Any time someone digs into public accounts, they deserve a medal in the estimation of this writer. Following the money is slow work.
In the case of the report linked to this post, local governments in the UK joined up with council housing providers and housing associations to understand their local housing crises. All these entities wanted get a handle on how the housing policies of the national government were affecting their ability to develop, provide and operate social rent housing.
To do a thorough job, the research team needed to look at the famous Right To Buy program, which allowed tenants living in council housing to buy their homes. The original promise of right to buy was that every home that was removed from the social rent housing stock would be replaced.
The story that there are thousands fewer social rent units now than there were at the start of Right to Buy is not new. This report studies the period from 2012 on, when there was a substantial adjustment to local government powers and local governments were given more latitude for meeting local needs. Along with the new local powers, and the revenues and expenditure associated with Right to Buy, the researchers investigated national level spending to support the production of ‘affordable’ and social rent homes.
The report gets into the nitty gritty of what happened and how the effects are distributed across the country. Here are a few of the findings:
- More new social rent homes were built in London and the southern part of the country, compared to the midlands and the north.
- In all parts of the country, the number of new units is lagging behind the number of units lost through Right to Buy in the same period.
- The midlands and the north have a greater need for social rent housing than the south on a per capita basis, but have less financial capacity to develop and operate it.
The researchers recommend options for changing policies to increase the amount of social rent housing that is getting built. They also recommend it gets it built in the areas where it is most needed. One option is to pool the housing revenues generated by local councils. That would tip more funding to the midlands and the north. It’s an option which has the potential to divide the groups that commissioned the report.
Another recommendation, which is to pass the recommendations on to the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities, is likely to have more universal appeal.
There’s lots more in this report which is obviously of interest in the United Kingdom. It will be of interest researchers in all jurisdictions for its methodology. It also demonstrates the value of collaborating with groups that share complementary mandates.
Read more at Local Government Association: LGA: HRA Research – Right to Buy January 2023 Research into the Right to Buy within the Housing Revenue Account
