Examination of Witnesses (Questions 53-59)
ALDERMAN ARNOLD
HATCH, MR
CHRIS WILLIAMSON,
MR ARTHUR
CANNING AND
MR GRAHAM
MURTON
29 MARCH 2004
Q53 Chairman: Gentlemen, let me begin
by offering the committee's apologies for keeping you waiting.
It was unfortunately a delayed flight which we were unable to
do anything about, but we are grateful to you for staying with
us. This is the committee's first evidence session in City Hall
so it is a bit of an occasion for us. We have a number of questions
as part of our inquiry into housing, and I will start with the
demand for social housing. It has been suggested that the housing
need is geographically uneven and that there are certain hot spots
where there is greater housing need. Could you tell us how housing
associations are geographically situated and whether or not the
housing associations that are in operation effectively cover the
whole of Northern Ireland and in particular whether or not the
hot spots are covered adequately?
Mr Williamson: I am Chris Williamson,
the Director of the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations.
Our team here, including my Chairman, Vice-Chairman and my Deputy,
are delighted to have the opportunity of giving this evidence.
Yes, housing associations have coverage right across Northern
Ireland if you take housing associations collectively. Historically
there were two broad sources of housing associations. One was
intensively community-based housing associations which were quite
explicitly set up to deal with very small areas, mostly in Belfast
but not exclusively so. The other type of association was a general
Northern Ireland-wide type of association mostly dealing with
specialised client groups such as elderly people, disabled people
and the like. Those are the historical roots for registered housing
associations since 1976 and those specialisms were explicitly
laid down by the old Department of the Environment for Northern
Ireland, which was the regulator, and its successor is the Department
for Social Development. Those niches, if you want to call them
that, were set down in the founding of registered housing associations
here. Our members have properties all over Northern Ireland. They
work closely with the Housing Executive to look at where the unmet
housing need is. In the same way as associations were told to
specialise in the early years the Housing Executive was quite
explicitly told by the department to concentrate on large scale
redevelopment and family-type housing. So always since 1976 the
demand for social rented housing has been looked as a whole through
the various providers, that is, the Housing Executive and the
registered housing associations collectively. We now have a common
waiting list from which the unmet housing need is registered and
analysed and plans are made by the Housing Executive plus the
Department for Social Development to meet that unmet need. I am
perfectly satisfied that, although the historical stock of associations
is not necessarily concentrated in the areas of highest need currently,
the new provision by those associations is concentrated in such
areas along with the existing social housing, which generates
most of the re-lets, of course, and is therefore the dominant
means of meeting unmet housing need. There is a historical legacy
but since the transfer of the development programme to associations
the efforts of those associations have been quite explicitly directed
into the areas of maximum need and our members have been doing
that work on a consistent basis.
Q54 Chairman: Coming back to the hot
spots, one of the recommendations from the Federation is that
you have called for closer working with the private rented sector
to meet the demand for social rented housing within these hot
spots. How do you believe that can be achieved?
Mr Williamson: We were explicitly
told in the brief for this inquiry that it was about the demand
for social housing, the supply of social housing and the quality
of social housing. Our answer in reference to linking up with
the private rented sector was about how social housing generally
can work alongside the private rented sector. In the hot spots
to which you refer I would take you back to the Housing Executive's
strategy for the private rented sector which was consulted on
and finalised, I believe, last summer. That quite explicitly said
that in the areas of maximum pressure on the social rented stock
more use needed to be made of the private rented sector. This
is not just any old private rented sector stock but good quality,
well managed private rented sector stock. In those areas of maximum
need that is something that the housing association movement is
comfortable with. We need all the help we can get to relieve the
stress that there is. In addition, of course, we were saying that
co-ownership, or equity sharing as you might know it better in
Great Britain, can play a very useful and important role in diverting
some of the unmet demand in the hot spots but this is not in any
way to detract from the fact that in those areas first and foremost
we need more social rented housing.
Q55 Chairman: So far in evidence that
has been given to us it has been suggested by a number of commentators
that in effect there are two different kinds of housing need in
Northern Ireland and each of those needs is different: first of
all what some would call Catholic housing need and Protestant
housing need, but also that those two manifest themselves in different
ways in as much as Catholic housing need is about shortage in
particular locations whereas Protestant housing need is around
the need for house and area rehabilitation and modernisation.
Is that a description that you would recognise and/or agree with?
Mr Williamson: I would recognise
it as a very gross generalisation. As we said in our submission,
housing need is becoming more and more intensely localised and
differentiated. To answer that question more substantially I would
like to refer to the Chairman of our Federation, Mr Hatch.
Alderman Hatch: I am Arnold Hatch,
Head of the Northern Ireland Federation. I would not accept that
Protestant housing need is just about rehabilitation. There are
specialist housing needs for the Protestant community as well
as for the Catholic community. The housing association that I
am currently a member of and have been for 25 years was started
by the late Harold McCusker. We are now known as South Ulster
and our operation runs quite close to the border. The new build
schemes that we are involved in at the moment will have a lot
more of the Roman Catholic side of the community because that
is the area where the need is and that is as directed by the Housing
Executive in terms of need. We do not look at an area. We will
build anywhere. We do not look where there is Protestant or Catholic.
It is wherever and whatever the need is.
Mr Williamson: Our movement has
a proud record in rehabilitating older buildings, mostly individual
houses but quite often substantial buildings that were in other
uses, such as former hospitals. It has been for a long time the
case that generally speaking to meet the aspirations of people
in need the rehabilitation of the small houses that typified Belfast
working class areas for so many decades are no longer considered
acceptable; their orientation and their environment is not considered
suitable for modern living. For quite a long time now, several
decades, I would say, the emphasis has been more on gradual redevelopment
than on rehabilitation within the existing shell, though that
is still done.
Q56 Chairman: The generalisation I used
then could possibly be used to describe the situation in Belfast
but perhaps not across Northern Ireland. Would that be a fairer
reflection of the situation?
Mr Williamson: If I could refer
to our Vice-Chairman, his association has been active on both
fronts.
Mr Canning: Yes, Chairman. In
essence the housing associations are largely recapping what has
been said in support of that evidence. Traditionally we have responded
to housing need which has been designated by the statutory authority
in Northern Ireland for determining housing need and that is the
Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Depending on where that need
exists we are responding to it. Obviously, that response is meeting
the particular community needs at any one particular point in
time. That can cover communities in which there is a mix and individual
communities in terms of Protestant and Catholic communities, so
there is a very broad brush in terms of the provision and we are
responding to it.
Mr Williamson: It is also to do
with the geography. South Ulster Housing Association is a classic
example where for many years it concentrated primarily on rehabilitation
of houses in the Portadown area but not exclusively so and, as
our Chairman has said, it has long since moved well beyond that
to Newry and places like that, doing mainly new construction.
I forgot to answer part of the question that you put to me. My
point about gradual renewal and redevelopment rather than rehabilitation
applies just as much in Protestant areas as in Catholic areas.
That is the essential point that I forgot to make earlier.
Q57 Chairman: Overall would you say that
the housing association sector serves both populations well in
that it reflects the availability of stock and of new build projects?
Mr Williamson: Absolutely. For
further elaboration of that point I would like to refer to my
Deputy, Mr Murton.
Mr Murton: I am Graham Murton
from the Federation of Housing Associations. In the course of
this inquiry we have been looking at NICORE statistics, which
is the Northern Ireland equivalent of the Scottish CORE statistics
that relate to the new lettings of housing associations. What
we have found over the last five years is that the lettings are
very close to the census information, so I, together with Chris,
have no doubt that associations are meeting that demand right
across the board and, as has already been said, there is a single
waiting list for Northern Ireland drawing from one source, the
need is agreed with the Housing Executive and associations are
responding to that need. I am quite happy to write to the committee
to give you the detailed summary of those statistics if you require
it.
Q58 Chairman: That would be helpful.
We looked at a study from 2000 which found that the proportion
of Protestants within housing association accommodation is greater
than in other tenures, so it would be interesting to balance that
study against your statistics.
Mr Murton: There will be some
differences between the statistics you quote because, for example,
in sheltered accommodation that would reflect an older part of
the population in Northern Ireland and the older population in
Northern Ireland would split broadly along a 70/30 split which
would reflect the demography going back to the 1920s and 1930s.
You would expect that to be reflected in the likes of sheltered
housing because if that was not reflected it would show some bias
the other way perhaps. Therefore, if you take the whole rounded
picture where we have a more Protestant older population and a
more evenly split population as we go through the various age
bands, that is reflected in the accommodation that associations
are providing.
Mr Williamson: Chairman, may I
supplement that by reminding you of a point that I made at the
outset, that the old Department of the Environment explicitly
told associations to specialise in particular fields and the biggest
single field in which they specialised and made a great success
of was in sheltered housing for older people, so a big proportion
of the housing stock was and still is sheltered housing for older
people. This demographic point that Graham has mentioned is perfectly
in keeping with the aim of that sheltered housing and with the
history of housing policy here.
Q59 Chairman: You move me on very nicely
to questions related to other needs and the challenge that lies
ahead for those responsible for construction of new social housing.
We have a change in the nature of demand there. There are, of
course, many more single people on the common waiting list than
ever before. Does the Federation feel it is in a position to meet
the challenges of change in demand that I have outlined in respect
of the need to serve both communities and also the challenge to
provide mixed and balanced communities as set out in the Regional
Development Strategy?
Mr Williamson: That is a big question
but I will try to pick up the various points in it and please
come back to me if I fail to address some of them. In terms of
the first couple of points, our housing association movement,
being a very diverse movement, is extremely strong and brings
a lot to the table of housing solutions in Northern Ireland. One
of those niche markets in which our members were encouraged to
specialise in those early years was in single accommodation and
a couple of our associations specialise in that field and continue
to provide very valuable accommodation, most notably in the areas
where there happen to be establishments of further education.
Do not let us get trapped into feeling that single people equals
young people. Broadly speaking that is true but it is by no means
totally the case. Our movement right from the very beginning has
had a place for single accommodation and we have been advocates—and
I make no apology for using that word—for the rights and
needs of single people. On the common waiting list that all social
landlords have used since the year 2000 there is a weighting system
where various criteria are used to decide classes of housing need
and how much weight should be attributed to each of those criteria.
A great deal of time and effort went into looking at the previous
weightings and whether they were correct or not and adjusting
those to take more sensitive account of the present priorities
that we are seeing now. An evaluation of those criteria took place
a year ago and they were considered to be broadly okay. My point
is that for people who are single and who score highly under the
selection scheme, which is the common selection scheme, I would
emphasise, they will get housed very quickly. For people who do
not score highly on that selection scheme they will not get housed
quickly unless they are prepared to consider areas of lowish demand
and sometimes they are not prepared to do so, in which case they
will remain on the waiting list and could remain on it for a long
time. It is not enough to look at the number of people who are
single and waiting on the list. In all honesty, given that there
are never going to be enough houses for absolutely everybody,
no matter what degree of need they are in, there is a prioritisation
system that is in place and it may well be the case that we should
look again at those priorities but our members are building according
to the assessed needs from that waiting list, always have done
and will continue to do so. The third element of your question
was about mixed and balanced communities and you rightly referred
to the Regional Development Strategy which was passed by the Northern
Ireland Assembly a couple of years ago. It is very important to
note that that was unanimously approved, that it is there as the
official overarching policy document for spatial development in
Northern Ireland and that housing is a prominent feature of that.
We, the Federation, did not put this "mixed and balanced"
thing into the strategy. It was written and approved by the politicians
and it is now up to organisations like ours to play a role in
delivering that. There are two main aspects of mixed and balanced
communities. One is to do with mixture of household type and income
and employment status, and, secondly, the community background
status which is very important in Northern Ireland. A lot of people
come from traditional Roman Catholic or Protestant backgrounds.
In terms of the tenure side of things and mixing incomes more,
it is easier to deal with that one in a Northern Ireland context
than the second. There is good hope that the draft planning statement
PPS 12 will open up possibilities under the aegis of the Regional
Development Strategy to enable a greater mix of tenures than has
hitherto been possible in Northern Ireland. I am not pretending
that there may not be difficulties with that but it holds out
some hope for, instead of wall-to-wall owner occupation in large
swathes of development, a degree of mix of tenure. Our members
will play a role in that, not least the Co-ownership Housing Association
to whom you will be speaking shortly, helping to get the tenure
mix and therefore the range of income mixes better than it currently
is. Turning to the business of community background, that is a
much more difficult thing to organise in Northern Ireland and
well-intentioned experiments and efforts have become badly unstuck
in the past and public money has ultimately been wasted, unfortunately,
so we need to be very careful in not being unrealistic about what
can be achieved. I want to draw to your attention the fact that
our Federation represents not just the registered housing associations,
those that are monitored and regulated by the government, but
also those that are not so regulated. They are still housing associations
but they have more freedom for action. One of those unregistered
housing associations, which is called Habitat for Humanity (Northern
Ireland), has had a name for quite a number of years for putting
forward an integrated housing scheme. They have been working on
a bi-community basis. They have not found it possible to put integration
in one particular scheme. The best they have so far been able
to do is to do paired schemes close to each other on both sides
of the divide. That organisation holds possibly some of the best
hope for achieving a fully integrated scheme and we will back
them in that. In terms of the registered associations there have
been the beginnings of discussions about how registered housing
associations might contribute to this process. Given the common
selection scheme, to which I have referred several times, it is
clear to me that if we were to go down that road some of our members
would be prepared to try that and give it a good go but they would
have to have in their toolbox a change to the normal common selection
scheme which is permissible under that approved selection scheme.
There is a thing called Rule 84 which permits, with the consent
of the Department for Social Development, departures from what
you might call the normal blind housing needs assessment to devise
for this kind of experimental development some kind of system
where it would be considered legitimate to achieve in the first
lettings a balance between the communities and in re-lettings
for that balance to be sustained. I would like to add that we
need to be conscious that there are more than two sides of the
community in Northern Ireland. Increasingly we are conscious that
there are other parties besides the racial groups in our community
and we need to bear those in mind as well.
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