized many of these problems currently existing in the housing field. -
THE FUTURE THE OBJECTIVES stated by the Government and designed to be developed through a national housing policy were listed in the Green Paper: ’(i) The traditional aim of a decent home for all families at a price within their means must remain our primary objective. Many families are still living in unsatisfactory housing conditions. But we should no longer think about this only in terms of national totals. This may have made sense when there was an overwhelming absolute shortage of housing everywhere. It makes sense no longer. On the contrary, a national approach can draw attention and resources away from the areas with the most pressing needs. (ii) We must try to secure a better balance between investment in new houses and the improvement and repair of older houses, with regard to the needs of the individual and the community, as well as to cost. (iii) Housing costs should be a reasonably stable element in family finances. There are about 20 million home owners and householders in Great Britain tenants. A majority make rent or mortgage payments. They have shaped their household budgets around certain broad expectations about housing costs. They -
should not have to face sharp and disruptive increases in costs totally disproportionate to changes in their ability to pay. (iv) We must ensure that the housing needs of groups such as frail elderly people, the disabled and the handicapped are met. People with special problems should as far as possible be enabled to live in the community rather than in special residential care. In some cases the need is for specially designed or adapted housing, in others it is for help in obtaining ordinary
housing. (v) We in
must secure a reasonable degree of priority public rented sector housing and home
access to
for people in housing need who in the past have found themselves at the end of the queue. This includes for example some one-parent families, and middle-aged single people with modest incomes. They must not be left out in the cold. (vi) We must increase the scope for mobility in housing. It is essential, in a period of industrial change, that workers should be able to move house to change their job. (vii) We must make it easier for people to obtain the tenure they want. More and more people would like to become home owners, or to enter the newer forms of tenure combining some of the advantages of homc ownership and renting. We should not let our proper first concern for those who are badly housed lead us to overlook the reasonable housing ambitions of the community in general. As conditions ease, families should be able to look forward to widening opportunities for themselves, and for their children as they
ownership
grow up. (viii) We must safeguard the independence of tenants. All families have a right to expect a reasonable degree of freedom from interference in the way they use their homes.’
LOCAL HOUSING STRATEGIES THIS YEAR (1978/79) sees authorities preparing their second H.I.P.s. They will run from 1979/80 to 1982/83. A degree of sophistication and accuracy, (understandably missing from the first H.I.P.s) will be possible and perhaps for the first time an assessment of the full range of housing requirements, area by area, will be undertaken. Contributors to each local strategy will include various services and departments of the local authority, council members, residents groups and tenants associations, county councils, building societies, housebuilders, health authorities, housing associations and
voluntary organisations. The sharing of the national housing
cake through H.I.P. allocations should ensure that those regions with the greatest housing needs and priorities get the greatest amount in resource terms. At regional level, controllers will have built up an intelligence which allows them to direct resources to authorities in greatest need, to assist them with their solutions to such need.
BUILDING SOCIETIES ONE OF THE most regularly advanced criticisms is that of building societies not lending in areas of greatest need. They have of course to ensure that investors funds are protected whilst at the same time ensuring that valuers continue to be free from pressures to influence their assessments. Traditionally they have lent up market and although trends and statistics show a greater willingness to lend on older
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on June 4, 2015
247
property than
ever
before, they
must now,
as
partners
in a local housing strategy, make certain that the widest view is taken of where and on what property to lend. They must be prepared to support local authorities who have declared their faith in housing action, general improvement areas, and inner cities. Stagnation at the bottom of the housing market sends shudders right through to the higher priced property sales. Substantial lending on old property worthy of regeneration is a key issue in many inner city strategies. Without it, older parts of many towns and cities will continue to decay over a long period. HOME OWNERSHIP THE SCOPE for increased home ownership in the U.K. is substantial. How long it will be before 55 per cent or even 60 per cent of householders are owneroccupiers is difficult to forecast. One estimate is that nearly 60 per cent will be reached by 1990. Even with certain councils embarking on all out sales and cutting back on council house-building, it is certain that the movement overall nationally to increased owner occupancy will be slow. People will continue to aspire to home ownership. Many will, if asked, say they want to buy their own home but aspiration and realization are often some way apart. It must be remembered that even when there were no restrictions on council house sales, the actual sales fell way below the forecasts.
TENANT POWER AS TENANTS press for more say in the management of their houses, in how they are maintained, improved, and even let, there is bound to be an increased pressure resulting in greater power being invested in the tenants themselves. The Tenants’ Charter is a mixture of security of tenure, tenancy agreements, freedom to make improvements, to take in lodgers and for better and more responsive man-
THE REALIZATION OF THE GREEN PAPER
OBJECTIVES A GOOD deal of legislation will emerge from the Housing Policy Review but there are numerous matters raised in the Green Paper that can be dealt with by consensus and agreement. For example initiatives towards striking the right balance as between new and improvement and repair are already developing in H.I.P.s. A DECENT HOME HOUSING AUTHORITIES have responded to the clearance of slums, to defeating overcrowding, to improving existing stock in such a way as to have reached towards the target of a decent home for all. There still remains however a substantial minority whose housing is a national scandal. Whilst the greater majority of the population live in better conditions than ever before a section of the nation’s households are still in great housing need. It is for housing authorities to measure this need and to show that resources ought to be directed their way to overcome it through well defined local plans and strategies.
NEW-V-IMPROVEMENT AND REPAIR THERE IS a tendency to argue the case as if one solution were better then the other. There will always be a case for new build and there will always be a need to improve and repair existing stock. Dwellings, estates, areas will inevitably decline and no matter how much investment is applied. die Increasing numbers of new households appear to continue to form despite the lowering birth rate. The stock needs therefore to be part renewed and added to. The destruction of older areas by massive clearance was arrested some few years ago and dwellings which perhaps a decade ago would have been cleared are now improved and retained. Striking the right balance is for local decision. -
agement. Consumer organizations, tenants associations and certain pressure groups will continue to press for a better deal for public sector tenants. Such actions will create increases in expenditure how much and who pays remain unanswered questions. -
ACCESS TO COUNCIL HOUSING THERE ARE still too many barriers for certain of those seeking council housing. Allocation schemes
and local housing policies are individually designed, often because of local influences and demands and there is for example tremendous variety in how one family in one part of the country is dealt with as opposed to a similar family in another part of the
country. Demands for the removal of residential barriers continue to grow and access to council housing for all those who wish it is an objective to be reached for. In industry and commerce there are growing demands for mobility of labour to be intensified. This leads to a need for liberalization of housing allocation policies but many local authorities jealously guard their housing stock and create schemes which deter the ’outsider’ and favour the ’local’. There are good reasons at times for this stance but if only a small percentage of rented housing was set aside for families moving for employment or even social reasons, the trap which encloses the occupants of the rented sector would be sprung.
HOUSING COSTS AND FAMILY FINANCES CHEAP HOUSING has become a firmly established part of family finances. Subsidies both to public sector tenants and owner occupiers are generous. To attempt to interfere with the subsidies at a time of pay restraint is a task that most Governments would have shied away from. The movement towards paying more for housing will need to be gradual and spread over many years. SPECIAL NEEDS - ACCESS - MOBILITY MANY HOUSING authorities now recognise the special needs of the elderly, the disabled, the disadvantaged. They have directed their priorities towards solving special groups needs and re-designed allocation policies to account for many of them. There still remains a good deal to be done - the removal of restrictive barriers to access and allocation must be the aim of all in housing. as Industrial strategies demand mobility of labour a nation Britain is still behind its competitors in this respect. Local authorities need to allow for across boundaries transfer and exchanges in their policy mak-
ing. FREEDOM THERE HAS been a wide debate on the Tenants’ Charter. There has been considerable emphasis on security for the tenant and freedom from interference
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on June 4, 2015
248 in the way he uses his home. Perhaps not enough has been said about obligations on the tenant to perform his part in what is a two party agreement. Both landlord both have obligand tenant have an entitlement ations, greater freedom for tenants brings with it -
greater responsibilities.
HOUSING RESOURCES FINALLY IT must be stated that the
success
of any
housing service, or housing strategy or housing policy, depends on having the resources to achieve it. Housing must continue to have a high priority in Treasury spending, there must also be the right kind of trained manpower and in sufficient numbers to achieve objectives.
HOUSING INVESTMENT PROGRAMMES: NEED AND PROBLEMS C. D. DARLEY, F.R.S.H., F.E.H.A., A.I.H.,
Director
Wirral
o f Housing and Borough Council
MATTER OF
Government
some
Environmental Health
twelve months ago the
formally introduced their new system of expenditure controls in respect of the composite housing services provided by Local Authorities (including their impact on private sector housing). The system was to be known as that of an allocation control which would be formally described as the Local Authorities’ Housing Investment Programme for which annual bids and allocations would be met by Central Government. The system of control had been
suggested before the first reference appeared in the Housing Green Paper, and whilst this was a discussive document it should be pointed out that discussions were, in my view, both limited and hurried to achieve the element of control which was wanted by Central Government. The Green Paper and Circular relating to Housing Investment Programmes suggested the need for Local Authorities to look broadly at their housing strategy and also indicated that there would be
a level of flexibility to enable Local Authorities to develop their strategies, though they recognised that there could be problems in the early years. It is my view that the Housing Investment Programme process is merely a means of controlling public expenditure in the housing field, it is within such narrow confines that it virtually enables Central Government to control the local hous-
ing
scene.
The Minister has constantly said that housing is very much a local problem and that national statistics mean very little to individual Local Authorities. This, to me, is merely a play on words for whilst the Government expresses this view they, nevertheless, support the national scene by making reference constantly to national statistics. Furthermore, District Councils now have to develop their housing strategies in accordance with a system of allocation control. No doubt the control of allocation is related to the national economy, and having determined nationally what slice of the cake is to be allocated to housing it is then split up among the various Regional Offices. The Regional Officers then have the difficult task of allocating the monies district by district and Local Authorities are expected to build up their housing strategy within the limits of a financial allocation, determined first centrally at Whitehall, sec-
at Regional Offices and thirdly, no doubt, Local Authorities are expected to take account of County Structure Planning proposals. This means that in the development of their local strategy, Authorities have to take into account the views of at least three other this is hardly the solution of a local outside bodies problem. Nevertheless, it is necessary to look into the problem of housing in the United Kingdom before relating that problem to Housing Investment Programmes.
ondly
-
HOUSING HISTORY THE SUBJECT of housing is one which has been often studied and researched, frequently quoted by politi-
cians, acted upon by pressure groups, complained
tenants and wished for by the homeless but is it understood. Furthermore, it should be rarely pointed out that it is unusual for housing aspirations to be met, but whilst this is rarely accepted by the tenant or prospective tenant in housing terms, it is, strange enough, accepted insofar as all other consumables are concerned. Perhaps, too, it should be pointed out that the standards and form, orientation and purpose have changed in the last 150 years but one might question as to the extent that change was required or successful. Before the Industrial Revolution this, like most other nations, was virtually based on a rural economy. Such industry as did exist was, for the most part, cottage based, but during the Industrial Revolution and since, a number of dramatic changes began. Except for the old cities and towns, houses were orientated around farms and mansions and provided for families giving services to landowners. The dwellings provided met the needs of the community and families as a whole. However, with the Industrial Revolution, housing developed cheek by jowl with industry, industrialists often providing housing accommodation for their employees. (Some social historians have suggested that the provision of housing by industrialists was philanthropically based but I, personally, would disagree with that philosophy particularly expressed by ecclesiastical and social historians.) Whilst the provision of housing accommodation provided for a particular need, it must be understood that the employer, as a result of provid-
about
by
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on June 4, 2015
Housing Policies in the Light of Change THE FUTURE BILL WOOF,
Director, Housing Services Advisory Unit, Department of the Environment, Hon. Treasurer and Fellow of the Institute of Housing HENEVER ONE looks into the future there is
/ need
to refer to both past and present in order · to set the scene. This paper therefore starts with a brief backward glance and a short reference to the present day. Everyone seems to enjoy housing
expertise of one kind or other. It is a subject which finds popularity in debates and discussions at all levels. It is a fact that health and housing have long been interrelated. Indeed, when great squalor and disease existed in overcrowded and insanitary housing con-
ditions earlier this century, the combined forces of health and housing were marshalled to relieve the problems. For example, in one industrial town tuberculosis was rampant with almost one in five households seeking accommodation, having one or more members of the family suffering from pulmonary T.B. The almost total eradication of T.B. as a major killer is one of the great success stories of modern times. Had that level of success been achieved in solving housing problems then much of today’s debate would have been unnecessary. Successive governments have provided the legislation and financial framework within which local authorities, new towns, and housing associations have worked and indeed responded well. A quick look at the past quarter of a century reveals the substantial changes that have taken place. In 1950 there was a great shortage of dwellings almost everywhere. Little building during the war, allied to losses by bombing, contributed heavily to this problem. The immediate post-war building programme, great effort though it was, had little effect on the gross shortage. Slum clearance had been halted and there was a legacy of unfit properties. A huge increase in the number of new households (over 4 millions) took place from 1950 to the present day. Changes in social attitudes, with single head households and more importantly single person households emerging, rapidly threw up new housing problems. The increase in life expectancy created problems of another kind producing heavy demands for elderly persons accommodation. Politicians joined in the numbers game whereby the government of the day tried to build more houses than the last. This appeared to be an attractive solution, with targets being set and chased with great fervour by central and local government, and housebuilders.
policies and strategies were applied, the making decisions on what was needed and housing authorities responding to the demands placed Broad brush
centre
upon them.
Changes of direction, changes in standards, changes in fashion have all played their part. ’Bevan houses’, pre-fabs, the ’MacMillan’ house, deck access, high-rise, industrialized building, Parker Morris, yardstick are but a few of the influences which have affected the housing scene.
There has been too a considerable change in patterns of tenure. Today, 31 per cent of dwellings are public sector rented, 16 per cent are still in the private sector and 51 per cent are owner occupied. In 1951 the corresponding figures were 19 per cent public sector, 50 per cent private and 31 per cent owner occupied. HOUSING TODAY THE PUBLICATION of the Housing Policy Review allowed for the drawing together of the many strands of housing. In particular the technical volumes trace the history, review the current situation, give medium term forecasts, examine expenditure on both public and private housing, look at housing finance overall, examine the private sector, look at the housing stock and review foreign housing policies. The Housing Policy Review was the most comprehensive examination of housing ever attempted. Crude shortages have now been overtaken by crude surpluses and there is a tendency for certain people and organizations to glibly talk about the housing problem having been solved. From other sources representations continue to be made that far from a solution being achieved, the housing problem has got worse. There is no single housing problem balance sheets may show that there are more houses than householders but this plain fact conceals a whole range of housing difficulties. It is something of a paradox that whilst the vast majority of the population are better housed than ever before there remains a substantial minority in unacceptably low standard and poor housing and homelessness is still a daily news item. It is true however that there is now a great opportunity for standing back and taking a comprehensive review of policies and priorities. The picture varies from area to area and the shift from central broad brush strategies to local
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on June 4, 2015
-
246
strategies is embodied in the Housing Investment Programme (H.I.P.) approach. The main battle to overcome slum clearance has for the present been won. Housing action general improvement area action, home improvement grants, repairs grants, now bring great influence on decisions of whether to clear and demolish or rehabilitate. Large scale improvement of council-owned stock from 1969 to 1974 has brought about dramatic changes in the overall condition of much council housing and councils in their Section 105 spending since 1974 have continued to give high priority to improving their own ’between the wars’ stock. Indeed some post-war (1939-45) housing which showed signs of being difficult to let, now figures prominently in bids for improvement spending monies. To a very small degree there has been selective demolition of property which councils have decided is no longer manageable or lettable. The failure of such developments to survive has recently been the subject of research by the Social Research Division of the Department of the Environment under a label of ’Difficult to Let’. In the private sector the need for direct lending to allow access to unlettable, unimproved and usually unsellable (from the Building Societies standpoint) has seen councils re-directing priorities away from new build. Cuts in Local Authority direct lending meant for many councils a complete review of lending arrangements. The success of the Building Society Support scheme has been sporadic this year should see better results as Local Authorities and Building Societies ’get to know each other’ a little better. There is a growing awareness of the needs of special and vulnerable groups: the elderly more infirm, the single, the homeless, the disabled, ethnic minorities and battered wives. The Government have been right to emphasise the plight of such groups. We are seeing the emergence of tenant power with tenants associations, co-operatives, action groups and such like demanding more involvement in management and participation, greater freedom, greater security and response to rising expectations. The H.P.R. recognized many of these problems currently existing in the housing field. -
THE FUTURE THE OBJECTIVES stated by the Government and designed to be developed through a national housing policy were listed in the Green Paper: ’(i) The traditional aim of a decent home for all families at a price within their means must remain our primary objective. Many families are still living in unsatisfactory housing conditions. But we should no longer think about this only in terms of national totals. This may have made sense when there was an overwhelming absolute shortage of housing everywhere. It makes sense no longer. On the contrary, a national approach can draw attention and resources away from the areas with the most pressing needs. (ii) We must try to secure a better balance between investment in new houses and the improvement and repair of older houses, with regard to the needs of the individual and the community, as well as to cost. (iii) Housing costs should be a reasonably stable element in family finances. There are about 20 million home owners and householders in Great Britain tenants. A majority make rent or mortgage payments. They have shaped their household budgets around certain broad expectations about housing costs. They -
should not have to face sharp and disruptive increases in costs totally disproportionate to changes in their ability to pay. (iv) We must ensure that the housing needs of groups such as frail elderly people, the disabled and the handicapped are met. People with special problems should as far as possible be enabled to live in the community rather than in special residential care. In some cases the need is for specially designed or adapted housing, in others it is for help in obtaining ordinary
housing. (v) We in
must secure a reasonable degree of priority public rented sector housing and home
access to
for people in housing need who in the past have found themselves at the end of the queue. This includes for example some one-parent families, and middle-aged single people with modest incomes. They must not be left out in the cold. (vi) We must increase the scope for mobility in housing. It is essential, in a period of industrial change, that workers should be able to move house to change their job. (vii) We must make it easier for people to obtain the tenure they want. More and more people would like to become home owners, or to enter the newer forms of tenure combining some of the advantages of homc ownership and renting. We should not let our proper first concern for those who are badly housed lead us to overlook the reasonable housing ambitions of the community in general. As conditions ease, families should be able to look forward to widening opportunities for themselves, and for their children as they
ownership
grow up. (viii) We must safeguard the independence of tenants. All families have a right to expect a reasonable degree of freedom from interference in the way they use their homes.’
LOCAL HOUSING STRATEGIES THIS YEAR (1978/79) sees authorities preparing their second H.I.P.s. They will run from 1979/80 to 1982/83. A degree of sophistication and accuracy, (understandably missing from the first H.I.P.s) will be possible and perhaps for the first time an assessment of the full range of housing requirements, area by area, will be undertaken. Contributors to each local strategy will include various services and departments of the local authority, council members, residents groups and tenants associations, county councils, building societies, housebuilders, health authorities, housing associations and
voluntary organisations. The sharing of the national housing
cake through H.I.P. allocations should ensure that those regions with the greatest housing needs and priorities get the greatest amount in resource terms. At regional level, controllers will have built up an intelligence which allows them to direct resources to authorities in greatest need, to assist them with their solutions to such need.
BUILDING SOCIETIES ONE OF THE most regularly advanced criticisms is that of building societies not lending in areas of greatest need. They have of course to ensure that investors funds are protected whilst at the same time ensuring that valuers continue to be free from pressures to influence their assessments. Traditionally they have lent up market and although trends and statistics show a greater willingness to lend on older
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on June 4, 2015
247
property than
ever
before, they
must now,
as
partners
in a local housing strategy, make certain that the widest view is taken of where and on what property to lend. They must be prepared to support local authorities who have declared their faith in housing action, general improvement areas, and inner cities. Stagnation at the bottom of the housing market sends shudders right through to the higher priced property sales. Substantial lending on old property worthy of regeneration is a key issue in many inner city strategies. Without it, older parts of many towns and cities will continue to decay over a long period. HOME OWNERSHIP THE SCOPE for increased home ownership in the U.K. is substantial. How long it will be before 55 per cent or even 60 per cent of householders are owneroccupiers is difficult to forecast. One estimate is that nearly 60 per cent will be reached by 1990. Even with certain councils embarking on all out sales and cutting back on council house-building, it is certain that the movement overall nationally to increased owner occupancy will be slow. People will continue to aspire to home ownership. Many will, if asked, say they want to buy their own home but aspiration and realization are often some way apart. It must be remembered that even when there were no restrictions on council house sales, the actual sales fell way below the forecasts.
TENANT POWER AS TENANTS press for more say in the management of their houses, in how they are maintained, improved, and even let, there is bound to be an increased pressure resulting in greater power being invested in the tenants themselves. The Tenants’ Charter is a mixture of security of tenure, tenancy agreements, freedom to make improvements, to take in lodgers and for better and more responsive man-
THE REALIZATION OF THE GREEN PAPER
OBJECTIVES A GOOD deal of legislation will emerge from the Housing Policy Review but there are numerous matters raised in the Green Paper that can be dealt with by consensus and agreement. For example initiatives towards striking the right balance as between new and improvement and repair are already developing in H.I.P.s. A DECENT HOME HOUSING AUTHORITIES have responded to the clearance of slums, to defeating overcrowding, to improving existing stock in such a way as to have reached towards the target of a decent home for all. There still remains however a substantial minority whose housing is a national scandal. Whilst the greater majority of the population live in better conditions than ever before a section of the nation’s households are still in great housing need. It is for housing authorities to measure this need and to show that resources ought to be directed their way to overcome it through well defined local plans and strategies.
NEW-V-IMPROVEMENT AND REPAIR THERE IS a tendency to argue the case as if one solution were better then the other. There will always be a case for new build and there will always be a need to improve and repair existing stock. Dwellings, estates, areas will inevitably decline and no matter how much investment is applied. die Increasing numbers of new households appear to continue to form despite the lowering birth rate. The stock needs therefore to be part renewed and added to. The destruction of older areas by massive clearance was arrested some few years ago and dwellings which perhaps a decade ago would have been cleared are now improved and retained. Striking the right balance is for local decision. -
agement. Consumer organizations, tenants associations and certain pressure groups will continue to press for a better deal for public sector tenants. Such actions will create increases in expenditure how much and who pays remain unanswered questions. -
ACCESS TO COUNCIL HOUSING THERE ARE still too many barriers for certain of those seeking council housing. Allocation schemes
and local housing policies are individually designed, often because of local influences and demands and there is for example tremendous variety in how one family in one part of the country is dealt with as opposed to a similar family in another part of the
country. Demands for the removal of residential barriers continue to grow and access to council housing for all those who wish it is an objective to be reached for. In industry and commerce there are growing demands for mobility of labour to be intensified. This leads to a need for liberalization of housing allocation policies but many local authorities jealously guard their housing stock and create schemes which deter the ’outsider’ and favour the ’local’. There are good reasons at times for this stance but if only a small percentage of rented housing was set aside for families moving for employment or even social reasons, the trap which encloses the occupants of the rented sector would be sprung.
HOUSING COSTS AND FAMILY FINANCES CHEAP HOUSING has become a firmly established part of family finances. Subsidies both to public sector tenants and owner occupiers are generous. To attempt to interfere with the subsidies at a time of pay restraint is a task that most Governments would have shied away from. The movement towards paying more for housing will need to be gradual and spread over many years. SPECIAL NEEDS - ACCESS - MOBILITY MANY HOUSING authorities now recognise the special needs of the elderly, the disabled, the disadvantaged. They have directed their priorities towards solving special groups needs and re-designed allocation policies to account for many of them. There still remains a good deal to be done - the removal of restrictive barriers to access and allocation must be the aim of all in housing. as Industrial strategies demand mobility of labour a nation Britain is still behind its competitors in this respect. Local authorities need to allow for across boundaries transfer and exchanges in their policy mak-
ing. FREEDOM THERE HAS been a wide debate on the Tenants’ Charter. There has been considerable emphasis on security for the tenant and freedom from interference
Downloaded from rsh.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on June 4, 2015
248 in the way he uses his home. Perhaps not enough has been said about obligations on the tenant to perform his part in what is a two party agreement. Both landlord both have obligand tenant have an entitlement ations, greater freedom for tenants brings with it -
greater responsibilities.
HOUSING RESOURCES FINALLY IT must be stated that the
success
of any
housing service, or housing strategy or housing policy, depends on having the resources to achieve it. Housing must continue to have a high priority in Treasury spending, there must also be the right kind of trained manpower and in sufficient numbers to achieve objectives.
HOUSING INVESTMENT PROGRAMMES: NEED AND PROBLEMS C. D. DARLEY, F.R.S.H., F.E.H.A., A.I.H.,
Director
Wirral
o f Housing and Borough Council
MATTER OF
Government
some
Environmental Health
twelve months ago the
formally introduced their new system of expenditure controls in respect of the composite housing services provided by Local Authorities (including their impact on private sector housing). The system was to be known as that of an allocation control which would be formally described as the Local Authorities’ Housing Investment Programme for which annual bids and allocations would be met by Central Government. The system of control had been
suggested before the first reference appeared in the Housing Green Paper, and whilst this was a discussive document it should be pointed out that discussions were, in my view, both limited and hurried to achieve the element of control which was wanted by Central Government. The Green Paper and Circular relating to Housing Investment Programmes suggested the need for Local Authorities to look broadly at their housing strategy and also indicated that there would be
a level of flexibility to enable Local Authorities to develop their strategies, though they recognised that there could be problems in the early years. It is my view that the Housing Investment Programme process is merely a means of controlling public expenditure in the housing field, it is within such narrow confines that it virtually enables Central Government to control the local hous-
ing
scene.
The Minister has constantly said that housing is very much a local problem and that national statistics mean very little to individual Local Authorities. This, to me, is merely a play on words for whilst the Government expresses this view they, nevertheless, support the national scene by making reference constantly to national statistics. Furthermore, District Councils now have to develop their housing strategies in accordance with a system of allocation control. No doubt the control of allocation is related to the national economy, and having determined nationally what slice of the cake is to be allocated to housing it is then split up among the various Regional Offices. The Regional Officers then have the difficult task of allocating the monies district by district and Local Authorities are expected to build up their housing strategy within the limits of a financial allocation, determined first centrally at Whitehall, sec-
at Regional Offices and thirdly, no doubt, Local Authorities are expected to take account of County Structure Planning proposals. This means that in the development of their local strategy, Authorities have to take into account the views of at least three other this is hardly the solution of a local outside bodies problem. Nevertheless, it is necessary to look into the problem of housing in the United Kingdom before relating that problem to Housing Investment Programmes.
ondly
-
HOUSING HISTORY THE SUBJECT of housing is one which has been often studied and researched, frequently quoted by politi-
cians, acted upon by pressure groups, complained
tenants and wished for by the homeless but is it understood. Furthermore, it should be rarely pointed out that it is unusual for housing aspirations to be met, but whilst this is rarely accepted by the tenant or prospective tenant in housing terms, it is, strange enough, accepted insofar as all other consumables are concerned. Perhaps, too, it should be pointed out that the standards and form, orientation and purpose have changed in the last 150 years but one might question as to the extent that change was required or successful. Before the Industrial Revolution this, like most other nations, was virtually based on a rural economy. Such industry as did exist was, for the most part, cottage based, but during the Industrial Revolution and since, a number of dramatic changes began. Except for the old cities and towns, houses were orientated around farms and mansions and provided for families giving services to landowners. The dwellings provided met the needs of the community and families as a whole. However, with the Industrial Revolution, housing developed cheek by jowl with industry, industrialists often providing housing accommodation for their employees. (Some social historians have suggested that the provision of housing by industrialists was philanthropically based but I, personally, would disagree with that philosophy particularly expressed by ecclesiastical and social historians.) Whilst the provision of housing accommodation provided for a particular need, it must be understood that the employer, as a result of provid-
about
by
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