Relationships with English Partnerships
30. English Partnerships (EP) is to play an increasing
role in promoting housing particularly in delivering the Government's
Sustainable Communities Plan. As part of its core business it
says:
English Partnerships will play a major role in delivering
the government's Sustainable Communities Plan to ensure that high-quality,
low cost and affordable housing is available in areas of market
pressure and to tackle the problems associated with housing abandonment
and decay.
We will invest in development and regeneration across
the four growth areas identified in the Sustainable Communities
plan: Thames Gateway, Milton Keynes/South Midlands, Ashford and
London-Stansted-Cambridge.
Working in partnership with The Housing Corporation
through a new joint unit, The Housing Partnership, we will rapidly
bring forward sites for housing development, particularly affordable
and key worker housing.
We will work alongside the Regional Development Agencies
(RDAs), The Housing Corporation and Local Strategic Partnerships
to develop strategies to bring about market renewal in the nine
Pathfinder areas (areas suffering from low housing demand and
abandonment), tailoring solutions to the requirements of the area.
Working with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
and the RDAs, we have created a new housing gap-funding scheme,
currently at consultation stage, to help deliver housing projects
in deprived areas where there is a gap between the cost of development
and likely sale values.
We will participate on each of the new Regional Housing
Boards led by Government Offices, alongside the Housing Corporation
and the RDAs."[18]
31. The Housing Corporation argued that it was working
closely with EP but that they had distinct roles. EP owned land
and prepared it for development, while the Corporation helped
fund the social housing built on it. It said the Chairmen and
Chief Executives sit on each other's boards. Under the Housing
Partnership, EP delivers housing on surplus land it owns in the
Growth Areas jointly with the Housing Corporation. Jon Rouse,
the Corporation's Chief Executive told the Committee:
"At first glance some people say that English
Partnerships and the Housing Corporation look like similar organisations.
The reality is that if you actually look at them closely, we have
substantially different functions, substantially different stakeholders.
The important thing is that we work very closely together. The
Corporation is, first of all, a regulatory body; English Partnerships
is not and does not purport to be. In terms of our investment
function, we have a very specific and large investment role in
respect of funding housing, affordable homes, bricks and mortar.
English Partnerships' responsibility is to facilitate the delivery
of sites so that things can then be built on those sites or, indeed,
public space can be provided, and that includes commercial, industrial,
retail and new homes."[19]
32. There are concerns about confusion between the
roles and functions of the two organisations. The Chartered Institute
of Housing said:
"The ability of housing associations to access
available land is a key issue, and English Partnerships have a
clear role in site assembly and land preparation. However there
is discussion about English Partnerships being more involved in
actually commissioning and providing homes, which steps over into
the functions of the Corporation."[20]
33. The Housing Bill proposes to give the Housing
Corporation powers to fund private developers to provide affordable
housing. English Partnerships itself pointed to the potential
confusion between its role in working with and funding private
developers and the Housing Corporation's operations that might
arise if these proposals to change the Corporation's funding regime
are taken forward. David Higgins, EP's chief executive said:
"The new Housing Act that is coming into force
now provides flexibility for the Housing Corporation to provide
funding to private developers as well as housing associations
to deliver affordable housing. It is very important that we work
with the Housing Corporation because we have gap-funding powers
to ensure that we do not confuse the market, so we are working
closely with them to how we use both of those mechanisms."[21]
We have raised our concerns in previous reports about
this proposal, urging the Government to consider way to streamline
and improve the effectiveness of housing associations before introducing
any measures to pay Social Housing Grant to private developers.[22]
We consider how housing associations could be made more efficient
in a later section of this report.
34. The Audit Commission argued that the current
co-operation between the Housing Corporation and EP would only
achieve limited benefits and that greater collaboration was required.
It argued that grant funds could be better used if EP's landownership
and the Housing Corporation's social housing funds were more integrated.
The Audit Commission commented:
"EP works closely with local government and
has a similar role to that of the Corporation in promoting sustainable
communities and tackling the imbalance between supply and demand
for housing. The Commission supports, and has been impressed by
the impact of, the approach to its remit taken by EP in recent
years. This appears to have generated a more thoughtful, inclusive
and purposeful agenda for the utilisation of land in its ownership.
We are nevertheless aware of, and to an extent share, doubts that
the present institutional arrangements may limit the potential
for further progress. We consider that an alternative approach,
bringing together the land holdings of EP and the funding of the
Corporation, could hold out the prospect of enhancing delivery
and increasing efficiency in the development process. But we recognise
that there are arguments both for and against changes of this
kind. We therefore remain focused at present on improving collaboration
and securing greater clarification of the roles and responsibilities
of the different bodies involved in the housing sector."[23]
35. David Higgins, the chief executive of English
Partnerships accepted that:
"there is some logic in publicly owned land
and publicly owned grant and coordinating the decisions on those
prior to putting land out to tender."[24]
The Housing Partnership between English Partnerships
and the Housing Corporation is securing affordable housing on
EP-owned sites in the four Growth Areas in the South East. Margaret
Ford, the chairman of EP, said:
"The Housing Partnership is trying new models
and trying different things and the things that are seen to work
within mainstream into both programmes and that was really the
purpose of setting up the Housing Partnership."[25]
EP has a large landholding across England and is
acquiring large numbers of surplus sites from Government agencies
including the Department of Health and the Ministry of Defence.
There is potential for greater collaboration between English
Partnerships, the Housing Corporation and the Department of Health
and Ministry of Defence to maximise the potential for affordable
housing in the redevelopment of their surplus operational land.
36. There are a large number of new regeneration
agencies charged with delivering the Sustainable Communities Plan.
The Housing Corporation needs to consider its role in securing
considerable amounts of social housing as part of the mixed tenure
developments being proposed.
37. English Partnerships' role in promoting housing
development must be clarified as there seems to be an overlap
with the role of the Housing Corporation. The Government needs
to reconsider its proposal in the Housing Bill to allow the Housing
Corporation to fund private developers. It would cause confusion
as EP and other agencies already have the remit to fund developers
and giving an additional remit to the Housing Corporation could
cause confusion and duplication.
38. The relationship between the Housing Corporation
and English Partnerships and the other new agencies delivering
the Sustainable Communities Plan must be put on a firmer footing.
Reciprocal membership of the boards of the agencies is not sufficient.
Greater integration of social housing funds and landownership
in the areas covered by the Sustainable Communities Plan is required
to maximise the amount of affordable housing in the private developments.
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