23rd December 2019
Grenfell fire chief confirms resignation
Shelter chief calls out chancellor over homeless numbers Shelter chief executive Polly Neate strengthened the case for more social housing in calling chancellor Sajid Javid out over his calculations on homelessness numbers – exposed as not adding up. “When the chancellor of the exchequer says that homelessness has halved since 2008, it’s important to highlight this as inaccurate,” said Neate. In a round of interviews, Javid said homelessness reached its peak in 2008 under the last Labour government and had fallen by half since.
With London Fire Brigade (LFB) accused of “institutional failure” over the Grenfell disaster, commissioner Dany Cotton has confirmed her resignation – as bereaved families and survivors pressed for her to go. Cotton will step down as soon as New Year’s Eve, having intend to retire in June. Read more
Housing charities and food banks report spike in donations after Tory win
Read article
Housing associations told to make a joined-up case to HM Treasury Social housing providers need to take a joined-up and “cross-cutting” approach if they want to have influence with HM Treasury, according to former government advisors. Poppy Trowbridge, former special advisor to the chancellor of the exchequer, argued that the Treasury is the most important department for the sector to reach. Read more
Queen’s Speech On-The-Day Briefing The Queen has set out the majority Conservative Government’s proposed legislative agenda. Key commitments in the Speech included: • • •
Leaving the EU institutions by 31st January Legislating for the Conservative Party’s NHS funding package A commitment to seek a long-term cross-party consensus on social care.
Items of particular interest include the Building Safety and English Devolution measures previously announced in October; and new announcements on Renters Rights, Planning Reform, Home Ownership and Decarbonisation. Read NHC briefing
Charities helping the most vulnerable in society have reported an increase in support after the Conservative victory in the general election. Shelter, Refuge, the Trussell Trust and the Biscuit Fund have all confirmed they have seen a sharp increase in donations and/or registered supporters as a result of the election outcome. While unable to give exact numbers, the UK homelessness and housing charity Shelter said it had seen an increase in the number of people signing up as supporters since the result. Refuge, which helps victims of domestic abuse, said there had been a 52% increase in donations since polling closed, from £144 an hour to £220 an hour. Read article
The top five must read housing reports of 2019 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Tackling the UK Housing Crisis Building for our Future: a Vision for Social Housing The Homelessness Monitor: England Understanding Local Housing Markets Additionality of Affordable Housing
Latest GDP figures paint a depressing regional picture
RIBA publishes guide to building sustainably The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has today (10th December) published a new guide to help RIBA members and the wider sector embed sustainable outcomes into practice. The Sustainable Outcomes Guide aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and outlines eight measurable goals that practices can aim for on projects of all scales. Read more
Sector ‘must go beyond compliance’ to deliver safer homes
Today the Office for National Statistics released the latest GDP figures for the UK. This highlights how the UK has avoided recession in the third quarter, though we are seeing a significant loss in momentum.Previous figures released by ONS for the regions, show that whilst the British economy as a whole has avoided a recession since 2015, this masks wide variation between regions, with some having been in technical recession, stagnating or contracting in size. This is in spite of much lauded regional initiatives such as the Northern Powerhouse. Article
A Customer and Building Safety Seminar has highlighted a need to improve technical competence, experience, data, and processes and to go beyond statutory compliance to deliver safer homes. Director of Housing Consulting Peter Salisbury, from Manifest, who organised the event, started the afternoon by highlighting why compliance alone is no longer enough.Key themes emerging from the discussions throughout the day included… Read more
Number of Europe's poorest regions in UK 'more than doubles'
Social landlords to get direct payments of benefits under UC changes The Department for Work and Pensions has confirmed they are testing a new system to pay social landlords direct payments of benefit. This would see landlords receiving money from the DWP at the same time the tenant receives their Universal Credit payment. Third Party Deductions for outstanding arrears will still be channeled through the four-weekly Third-Party Creditor schedule.The idea that is the test is successful, it would be fully rolled out to all social landlords in early 2020. Read article
Poll shows housing policies popular but little faith in delivery Ipsos MORI research reveals few voters beleive any party will improve housing.. Election eve Ipsos MORI research finds housing policies in Tory, Labour, and Lib Dem manifestos are popular – but few think any party will improve housing if elected. Read more
Britain’s regions have failed to keep pace with the rest of Europe since the 2008 financial crash, according to figures that show the number of areas among the EU’s poorest has more than doubled. In the most recent figures available from Eurostat covering 2017, the number of regions in this category has more than doubled to seven, adding Lincolnshire, Tees Valley and Durham, South Yorkshire and outer London (east and north east) to the list. Spennymoor in the Tees Valley and Durham region, one of
seven areas in the UK with GDP per head worth 75% or less of the EU average Read article
Recently Attended The Big Conversation - 9 December 2019, Leeds A few of our colleagues recently attended The Big Conversation in Leeds. The aim of the event is to help delegates develop their career and maximise their potential. Topics included: Standing out from the crowd in a busy labour market, Bringing your best self to work- health and wellbeing, Applying key learning to your career,Making the most of mentoring, Using social media to raise your career profile, Breaking into management, Being that inspirational leader Making your voice heard
Jamie Jones, one of Thirteen’s latest rising stars gave us some feedback following the event. It is difficult to summarise as a lot was going on. However, I enjoyed the following: Gavin Smart chief executive at the Chartered Institute of Housing talked about hot policy issues. Lack of suitable housing - 8.4m people waiting for a suitable home (43% need a social rented home) Rising homelessness • • • •
48% increase in acceptances since 2010 Number in TA up 58% Number sleeping rough up 165% 726 people died on the streets in 2018
Yvonne Castle CEO of Johnnie Johnson Housing delivered a session on ‘Housing Associations …. and Board Member perspective’ and spoke about the massive task of having to modernise their aging housing stock for their elderly customers living in the modern world - ensuring that they have housing that looks good and enables their customers to live independently. She discussed the mammoth task of having to upgrade their old and outdated care call systems (removing the pull cord systems) and embrace digitisation. She spoke about the challenges of having to educate their residents on using such technology and the move away from wearing bulky, and somewhat ugly looking pendants that don’t allow their elderly residents to be fully independent saying this isn’t how elderly residents want to see themselves either in this day and age. I thought this session was particularly relevant considering the work going on with the ATT project and upgrading our technology and systems. Trevor Smith,director of the GEM Programme, Incommunities did a great session on how to be a person of influence and said that people fall into one of three personality types – The Settler, The Prospecter and The Pioneer. We then went into an activity whereby we had to pitch an idea to help improve the housing sector. I came up with the idea of more education in schools around practical skills such as, managing a home, dealing with finances, opening bank accounts, dealing with tax. I pitched this and said early and continued education would help alleviate those getting into serious debt, not managing their homes correctly. This would help us with tackling our arrears, reducing levels of ASB etc.
Policy Consultations We keep an eye on government consultations around changes to policy that can affect the way we do business or our customers. We also keep an eye on local activity and feed in where we think we need to. We ensure we understand the implications for the business and, where applicable, we send a response to feed in Thirteen’s views and provide evidence. Current and recent policy consultations are listed below. Consultation
Notes
The Future Homes Standard: changes to Part L and Part F of the Building Regulations for new dwellings
Consultation on the uplift to standards of Part L of the Building Regulations and changes to Part F. This uplift is the first step in achieving the Future Homes Standards. Coordinating response, deadline Jan 2020.
Local Policing Survey
The survey will enable us to give our feedback on what we think the priorities need to be for neighbourhood policing and how we should be working with the police. This will also support our priorities for ASB and crime, e.g. to increase police presence; optimise location of police resources; make our customers feel safer and more confident to report crime; and to develop multi-agency partnerships.
If you are aware of any ongoing consultations or think you can contribute to our work around any of these, please contact a member of the Policy & Research Team.