News in brief

News analysis by Mark Lawrence

Is it any wonder the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire suffered after the statements we’ve seen from former ministers?

It was Lord Eric Pickles that caused most uproar, claiming he had an “extremely busy day” and urging the Inquiry to speed up, before calling the victims “nameless” and getting the number who died in the fire wrong.

Stephen Williams, a former Liberal Democrat minister, got the date of the fire wrong and said he didn’t bother to read the Lakanal House coroner’s report. Another Lord, Gavin Barwell, claimed fire safety wasn’t raised with him so therefore it wasn’t high on the agenda.

And there are other quotes that show the disrespect of former ministers but the last word should go to Karim Mussilhy, who lost his uncle in the fire.

“The government we elect, and we pay our taxes to and they can’t even get our family’s name right. They can’t even get the name of where our families remains still live to this day right.

“And it’s sad. I’ve given up on the world.”

Ajit Wick / Shutterstock.com

Are we about to see the next wave of mergers or “partnerships” as a result of the increasing demands on housing providers and the lack of funding from central government?

In the past couple of months alone, we’ve seen Optivo and Southern Housing Group say that resource issues are at the forefront of the two organisations exploring a merger.

We’ve also seen Flagship Group, bpha and Futures Housing Group looking to create a 60,000 home outfit that would “combine their expertise and reach, to improve significantly the housing experience and opportunities for local people”.

And there’s many more. And you can be sure there are discussions in other board rooms looking at those options too.

But it isn’t clear that bigger is always better. Take some of the largest housing associations in the country as an example, and you can correlate that with those who’ve been featured on ITV News with poor standard homes and stories of residents being dismissed.

And if organisations do get bigger, is it worth looking at the changes L&Q have recently made, going back to a patch-based structure to ensure they have dedicated officers on the ground and are able to build relationships with residents, be proactive with any issues that arise, and drive improvements in the organisation as a result?

The number of housing associations has decreased massively in the past decade… how many will we have by 2030? And will we be in a better place?

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On the eve of the local elections, rumours started appearing in the national newspapers that Boris Johnson was planning a resurrection of Right to Buy for housing association tenants.

The third incarnation of the idea, the Prime Minister says it is to help “generation rent” onto the property ladder, despite most of that generation living in private rented homes…

We know it also leads to a huge loss in social housing, with many homes ending up in the PRS.

Previously, when asked about housing association Right to Buy Johnson said he wouldn’t want to see “housing associations deprived too rapidly of their homes”.