Approaches to tenant participation in the private rented sector in Northern Island

average on employment and economic activity appears to have stalled, and unemployment rates have begun to move away from the average again. The causes of residualisation are also examined. Right to buy took large numbers of better-off tenants out of the social sector. But residualisation has happened in other countries without such a policy, and residualisation in the UK continued after the peak of RTB, Tunstall argues. Other explanations include the increasing emphasis on housing those in greatest need, including homeless people. Changes in the tenure system, demographics, and patterns of demand, and structural employment change are also possibilities.

This leads to a discussion of explanations for de-residualisation, including whether there is a ‘natural limit’ to this effect, stabilisation of income inequality, and demographic change.

The deresidualisation of social housing in England https://bit.ly/3h46N9w

Approaches to tenant participation in the private rented sector in Northern Ireland

The rapid growth of the private rented sector since the start of the new millennium has characterised housing markets in all advanced Anglophone economies, write Joe Frey and Paul Hickman.

This growth was driven by a combination of economic and socio-demographic factors that together with government policies led to a shortage of social housing and a growing affordability problem for first-time buyers. In Northern Ireland, as in other regions of the UK, almost one fifth of households now live in the PRS. However, while tenant participation has become firmly embedded in the social housing policy landscape, comparable policy and practice does not exist for the PRS. The Department for Communities in Northern Ireland is addressing this issue and as part of this process commissioned the Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) to undertake a small NI-focused study to examine the challenges of extending tenant participation in the PRS.

The study was completed in April 2021. It comprised: a rapid review of the relevant literature; 11 in-depth interviews with stakeholders representing a range of organisations in the public, private, and voluntary sectors; and a focus group with core members of an existing collective tenant participation vehicle in Northern Ireland: Renters’ Voice.

The key findings, which will be published shortly in a report, are: • Research participants recognised the potential advantages of extending tenant participation in the PRS for all stakeholders. There was a consensus that involving tenants through collective participation mechanisms would lead to better government policy and decision making.

Tenants would benefit from ‘smoother’ tenancies, better mental health, and greater agency, while landlords would benefit from increased yields – the result of tenants being more likely to look after their homes and pay the rent. • Participants were also acutely aware of the challenges of extending tenant participation in the PRS in Northern Ireland. Significant barriers included: the absence of any regulatory requirement for private landlords to engage with their tenants; the high turnover characteristic of the sector meaning that tenants are less invested in the sector and therefore less motivated to become involved; and the high proportion of small landlords (four fifths of all landlords in Northern Ireland own only one or two properties), many of whom were disconnected and difficult to engage. • Nevertheless, the study made a number of practical recommendations that could facilitate a government-led strategy for extending tenant participation in the PRS. These included the importance of consultation with key stakeholders from across the sector; the need for adequate resourcing and the introduction of a light-touch regulatory framework; providing both incentives for landlords and evidence of the commercial benefits of greater engagement with their tenants; and, finally, based on experience from the social rented sector, the importance of starting small and extending incrementally over time. • The study also recognised that the context for tenant participation in social housing is very different from the PRS and that lessons cannot