Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)
MR PADDY
MCINTYRE,
MR STEWART
CUDDY AND
MR COLM
MCCAUGHLEY
27 APRIL 2004
Q200 Mr Luke: I believe that currently
you have got a moratorium on non-essential repair work. What implications
will that have on you achieving these targets?
Mr McCaughley: I think the answer
is absolutely none. This was a budget management issue. We had
to stay within the year end budget and we had to make a decision
in the short-term to hold back on some non-urgent work. I can
assure the Committee that all that work was released in the first
week of April and is completed by now.
Q201 Mr Luke: I have been in that circumstance
myself in different guises in local government. We have talked
about the decent homes standard and throughout the UK many areas
are now promoting lifetime home standards, especially the adaptation
of houses to make sure that people can live in them through different
life changes. What impact do you think that would have on your
future expenditure patterns if you are going to achieve these
standards that everybody is looking for in the UK and in Ireland
as well?
Mr McCaughley: We were party to
a major study on lifetime homes and it is gratifying to see that
the work the Executive did with the Chartered Institute and others
was mentioned in the London Plan. The new build programme has
been adapted for social housing. We have a very clear view that
it should be adapted for the private sector and, in party with
other agencies, we will be making a recommendation to that effect,
that the next review of building regulations should introduce
lifetime home standards into the private sector. The difficulty
is, it will take many years to have a direct impact on some of
our investment patterns by way of dealing with the requirements
of the elderly. As you will appreciate, in any given year new
build will only add 1% or 2% to overall stock levels and it will
take a number of years for that to feed through to alleviate some
of the investment requirements for the elderly and disabled. Our
view is we should make a start now. Social housing has done it
and I think private housing should now do it because it does not
cost very much.
Q202 Reverend Smyth: On that very point
of lifetime homes, in a world where we are getting more noise,
do you consider the possibility that even in new build there ought
to be noise insulation built in as well as thermal insulation
for the wellbeing of people?
Mr McCaughley: I think that is
a point that can be picked up in the next review of the building
regulations. It is particularly appropriate in the development
of flat complexes where there are significant problems with acoustic
insulation which need to be addressed as well.
Q203 Chairman: The Executive in its submission
gave a mixed report on the private rented sector. I think one
of your quotes was: "The growth in the private rented sector
is sometimes operating as a complementary supply but more so as
competing supply". Also, taking into account the questions
we have just had on standards and the concerns there are about
high levels of unfitness and disrepair in the private sector,
what comments would you make about the role that the private sector
is playing and can continue to play?
Mr McIntyre: Perhaps I can just
clarify the thinking behind those comments. There are two private
rented sector markets in Northern Ireland. One is the one you
referred to, which is old, unfit, poor condition and the type
of action that needs to be taken there is about bringing those
conditions up whether through closure, unfitness action, repair
action, grant aid or whatever. There is a different market emerging
now, mainly supported by buy to let, and it has been a significant
part of the growth in the private rented sector in recent years.
That is the first point, there are two markets, the complementary
versus competing. If you go to somewhere like the west bank of
Derry, there is high housing need, young singles, modern, new,
private rented sector accommodation becoming available, that can
help take those people off our waiting lists and into accommodation,
therefore it is complementary in that respect. If you go to somewhere
like Mid Ulster, indeed it was probably Portadown and Dungannon
where we first saw this emerging where demand for social housing
was falling away. The new private rented sector accommodation
was in a sense sucking out our tenants into accommodation which
was better quality because it was brand new, modern kitchens,
modern heating systems and so forth. That is the explanation for
the two comments. The private rented sector strategy which we
have just consulted on, and the Department made some reference
to changes in legislation, which is part of all of that, will
be launched in mid May, which I am sure will be of interest to
the Committee. This sets out in some detail how we believe we
ought to be working with that part of the private rented sector
which we believe can make a contribution to solving housing need.
Q204 Chairman: You say it will be launched
in May. Are you prepared to let the Committee see a draft?
Mr McIntyre: We would not have
any difficulty. It has been approved by both our board and at
departmental level. There is no difficulty about that.
Q205 Chairman: Thank you for that. Evidence
has also been given to us that the private rented sector is an
area where there is a rapidly increasing cost of Housing Benefit
and that private sector rents have risen at levels which are far
in excess of public sector rents. What would your comment be to
that?
Mr McIntyre: There are two reasons
that lie behind the growth in Housing Benefit costs. One is the
actual growth and the size of the private rented sector has been
the factor that has made the most significant contribution to
the rising Housing Benefit bill. My understanding, and as the
evidence has been given to you in the form it has I want to check
this, is that the level of rent increase in the private rented
sector has been on a par with the increase in recent years in
public sector rent. Since that evidence has been given to you
I just want to check that and come back to you in writing on it.
My view would be that it is the huge increase in private sector
numbers, volume, as opposed to rent increases, which lies behind
the increase in the private sector Housing Benefit bill.
Q206 Chairman: So the total bill would
have gone up but what you are saying is individual rents have
not necessarily risen?
Mr McIntyre: That is my view at
this stage. Given that you have been given evidence which contradicts
that, I would just want to check my facts on that.
Q207 Chairman: I think also that it has
been said that the Housing Benefit payment scheme is subject to
fraud and abuse. What comment would you have to those who say
there is large scale fraud and abuse within the Housing Benefit
system?
Mr McIntyre: I think all benefit
systems can be the subject of abuse. There is no evidence here
that Housing Benefit fraud is any different than it is in the
rest of the United Kingdom, indeed the figures that I have seen
would suggest that they are just about the same. We work under
the Department for Work and Pensions' guidance on Housing Benefit,
how you prevent fraud. We have the same verification checks, we
do extensive data matching, we risk assess applicants, we have
a visiting programme. We also work closely with the benefit fraud
inspection unit. There is a range of other steps which, if you
wanted, I could ask my colleague, Mr McCaughley, to elaborate
on.
Mr McCaughley: There are, of course,
new proposals coming through for new anti-fraud interventions.
I think the biggest thing they have done is around computerised
data matching. An example would be a few years ago we did data
matching on pensions and discovered—all regions discovered
the same thing—a significant under-declaration of occupational
pensions which led to the identification of two million pounds'
worth of fraud. Those sorts of data matching exercises are now
nationally made, we are a partner to those exercises and we have
more planned in the years ahead. Matching with the Inland Revenue,
for example, could release some interesting results at a national
and local level. In broad terms, there is a whole range of measures
beyond data matching. We risk assess every case and we visit the
most risky cases. There is a new programme that is being developed
nationally which we will apply locally from this October where
a new form of risk assessment will be introduced and a more rigorous
form of visiting carried out. I think the work on anti-fraud over
the last few years has greatly accelerated and I suspect it will
accelerate and expand with even more momentum over the next three
years.
Q208 Mr Luke: There have not been any
Northern Ireland pilots, there is the Pathfinder programme for
the UK being tried out in Edinburgh and at some stage in England
where the actual Housing Benefit is paid out to the tenant rather
than the landlord, that has proven to be a bit problematic. I
just wonder if you have any experience of that here?
Mr McCaughley: We had previous
experience many years ago. It is a two edged sword. Landlords,
I suspect, will greatly resist it. I think what you are finding
already in England and Scotland is that it has been applied in
cases of temporary accommodation and the voluntary sector is,
therefore, being hit as well. You are dealing with vulnerable
people, you are giving them their benefit and the voluntary sector
provider cannot get the income off them. It is a two edged sword.
I suspect some form of selective approach may be the answer here,
but that has yet to be developed in any great detail in Northern
Ireland.
Q209 Mark Tami: There is concern that
the decline in stock that you have is causing problems in respect
of anti-social behaviour. Do you agree with that?
Mr McIntyre: Do you mean by that
question as we sell off stock that people may be behaving badly
on stock we have sold off?
Q210 Mark Tami: What you have left, yes,
but also what you have planned.
Mr McIntyre: Therefore we do not
have any way of responding to that. The short answer to that question
is that recent powers we have been given under the Housing Order
2003 will allow us to take action against owner-occupiers and
against private sector tenants on our estates. That legislation
is now there. I should say just generally, we have been given
new legislation to tackle anti-social behaviour which, first of
all, stops people getting in the door. If there is evidence that
they have behaved badly when they had been our tenants we do not
have to rehouse them, they are disqualified. Introductory tenancies
are now in place.
Q211 Mark Tami: We have been carrying
out a lot of anti-social behaviour legislation, do you feel that
Northern Ireland is lagging behind and, if so, what do you think
is needed?
Mr McIntyre: The next piece of
legislation, the Minister is consulting on it currently, is the
introduction of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. As an organisation
we have been pressing for those, as have been the police and so
forth. As you say, there has been an awful raft of anti-social
behaviour legislation coming out in England and Wales. A good
deal of it I think is around the criminal justice area rather
than housing. I know the police have been saying they need those
new powers. I think from our point of view, we have been given
new powers and we are now seriously testing those powers and we
would rather work our way through that and introduce Anti-Social
Behaviour Orders before we start saying we need further additional
powers.
Q212 Mark Tami: Moving on to equality
and community relations issues, what are you doing to address
the divisions in the communities and to look at ways through your
policies you can help the general integration issue?
Mr McIntyre: We have a very old
and complex problem here.
Q213 Mark Tami: I know it is the crux
of the issue.
Mr McIntyre: Maybe I can summarise
it in a few minutes. We come from a position where our job is
to meet housing need and because of circumstances in Northern
Ireland choice is much affected by security and safety and that
has led to high levels of segregation in Housing Executive estates.
That is the reality. You cannot change that, you cannot socially
engineer that choice. Security and safety are predominant. Nevertheless,
on our waiting list there are something of the order of 400 householders
who come from mixed communities who are in need and by the same
token their choice has been restricted. We have recently indicated
that we will be testing out a couple of pilot integrated housing
schemes, new build schemes, over the next few years, in line with
the Government's proposals in A Shared Future, which
is out for consultation. It allows us to test out things like
location, design, management, intensive management and the selection
scheme, to first of all secure a mixed community and maintain
that, and things like right to buy, are fairly important as well
because you could go to some areas where what is changing the
nature of an area which may have been mixed is not so much the
allocation of housing but the fact that housing has subsequently
been bought by a section of the community which is disturbing
that mix.
Q214 Mark Tami: This may be a very difficult
question to answer but have you made any estimate as to what are
the costs involved in trying to implement that sort of policy,
if you can quantify that?
Mr McIntyre: We do not have costs
associated with integrated housing, that is simple. We do have
some proxies for costs arising from division.
Q215 Mark Tami: In terms of just providing
social housing within a divided area?
Mr McIntyre: Okay. We will take
it in a very broad sense. For example, we have a number of properties
lying vacant in interface areas so there is a cost. We know what
the cost of spread is annually, that is a cost. We know what the
cost—I do not have the information here but we have it available—is
to repair properties which have been damaged because of civil
disturbances over the years. We know the cost of our POPPI scheme
which provided security measures to private sector houses in interface
areas. We know that 10% of all families who approach us under
the homelessness legislation do so for intimidation. What you
cannot get, which is a big cost, is the inefficiencies in housing
markets which arise because land is not available, we do not have
that. We can provide information on each of those heads.
Q216 Reverend Smyth: I thought you said
you were not obliged to rehouse people but am I not right in saying
that the points system is controlled by the Housing Executive
and the housing associations must act accordingly and, therefore,
people who have made themselves homeless because of their misbehaviour
have been getting large points compared with others and the housing
associations have had to rehouse them to the detriment of others
who should have been housed?
Mr McIntyre: I think Reverend
Smyth has been pointing up a problem with the outworkings of the
selection scheme for several years and particularly the impact
of homelessness legislation. The new provisions, which I mentioned,
under the Housing Order now allow us to disqualify such housing
applicants. Indeed, we have a major exercise at the moment where
we have been going through our waiting list and asking our managers
to identify, in their view, which applicants are on our list for
that reason. We are reviewing each case. We need to take legal
advice on each of those cases, by the way, with a view to seeing
whether or not we can disqualify applicants from a waiting list.
You are right, Reverend Smyth, there has been a problem in the
past. We have been keen to see legislation taken forward to address
that. It is now there and we are intending to use it. We have
disqualified already a number of applicants.
Q217 Reverend Smyth: The housing associations
are aware of it?
Mr McIntyre: Absolutely.
Q218 Chairman: On Sunday, I had the displeasure
of witnessing first hand somebody who was being displaced, pushed
out of their home. They were told they were leaving the next morning,
irrespective of their desire to do so. What would happen to that
individual, Monday morning?
Mr McIntyre: Displaced for what
reason, Chairman?
Q219 Chairman: Because the community
no longer wanted them there.
Mr McIntyre: Yes. What they clearly
have to do is to present to the Housing Executive the next day.
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