Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
ALDERMAN ARNOLD
HATCH, MR
CHRIS WILLIAMSON,
MR ARTHUR
CANNING AND
MR GRAHAM
MURTON
29 MARCH 2004
Q60 Chairman: You mentioned PPS 12. We
are told it has not been introduced yet. You would join those
who are calling for its speedy introduction, would you?
Mr Williamson: I would certainly
call for its introduction as soon as possible because a half-baked
introduction of the PPS would be worse than nothing. I feel that
it has potential. It is not going to be the end of the story because
I believe that area plans, as they are being developed and approved,
will also need to be written in such a way as permits this planning
tool to be operated. I do not see it as a quick fix but as a necessary
building block.
Q61 Reverend Smyth: Reference was made
earlier to the problems of continued re-lets. There is another
issue surely coming up. What changes, if any, would you like to
see in the current housing sales scheme?
Mr Murton: This is obviously a
very contentious issue in Northern Ireland and what I would like
to say at the outset without going into details of what changes
we want to see is that in broad terms what the Federation has
called for over the last three years or more is a balanced approach
between the needs of people with legitimate aspirations to own
their home and the legitimate aspirations of people on the waiting
list who have every reasonable expectation of being housed within
some time period. We feel that at the moment that balance is not
correct and we have called for a number of changes because we
feel the current sales policy in Northern Ireland is out of date;
it is not consistent with the recent reviews that have taken place
across the water and it is extremely generous. It has a discount
ceiling currently of £34,000. We have seen the tightening
of that kind of discount ceiling across the UK generally in England,
Scotland and Wales, particularly in the south east. We are calling
for a £16,000 cap for Northern Ireland and to say that the
sales discount for houses should be the same as for flats. We
say that housing associations or the Housing Executive itself
should be given a right to buy back on the sale of a property.
We are talking about the possible introduction of portable discounts
from high demand areas where you can transfer those discounts
to other areas where demand is less intense in the social sector.
We are talking about repayments possibly going up to a five-year
horizon rather than a three-year horizon so that people have a
longer commitment to the property they buy off the Housing Executive
or off an association. We are talking about the qualification
period being three years' tenancy where it is currently two. All
those figures would fit with a more balanced approach. That would
also generate over a period of time more re-lets because the Housing
Executive is the current provider of most of the housing need
through re-lets, about 8,500 per annum. Associations are kicking
in with about 3,000 re-lets and new build each year. It is essentially
the re-lets that we are losing because of house sales and this
is causing some of the problems we have at the moment. We want
to see that balance redressed.
Q62 Reverend Smyth: Are you saying that
as far as the Housing Executive is concerned if your proposals
were taken on board there would be more re-lets available or do
you not think in the end you would still be finding fewer houses
for social renting?
Mr Murton: You will no doubt be
discussing the programme later on but the Housing Executive are
selling in excess of 5,000 properties per year and there are additionally
approximately 1,000 properties being demolished in the social
sector. Housing associations provide a programme of, say, 1,500
units per year. You just have to do your arithmetic to know that
even if associations double the programme in a matter of two or
three years we have still got the same loss of stock. There has
to be a tighter balance between what we sell and what we produce;
otherwise people on the waiting list who are living in some of
these high demand areas and trying to get housing there will never
have their legitimate aspirations met. As you know, representing
the South Belfast constituency, that is the constituency which
has the longest waiting list in Northern Ireland and is one of
the most difficult areas in which to get social housing. We cannot
constantly be selling houses at the rate we are selling them now
without there being a payback over a period of time. The time
has come, as has been recognised around the rest of the UK, to
make this readjustment. I am not saying that people cannot be
allowed to buy their house, but we have to readjust the incentives.
£34,000 in Northern Ireland is a huge incentive when you
compare £16,000 to the market values in the south of England
where council houses perhaps have a market value of £150,000-£200,000.
£34,000 in Northern Ireland is very generous.
Mr Williamson: We are not talking
about the short term. We are not saying that instantly more re-lets
will be produced if we implement the changes that my colleague
has outlined. What we are saying is that if the changes that we
recommend were brought in tomorrow then after a period of about
ten years there would be considerably more re-lets generated than
would otherwise be the case. We are talking about a medium to
long term horizon here.
Q63 Reverend Smyth: You have been emphasising
to some extent the Housing Executive end of it although it also
involves the housing associations.
Mr Williamson: Absolutely.
Q64 Reverend Smyth: The Voluntary Purchase
Grant scheme would have had an impact there. Would you like to
say what impact the recent right to buy legislation may have had
on the association tenants, particularly from stock that was built
for a particular purpose? I am thinking of handicapped people
and people with other disabilities.
Mr Williamson: I am delighted
that the Reverend Smyth has raised the question of housing that
is specially designed and managed for particular groups, notably
physically disabled people. Elderly people in sheltered housing
are the other big class of property to which this is relevant.
There is a dilemma here because on the one hand it can be argued,
and it has been argued in Northern Ireland courts, that it is
unfair to deny someone in a wheelchair the right to buy the house
that they have been living in as a tenant in the same way as,
let us say, a neighbour living in non-specialised housing has
been able to exercise his or her ability to use the house sales
scheme, and the legislation right since 1981 in Great Britain
has come down in favour of the view that on balance it is more
important that this specialised group of property should be preserved
for the people who really need it. There is just not enough of
it around for the wholesale right of what used to be called in
Northern Ireland the right to buy. I would emphasise that the
right to buy has not existed in Northern Ireland since 1992. It
was repealed off the statute book. There is a balance to be struck
between the rights of those who are disabled tenants and the rights
of other disabled people who are not yet tenants and who desperately
need that kind of specialised accommodation. We say that there
is no easy answer, but certainly for the foreseeable future the
relatively small stock of specialised accommodation ought to be
preserved for the purpose for which it was designed, built and
funded, largely by the taxpayer.
Q65 Reverend Smyth: While you say there
is no easy answer would you not accept that the law has been there
as regards access to the built economy and is it not now time
that both the housing associations and the Housing Executive and
private developers got architects to design houses that could
be used by everybody so that even people with handicaps are put
off from visiting friends because they cannot go to the toilet?
Mr Williamson: I am delighted
that you have raised that, Reverend Smyth, because this movement
of ours has a very proud record in providing specialist accommodation
for disabled people. We have been leaders in adopting and advocating
the incorporation of what are called lifetime home standards across
the board. We have been advocating that the building regulations
should be changed more than they have been in the recent past.
I give credit to the changes that have taken place but they are
not enough and our colleagues in the Chartered Institute of Housing
produced research a couple of years ago and gave a presentation
in Stormont to demonstrate very vividly how, with a relatively
small additional amount of design and expenditure, all new homes
could be made much more accessible.
Q66 Reverend Smyth: Would you like to
say what involvement your associations had in the development
by the DSD of the right to buy scheme for housing associations?
Mr Williamson: Once again, if
you would not mind, I would urge you to talk about a house sales
scheme because that is what we have got and we have got on the
statute book in 2003 the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order which
makes provision for a statutory house sales scheme to be set by
the department. We have yet to see what that scheme will be. As
my colleague has said, our Federation has been very forthright
in saying that we felt that the Housing Executive house sales
scheme is not necessarily appropriate for housing associations
to use because they are very different legally and financially.
Also, much more importantly, in terms of the balance between the
rights of those who are housed already and who want to have their
ownership aspiration satisfied versus those who are not housed
and need a decent home, that is the pre-eminent thing that needs
to be taken into account in a broad review of the house sales
policy.
Q67 Reverend Smyth: How willing are the
housing associations to provide new build in areas of high demand
where they are likely to be purchased at an early date?
Mr Canning: In responding to that
question could I add a supplementary to the previous one? In order
to ensure balance and fairness in the input that the Federation
makes into house sales the Federation commissioned independent
research on the policy through the University of Glasgow which
we have distributed quite readily, so rather than just putting
forward our own individual views and corporately through the Federation,
we felt it was appropriate that we should take that further and
we have submitted that evidence as well. In the 25-plus years
in terms of what housing associations have achieved we have always
welcomed the opportunity to input into housing policy a balance
between equity and fairness. Once that policy has been set our
members have demonstrated wholeheartedly a willingness to follow
that policy through and if it became the ultimate policy that
we would be building houses which would automatically qualify
for a right to buy for tenants who were moving in then I can simply
say that our members would do that without question.
Q68 Mr McGrady: The Housing Policy Review
of 1996 was a huge watershed in terms of the provision of new
social housing. The associations, which are by and large specialised
housing associations or geographically located housing associations,
were given the onerous task of providing the whole of the social
housing for Northern Ireland. Looking at the statistics over the
last five completed financial years there has been a totally unacceptable
drop in the number of new house starts. In fact, it is just over
a third now in the year 2002-03 of what it was in 1998-99. Whose
fault is that?
Mr Williamson: "Fault"
I think is a very loaded term.
Q69 Mr McGrady: Who would you blame then?
Mr Williamson: That is also a
loaded term! I want to address the question. It is a serious question
and it requires a serious answer, so I am not trying to be dismissive
or smart. I am just trying to underline my conviction that this
is a complex matter. As a preamble can I just mention that Mr
McGrady is quite right, that in the last few years the output
of new social rented housing has fallen and that is a cause for
serious concern among our members as well as among our elected
representatives like your own good selves, not least of course
the people needing new homes. We also need to bear in mind that
since 1996 the output of our members' production went up substantially
before dipping, and I am pleased to be able to tell you this afternoon
that there has been a substantial increase from that very low
figure of the last financial year to something much closer to
the target that was set by government. The graph has fluctuated.
There have been ups as well as downs and I am pleased to say that
we are now in an up situation. Turning to the more serious question
of what factors have been causing that, there are various of them
and I do not think that simply pointing in one direction is going
to achieve a satisfactory answer. I believe that there are multiple
causes for this situation and there are multiple elements to solutions.
Under broad headings there are factors to do with the pattern
of housing need; that is the fundamental thing. It is not the
same as it was. It is much more differentiated, it is much more
hard to measure. Sites for housing are not getting any easier
to find. Costs and grants are always a problem. You will not need
me to tell you, I am sure, even you gentlemen from Great Britain,
that land values in Northern Ireland have been rocketing and still
are. We also have a new planning policy which rightly places the
emphasis on trying to keep urban areas contained and making more
use of brownfield sites. Often they are contaminated or have site
development problems of one shape or another. For a number of
years after the 1996 policy review there was uncertainty as to
the respective roles of the Department for Social Development
and the Housing Executive in relation to the housing association
work and that certainly did not help in getting the clarity of
policy direction that we were looking for. I am not saying that
applies now but it did have an impact for several years and because
development is a three-year process generally speaking it carries
forward. I would say that the impact was still felt in the early
2000's. There are various other additional requirements that have
been laid down, partly through planning policy, partly through
DSD policy. One such example is the very worthy policy of supporting
people, which is a very sensible way of bringing together the
assessment of need for supported housing with the delivery of
it and the regulation of the whole system. That is all very good
but it makes the whole business of planning and delivering supported
housing, which represents about 20% of the development programme,
much more complex and long-winded. There are other factors. I
have written a paper, Chairman, which I am happy to leave today
with the committee which will elaborate on these points in a bit
more detail. It is only three or four pages but, rather than take
the committee's time with each of them, I am happy to make this
available.
Chairman: That would be very valuable
to us.
Q70 Mr McGrady: Thank you very much for
that answer. Changing needs, sites for development, land values,
costs and planning—we always knew about those problems;
they are annual problems. The estimated requirement for new house
social building was something of a nightmare, depending which
local authority you looked at. Some are 1,500 a year, some are
1,000 a year, some are 1,750 a year. What was the target for the
year we are in, 2003-04, the closing date being Thursday or Friday?
How many new starts have there been in this year?
Mr Williamson: The target was
1,575 and that included 75 units done under a special funding
initiative to do with homelessness. Another 75 of those were to
be built by the Housing Executive because the Housing Executive
has not totally stopped building, although it is true that the
housing associations are to be the prime providers. The answer
to the second part of your question is that as of today's date
the number of starts stands at 1,300. There are still some days
to go, not many, before the end of the financial year, but there
are still possible starts.
Q71 Mr McGrady: Can you see any short
term measures that could be employed not only to arrive at new
starts as planned per annum but also to recover the shortfall
of the last number of years, because that impacts on some of your
earlier answers on sales versus lettings? Have you any thoughts
on that matter or would you contemplate committing hara-kiri by
returning new build to the Housing Executive?
Mr Williamson: While I have a
little laugh at that last point may I ask my deputy to take the
substance of the question?
Mr Murton: In essence we would
like to see a more strategic use of what we call existing satisfactory
purchases, one-off purchases where properties are on the market
that associations could buy and re-let. That would be one measure
which could be taken fairly quickly without overheating the market
and we would not be paying more than the market value for those
houses. It is also fair to say that we do not foresee a major
role for the Housing Executive in terms of the programme. The
Housing Executive as it stands already has a major role. They
provide the assessment of need which determines where the housing
goes. It would essentially be a waste of public resources for
the Housing Executive to do that because, as Chris has already
said, we have got 1,300 coming in this year and there is even
talk of going round the 1,500 mark for new build starts this year.
That represents more than £30 million worth of private finance
that has accompanied this programme. Where would that money come
from if the Housing Associations were not borrowing it privately?
If we revert to the Housing Executive taking a large measure of
the new build market, that would produce less for the same amount
of money unless there were additional resources. That runs against
the whole government theme of drawing private finance into the
public sector, trying to make resources in the public sector go
as far as possible. Northern Ireland housing associations are
committed to making the programme work. The work that the Housing
Executive, the department and the Associations have done in the
last two years through the Tripartite Working Group is now seeing
fruit. We are coming out of the tunnel of the low number of starts
we had about 18 months ago and we are going to see a better programme
delivery from now on.
Q72 Reverend Smyth: Have you any concerns
about the current policy that does not allow new housing associations
to be formed in Northern Ireland?
Alderman Hatch: When the Portadown
Housing Association was formed some 25 years ago our sister town
of Lurgan wanted to start one and the Department for the Environment
at that time said, "No. One housing association will do".
I have no particular concerns about the formation of new housing
associations. If there is an identified area of need it could
be facilitated. There are quite a number of housing associations
in Northern Ireland, currently 22, that are registered, plus the
unregistered ones, so there are probably about the right number,
but we as the Federation have no hard and fast thoughts on saying
no to more if a new housing association say they are going to
provide a service that is not already being provided.
Mr Williamson: Can I supplement
that by underlining the fact that the number of associations is
39, but they are the registered ones. It is terribly important
always to bear in mind that there are unregistered housing associations
as well as the DSD registered ones. There is plenty of room for
both classes of association. For the unregistered ones there is
much less bureaucracy associated with them, much less red tape
to be gone through, and they can be formed relatively easily and
I think that situation should continue. For the DSD registered
ones the DSD has laid down very strict registration criteria.
Those registration criteria were revised about ten years ago and
they broadly say that the department will not register more associations
until and unless they are satisfied that none of the existing
ones is able and willing to do the particular housing job that
is required. Our Federation is satisfied with those criteria but
if some new situation arises in which it is clear or can be fairly
demonstrated that none of the existing ones can do the job, we
are not against the formation of new registered housing associations.
It would be useful to draw your attention to the fact that the
very last registered housing association is one called the Rural
Housing Association. It was formed as a result of the Housing
Executive's rural strategy of the early nineties. What was then
the Department for the Environment was also committed to rural
development in housing and other measures, and although the other
associations were perfectly capable of doing housing in rural
areas it is true that that new association, which is a valued
member of our Federation, has brought a unique focus to rural
housing issues. It has specialised in doing one of these difficult
things which is mentioned in my paper about factors which are
affecting slowing down the delivery of the development programme.
They specialise in helping to assess the latent demand for housing
in rural areas, housing which does not show up on the waiting
list that I keep referring to but which nonetheless has been tested
and sometimes found to be there by using other market research
methods. Having that specialised focus has added value to the
situation and it is conceivable that other needs of that nature
equally might come up for which a new association might be wanted.
Q73 Reverend Smyth: In that context you
will be aware that Paddy Gray of the University of Ulster has
argued that social housing bodies in Great Britain or the Republic
of Ireland may have a useful role to play. Would you have any
views on their coming into Northern Ireland?
Mr Williamson: I have got views
on it. We would have no particular objection. The answer to the
previous question would apply. If there is skill, if there are
some other resources that cannot otherwise be levered in, then
our Federation would not be opposed to that. It is the fact, however,
that the law of the land for Northern Ireland says that any housing
association that wants to receive housing association grant from
the Department for Social Development must be registered here
in Northern Ireland by that department, and so if there were a
Great Britain initiated association or parent association it would
have to set up some subsidiary or separate organisation here.
The previous answer applies. It just depends if the authorities
can be satisfied that there is something new that needs doing
that the existing associations cannot deal with. I would also
refer to the fact that fraternal or informal support from Great
Britain has always been welcomed by our housing association movement
here. Some of our leading members were formed and supported in
their early days by links from Great Britain associations and
those friendly links continue and are very important still.
Alderman Hatch: It is worth pointing
out that the James Butcher Housing Association, a Great Britain
based association, has obviously been re-formed and properly constituted
within Northern Ireland and even if we wished to build houses
in the Irish Republic we would have to be registered as a housing
association in the Irish Republic just the same as it is here.
Q74 Reverend Smyth: You did say earlier
on, Mr Williamson, that you will never meet the demand for housing;
it is hard to see it happening, so there is a growing demand.
Would you not say that anything which facilitated it would help?
On the other hand are you saying that the grants that come from
the Department for Social Development would not be available because
you have only got so much money to spread around?
Mr Williamson: Just to come back
a little on the premise there, I think I was careful to say that
we would never meet every single housing demand, no matter what
the priority. In my answer I made reference to the priority. I
am sure you will know that the currently accepted official measure
of serious housing need is this thing called housing stress which
is measured on the common waiting list as 30 points or more. I
would interpret meeting housing demand as being that anyone with
any points at all has a housing demand but it is not considered
serious enough generally speaking under the present system to
warrant new development. I have forgotten the drift of your question;
I am sorry.
Q75 Reverend Smyth: The pot of gold that
is available.
Mr Canning: There is a limited
pot of gold and I suppose if you spread that through a lot of
new organisations you would perhaps see a lot of issues arising
that are unnecessary. To support the argument that has already
been made Mr Hatch, and Mr Williamson meet their counterparts
in England, Scotland and Wales and in the Irish Council for Social
Housing on a regular basis and that is about sharing information,
understanding and learning about new initiatives, the new issues
that we tackle on an ongoing basis and learning how best to address
those. I suppose our argument at this stage would be that we feel
the Federation and its members can adequately deal with the issues
at hand and the challenges that we face but we are always open
to new ways of addressing those.
Alderman Hatch: If we are not
delivering our programme, by bringing in outside housing associations
could we deliver the programme or would there be some other issue
which prevents it being delivered? I think you should put that
question to DSD who are the people who control the funds because
we feel we can deliver the programme whatever the setup.
Q76 Reverend Smyth: Mr Hatch did say
earlier that they would have to be registered and yet we have
already been told that there are unregistered housing associations
as well as registered ones. We are aware, for example, of one
body which certainly has associations in England working in south
Belfast and recently they had a little bit of adverse publicity.
Is it registered or unregistered?
Mr Williamson: If you are talking
about the Lee Hestia Association, that is not registered by the
Department for Social Development. If we can go back to the pot
of gold analogy it gives me the opportunity to make what I think
is a key point at this stage, which goes back to what we said
earlier. No less than £235 million has been brought in to
address social housing needs in Northern Ireland by the use of
registered housing associations attracting private finance, £235
million of private finance that otherwise would have had to come
from some other part of the public budget—education or health
and social services—to achieve what has so far been achieved.
That is equivalent to near enough 4,000 averaged-sized homes in
Northern Ireland built to the DSD's standards, which are good
standards of construction. Resources will always be limited and
I would urge you always to bear in mind that by using mixed funding
our members in the housing association movement have been able
to substantially boost what it has been possible to achieve with
the public budget.
Q77 Reverend Smyth: How much consultation
takes place between a housing association and the community where
they have been asked to develop social housing or to operate it?
Mr Williamson: Through the planning
service and the requirements of the planning legislation there
is always a standard degree of consultation that is required with
neighbours and with others in the vicinity. I have been careful
to answer your question. You talked about new development. There
have been long-standing arrangements in place requiring associations
and the Housing Executive, I believe, to consult their existing
tenants on matters of housing management policy, so we take that
for granted: consultation with the existing tenants is there and
has been for a long time. Your question was specifically about
new development. My answer is two-fold. There is the process through
the normal town and country planning legislation, in addition
to which for several years now the Department for Social Development
has laid down that associations must be able to demonstrate contact
and liaison with community representatives in relation to planning
applications for new schemes going forward. Those are the two
methods by which associations consult their local people on new
development.
Q78 Mr Beggs: You have indicated just
how successful the Federation has been in bringing in private
finance. Is that increasing or decreasing and could private finance
further contribute to the demand for social and affordable housing?
Mr Williamson: The first point
is that it is not the Federation that brings in the private finance;
it is our members. Our members have been very successful at doing
that. The trend has been largely up but because the total amount
of output of homes in the last few years has been relatively low
the private finance dipped—I will not say correspondingly
because it is not a direct correlation, but the private finance
went down. I am pleased to be able to tell you that the private
finance is well and truly on its way up again and the situation
is that in this present financial year that we are just about
to finish the amount of private finance will have been almost
double what was attracted last year. There is no reason to expect
any diminution in the rate at which private finance is brought
in.
Q79 Mr Beggs: Is there any evidence that
financial pressures or constraints have impacted upon the ability
to meet the targets set for the social housing new build programme?
Mr Murton: None. It is the exact
opposite in a sense in that this will be the second highest level
of private finance that has ever been brought in and it may actually
be the highest level subject to the number of starts that go through
by Thursday. I can say that the availability of finance leads
to the availability of new housing. It gives the associations
the wherewithal to put the stock on the ground, so it is the contrary.
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