Examination of Witnesses (Questions 246-259)
16 DECEMBER 2003
CLLR RUTH
BAGNALL, MR
MIKE ATHERTON,
CLLR GRAHAM
CHAPMAN, MS
LYNNE PENNINGTON,
MS MARIA
O'BRIEN AND
MS SUE
MANSFIELD
Q246 Chairman: May I welcome you to our
third session this morning and ask you to introduce yourselves
for the record.
Mr Atherton: Mike Atherton, Head
of Strategic Housing Services at Telford and Wrekin Council.
Ms Pennington: Lynne Pennington,
Corporate Director at Nottingham City Council.
Cllr Bagnall: Ruth Bagnall, Chair
of the Housing Executive of the Local Government Association.
Ms O'Brien: Maria O'Brien, Divisional
Manager for Housing Strategy, Liverpool City Council.
Ms Mansfield: Sue Mansfield, Housing
Investment Manager, Liverpool City Council.
Q247 Chairman: Thank you very much. Is
there anything you would like to say by way of introduction, or
you are happy to go straight to questions?
Cllr Bagnall: May I have a starter,
and only a very quick one. I know we will be talking in a lot
of technical detail about Decent Homes as such, but I think it
is important that we do see that within the context, embedded
as it is now, in the overall approach to housing in the Sustainable
Communities Plan. The whole commitment to Decent Homes has lifted
the lid on the state of council housing: it showed the amount
of investment which was going to be necessary. But when you look
at it embedded now in the documentation for Sustainable Communities,
I think our sights have been raised since that first commitment
to Decent Homes, particularly in council housing. Standards have
been raised and expectations have been raised, so what we are
looking to achieving out of the Sustainable Communities Plan goes
quite a lot further, in the sense of expectations and aspirations,
than the strictest definition of Decent Homes. I think it is important
to see it in that context, as well as what it is in terms of PSA
targets and whether we are going to meet them.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Q248 Mr Clelland: Is the Decent Homes
Standard sufficiently broad and is the level high enough?
Ms Pennington: As Corporate Director
of the Housing Department in Nottingham City Council, a lot of
what we have heard today reflects where we are up to. We are currently
going through major organisational change. Major programmes have
been set up for consulting tenants across the city on the range
of investment options and clearly the Decent Homes Standard is
part of that debate. It is very clear from the tenants that it
is decent homes and decent neighbourhoods that are important to
them. Nottingham has a very successful track record of maintaining
decent neighbourhoods. In terms of our evidence, the tenants have
very strong views about the Decent Homes Standard and the need
for decent neighbourhoods, and of the need for a level playing
field to enable them to exercise informed choices that are not
dictated by linkages with options. In terms of the Decent Homes
Standard, whilst we do not have a problem with the minimum standard,
we do think it is a minimum standard. We are one of the authorities
that will be struggling to meet that, and we are clearly looking
at options for meeting that gap, but actually what is important
for us is the decent homes and decent neighbourhoods' gap. As
an example, our decent homes and decent neighbourhoods' gap is
£141 million but for the Decent Homes Standard it is £36
million.
Ms O'Brien: From Liverpool's perspective,
I would agree with a lot of what has been said. Some of the stock
we have within the city is probably in the worst condition but
is actually in our most sustainable neighbourhoods. Liverpool
is one of the low-demand pathfinders for the housing market renewable
initiative. Fifty per cent of council stock is in that area where
there are issues around the sustainability of that stock. If you
just look at Decent Homes as a straightforward number basis—which
is really how it is applied—some of that stock is not sustainable
even though it meets Decent Homes, because it is in an area that
is in a low-demand pathfinder and therefore is unpopular and in
unpopular neighbourhoods.
Cllr Bagnall: Your question was
whether the definition was broad enough or high enough. I think
it depends on: broad enough or high enough for what? In terms
of very basic asset management it probably is, and it is probably
achievable, but in terms of sustainable communities it probably
is not.
Q249 Mr Clelland: Do you think the standard
is defined sufficiently clearly? Is there adequate methodology
for measuring outputs?
Cllr Bagnall: My guess is yes.
I personally have not gone through in any detail the acres of
guidance that go to my officers and the officers of other councils.
I would expect there is every bit as much as is needed, if not
more so, just in terms of definition of the standards. There will
still be people who interpret those standards flexibly, people
who are very keen to be seen to meet the targets, who will maybe
do a job of work on a particular estate which another authority
or even another estate might not see or feel is meeting the targets.
I think there is always going to be some local flexibility, local
interpretation and local understanding of what it is that people
are trying to achieve even with a full set of guidance.
Q250 Chairman: An awful lot of the evidence
which we have received, which I assume you have had a look at,
makes it quite clear on a whole broad range of things that people
are dissatisfied with the standards.
Cllr Bagnall: When you start talking
about minimum standards, it is a gloomy thing. In principle, it
is quite a good thing, because it is a basic level beyond which
you aspire and the level at which no one should be suffering from
standards below that minimum, but it allows people to say there
must be something better beyond this. A tenant, a housing officer,
a councillor would be able to identify what beyond that minimum
they aspire to from day one. I think that is the way that minimum
standards work, and so I would expect there to be a whole long
list of things to which people would immediately want to aspire,
once they have a confidence, which I think people are gaining,
that the very basics will be met. I now have very few people coming
to me personally, as a councillor, who are anxious about when
their plastic windows will be replaced because they can see the
substance of the resource is double what it was five years ago.
It means that programme will be out of the way and they can think
about something which is perhaps a bit softer, perhaps a bit more
to do with the environment and social issues. But, on the basis
of the minimum standards being met, then they will have higher
aspirations. I think that is right and that is the way minimum
standards work.
Mr Atherton: Could I endorse that.
We carry out a biennial survey. Consistently at the top of that
list are issues of crime and issues of the fear of crime, issues
around neighbourhood management. Issues around the quality of
the housing and the affordability of housing sit right the way
down the list. People's perceptions are not necessarily focused
on housing conditions.
Q251 Mr Clelland: Would you think it
is feasible to make changes to the breadth and the level required
by the standard to include things like decent neighbourhoods and
accessibility?
Mr Atherton: We would very much
welcome that.
Cllr Chapman: I think you have
a problem—
Q252 Chairman: I am sorry, you were not
here at the beginning. Would you like to explain why not and introduce
yourself?
Cllr Chapman: Yes, I will do.
Midland mainline: a 50 minute delay from Nottingham. I apologise.
Graham Chapman. May I continue?
Q253 Chairman: Yes.
Cllr Chapman: Thank you. I represent
a ward which is probably one of the toughest in the East Midlands.
We are beginning to turn that ward around. The reason we are turning
it round is to do with some sensitive environmental work as well
as a very tough attitude towards anti-social behaviour. My problem
with the Decent Homes Standard is that it is not giving people
what they want; in fact, it may be diverting resources from what
they want. In the hierarchy of needs, a top hierarchy of need
is to do with security before it is to do with plastic windows.
My worry is that it is actually diverting resources from where
it should be going. The difficulty is the ODPM have no real idea
of how much it does cost to provide decent environmental support
for housing. It is a very expensive business. There are two separate
types of council estates on the whole: those built in the `30s,
which were not made for cars particularly—so you have very
difficult problems with roads—and those in the `60s which
were open plan. In both cases you are going to need quite a lot
of structural reorganisation, which is a very expensive business,
but that is the sort of thing that people want, because very often
you cannot let some homes because you cannot put your car anywhere
near your home.
Q254 Mr Clelland: Are you suggesting
the Government has its priorities wrong?
Cllr Chapman: Yes.
Q255 Mr Clelland: And what we ought to
be looking at is decent neighbourhood standards before we go on
to decent housing standards?
Cllr Chapman: There is a simple
test. Any person in the private sector would go for a house in
a decent area before it went for a decent house in a poor area.
I think that is the ultimate test. It is the same with the council
tenants, it is probably the same for any other tenant. If we are
not making the areas decent, we are going to end up with a lot
of homes which are very well appointed but not lettable. There
are examples throughout the country—and I can give you examples
of parts of Hull that I know very well, where they have spent
a lot of money on the houses and they cannot let them because
they are in the wrong area. So the priority has to making the
area decent first.
Q256 Mr Clelland: Could I just turn to
another issue, having listened to what you have said and having
some sympathy with it; on the other hand, we are looking at housing
standards. The Government intends to replace the Fitness Standard
with the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. Do you think
this is going to improve the Decent Homes Standard?
Ms Pennington: To a degree, but
it is marginal. If this is about the quality of life for people
in neighbourhoods, it is more than just a bricks and mortar standard.
Councillor Chapman has made it clear that our tenants have articulated
very, very strongly and through 18 months of intensive consultation
that what is important to them is the quality of life. They are
no different from owner-occupiers.
Q257 Chairman: But we are on to a different
issue, are we not? We are on to what is going to be in the housing
bill that has been published.
Ms Pennington: Yes, and it is
welcomed. Do not get me wrong, a lot of government policy over
the last few years is totally welcomed. ALMOs, performance focus,
best value, they are all things that are welcomed. The Housing
Bill and the moves to improve conditions in the private sector
are welcomed. But our view is that they do not go far enough.
Q258 Mr Betts: What do you think the
main problems are with the current funding arrangements in place
to try to address the Decent Homes Standard? Whether you think
the standard is a right one, clearly we have to have more funding
in. Do you think the funding arrangements are right at present
or are there problems with it?
Mr Atherton: I think there are
a number of issues that are linked to funding. They are about
the framework within which the delivery of decent homes is going
to happen. I think they are about the timeframe, the achievability
and a benchmark of where we are starting from, and of course resources
come into that. I think it is dangerous to talk about resources
in isolation, although my intuitive feel for the area for which
I am responsible is that there are insufficient resources available
to deliver the Decent Homes Standard in the timeframe we are talking
about.
Ms Pennington: Whilst, again,
working in business planning, there has been help for local authorities
and it has made us more transparent and accountable; on the other
hand, it has not led to any greater degree of financial stability.
If we just look over the last year, in terms of the moves from
Regional Housing Board top-slicing BCA, changes to housing benefits
subsidy—and I am not saying we do not welcome those but
there have also been changes in terms of management maintenance
allowances and the fact that there is no clarity in terms of round
5 for ALMOs yet, it makes a great degree of uncertainty for our
planning and for our consultation. If we are engaging tenants
right from the beginning and the playing field is changing all
the time, then it is hard to keep them on board.
Q259 Mr Betts: Just coming to the LGAs,
you said there should be other options than the four currently
available. Indeed, you have been somewhat critical of some of
the restrictions on local authorities, the restrictions on going
for ALMOs, and said that there ought to be other alternatives.
What is your view?
Cllr Bagnall: A previous witness
I thought gave a very good answer, which I will just steal, looking
back over time about how options have developed and matured. There
has been some creativity in the process: ALMOs have arisen and
been put forward and people are taking them on board as a serious
option, and, I guess, five or six years ago in Cambridge, my own
council, stock transfer was the only kid on the block. To rule
out definitively future alternatives, I am sorry, I think dogmatically
might be a problem, because there may be solutions which are generated
out of discussion and debate and dialogue about what is achievable
now. However, if anything new does come up, it will create enormous
uncertainty and a huge amount of difficulty in terms of direct
consultation with tenants because people will see the sands shifting
and dig in, I think. That is an interesting observation we can
make as new ideas arise—and securitisation is one of the
suggestions that we have put forward as an LGA—that in a
time of uncertainty people will dig into what they have. I think
the downside of new models becoming available is that people will
run away from the difficulties and the risks involved in taking
a decision in a timely way because they are just waiting for the
next thing to come along which might be more likely to be something
they are in favour of. In the meantime the decision is not made,
the investment is not made, and—
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