House of Commons - Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions

Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Eighth Report

5 The Regional Agenda

39. The Government is pursuing an active regional agenda. Regional Development Agencies have been operating since 1999. Regional Planning Bodies are to develop Regional Spatial Strategies as required under the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act. Regional Housing Boards were set up in 2003 and drew up their first Regional Housing Strategies which helped to set the investment priorities for the Housing Corporation and other housing funding in the regions.[26] Evidence to the Committee suggested that the role of the Regional Housing Boards could be expanded and that the Housing Corporation should develop greater regional accountability to the Boards.

40. Evidence to the Committee from the West Midlands Regional Housing Board demonstrated the important role it has performed in bringing together funding from the Housing Corporation and regional priorities. Graham Garbutt, the chairman of the West Midlands Regional Housing Board, told us:

"So for the first time we have made that shift of advice from Civil Servants being formulated in the region going to ministers and being approved in, I think, a way that has been shown to be effective."[27]

41. However, the membership of the Boards has limited accountability in the region. The Director of the Government Office in the Region chairs the Regional Housing Board and determines the membership. They all include representatives from the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships. The West Midlands Regional Housing Board also has representatives from the West Midlands Regional Assembly, West Midlands Local Government Association, the Regional Housing Partnership and Advantage West Midlands (the Regional Development Agency),

42. Witnesses pointed out that Regional Housing Boards are new, have limited resources; are not accountable to the local authorities in their region and have yet to develop some key relationships with sub-regional organisations, housing associations and tenants organisations. Graham Garbutt, the chairman of the West Midlands Regional Housing Board told the Committee:

"The Board itself does not include tenants; it does not include councillors at the moment, which is another key question."[28]

He explained that the regional housing strategy was delegated to a regional housing partnership which involves a wide range of council representatives and other agencies.

43. The English Regions White Paper proposes that responsibility for housing investment could be transferred to elected Regional Assemblies in areas where they are set up.[29] The West Midlands Regional Housing Board pointed out that:

"There is also a view among local politicians in the region that greater accountability and ownership of regional policy making and investment could transfer before an elected regional assembly is set up……Any changes made now should enable a straightforward transfer to be made as and when ERAs are set up."[30]

44. The Council of Mortgage Lenders argued that, while investment decisions should be taken regionally, regulation should remain with the Housing Corporation in order to safeguard private assets. Andrew Heywood, the CML's senior policy advisor, said:

"I think that we ought to move forward to a situation where, as my colleague suggested, we maintain the links between the regulatory role of the Housing Corporation and investment and I think we need to try to arrive at a situation where the regional housing boards are clearly taking specific regionally informed decisions about particular investments, but the criteria that are being used, and that would include performance criteria drawn from regulation, are actually informing those decisions so that the two are actually connected. I think it is also important for the major stakeholders, including tenants and lenders, that the way in which investment is disposed is actually understood and there is a reasonable commonality across the country. I think a situation where there are nine different approaches, nine different sets of criteria being used, where the relationship was not consistent either would be quite unsatisfactory."[31]

45. Julian Ashby from the housing consultancy HACAS Chapman Hendy said:

"They (the Regional Housing Boards) are developing their experience at setting strategies. They have had very little experience of managing investment delivery vehicles. That is the experience that I think the Housing Corporation brings because it has been doing that for 30 years since the 1974 Act. So it has got a great deal of experience, has never played a leading strategic role and I think, therefore, is very well placed to work with housing boards in matching up investment delivery to strategy."[32]

46. Phil Morgan, chief executive of the Tenants Participation and Advisory Service argued:

"There is also a need for regional housing boards to develop exclusive strategies not just about how you might engage with regional tenant boards, but tenants more generally. That is in parallel with what happens with local authorities and with housing associations; they do not just have a relationship with their tenant federation, but they look to have a range of relationships with their tenants with a range of ways of engaging with tenants and with obviously the same happening at a regional level. There is a real opportunity to develop both accountability and transparency at a regional level about regional housing strategies and we want to be part of that process to make sure that tenants and residents do get that opportunity."[33]

Mr Morgan said that it was developing a regional tenants forum in the North West. He told the Committee: "We would like to see active regional tenant forums in all nine regions of this country."[34]

47. The Housing Corporation is represented on all nine Regional Housing Boards but does not have a regional office in all of them. Although it clearly has staff working in all areas, it only has four regional offices which cover very large areas. The Director of the Housing Corporation's Central regional office sits on the West Midlands Regional Housing Board but his responsibilities cover a very large area - from the Essex coast to the southern edges of Manchester and the Welsh borders. It is hard to see how he can be expected to make an informed contribution on the particular needs of the West Midlands when his responsibilities cover such a large area.

48. The End to End review is proposing that the Housing Corporation should

"consider changing its organisational structure so that its investment teams work to the Government Office regional boundaries, to ensure good working arrangements with Regional Housing"[35]

However Peter Dixon, the Housing Corporation's chairman, told the Committee that its resources did not allow it.

"We do not have the resource, either financially or in terms of people, to replicate our field offices across nine regional areas."[36]

49. English Partnerships is represented on all the Regional Housing Boards but, like the Housing Corporation, it does not have a regional office in all of them and its activities are concentrated in a few areas. David Higgins, EP's chief executive told the committee:

"We have five regional directors who are all at the most senior level within our organisation who report to myself. They all individually sit on the regional housing boards. They are the most important coordinating body in the regions for our executives."[37]

Margaret Ford, EP's chairman, told the Committee that the agency would be seeking to even out its activity across the English regions but, "for the next few years whilst we have huge amounts of business in certain parts of the country, we had to resource up to do that."[38] She also accepted that its main role was not to set strategy:

"English Partnerships, as a delivery agency, tends to work to other people's strategies, notably either Government's, for example, in the growth areas or the regional development agencies economic strategies. We are much more focused on particular usually large-scale projects within an area in terms of the contributions of affordable housing, but we do not tend to go in and dream up those strategies."[39]

Merger of Regional Housing Boards with Regional Planning Bodies

50. The Government is considering merging regional housing boards with regional planning boards. This proposal was initially made in the review of housing supply carried out for the ODPM and the Treasury by Kate Barker.

"The Regional Planning Bodies and Regional Housing Boards should be merged to create single Regional Planning and Housing Bodies (RPHBs), responsible for all aspects of managing the regional housing market. They should be supported by the establishment of Regional Planning Executives (RPEs) which would be responsible for providing evidence to inform the provision of market housing and investment in social housing in the region. There would be merit in extending the remit of the RPEs to provide the evidence base for the Regional Economic Strategy."[40]

51. Keith Hill, the Planning and Housing Minister, said that the Government would be consulting on the merger by the end of 2005.

"The Government accepts, of course, the need for reform, and we intend to open consultations on that proposal with the intention of coming forward with proposals for a merged function towards the second half of 2005."[41]

52. Evidence to the Committee suggested that the merger was not necessary because the Regional Housing Boards could already work effectively with the planning boards. There were also concerns that the proposed merger could cause confusion. Steve Gregory, a member of the West Midlands Regional Housing Board and chairman of the West Midlands Regional Housing Partnership said:

"I think we have effectively tied together regional planning guidance with a regional housing strategy, with an early regional housing strategy, which has identified the key housing issues for the region, very closely tied to planning."[42]

The North West Regional Assembly argued in the Housing Today magazine that the merger would cause chaos and would confuse different planning roles.

"The solutions Brown (the Chancellor) has come up with are not the ones that will tackle the problems we have in the North. Change now will cause chaos. The key function of the regional planning boards - setting a regional spatial strategy - would be usurped by the strategy set by the regional housing boards."[43]

53. There is potential to develop the role of the Regional Housing Boards but first of all they must increase their input from local authorities and tenants organisations. This could build on the work of the regional housing partnerships which involve a variety of housing interests in many areas and are drawing up the regional housing strategy on behalf of the Boards.

54. The Regional Housing Boards need a clear role in overseeing the allocation of housing funds. They should develop a monitoring regime for the Housing Corporation's allocation of funds to housing associations to ensure that the priorities identified in the Board's regional strategies are met. The Boards also require resources to develop their analysis of regional needs and prepare their strategies.

55. Regional policies should be drawn up by local interests. The Housing Corporation and English Partnerships are represented on all the Regional Housing Boards but they are national agencies providing funding, land and development expertise. At the moment the Corporation and EP's regional structures do not reflect the RHBs or the Government's regional offices. If their involvement is to be meaningful, EP and the Housing Corporation must develop effective regional arrangements to ensure that those with regional knowledge are on the Boards. In regions where EP does not have a major programme it should not sit on the Regional Housing Board, but once a new programme is developed in a region then it should be eligible for representation.

56. The Housing Corporation must develop a clear relationship with the Regional Housing Boards in terms of managing the delivery of housing. At a regional level progress and monitoring reports prepared for the Corporation should be made available to the Regional Housing Board and the Corporation should make it their practice to consult the Board on a regular basis. In distributing funds, the Corporation should be obliged to consult the Regional Housing Boards and to have due regard to their strategies and priorities.

57. The Government should require English Partnerships to work to the priorities set by the Regional Housing Boards and to report progress on implementation to them on a regular basis.

58. The Committee accepts that housing and planning policies needs to be better coordinated but there is no case currently for merging the Regional Housing Boards with Regional Planning Boards. The Regional Housing Boards are beginning to develop a regional approach to the provision and funding of affordable housing that could be lost in the merger. Once directly elected assemblies are set up, they should be allowed to decide how planning and housing decisions are made.

26 Sustainable Communities: Building for the future ODPM February 2003 Back

27 Q251 Back

28 Q274 Back

29 Your Region, Your Choice: Revitalising the English Regions ODPM May 2002 Cm 5511 Back

30 THC 29 Back

31 Q160 Back

32 Q164 Back

33 Q125 Back

34 Q133 Back

35 THC 1(a) Back

36 Q333 Back

37 Q483 Back