by Adrian Waite 8th February 2017 We have re-designed our website and the new site will be launched this week. The new website contains all the information that is currently on the website and all the same facilities to book onto seminars and webinars and to order books. However, the site is more user-friendly and can be displayed better on tablets and mobile devices. I hope users of the website will like the new site and if any of you have any feedback I would be pleased to hear from you at Adrian.waite@awics.co.uk Next Wednesday (15th February) I will be presenting: ‘All You Want to Know about Service Charges in Social Housing’ at the Novotel Waterloo Hotel in London. As usual, this seminar has proved popular and I am looking forward to meeting the delegates. However, we do have a few places still available. For more information or to make a booking please click HERE My briefing paper on: ‘Brexit and its implications for Housing’ is currently one of our most popular briefing papers. One of our readers, LB Legal Appeals – a company that provides Legal advice and representation at tribunal appeals for supported 'Exempt' and 'Specified' accommodation and other housing benefit issues, has been good enough to provide us with some feedback on the paper on Twitter, describing it as a: “Very useful piece on the potential implications of Brexit on Housing. It is a brilliant report.” Your copy can be freely downloaded from HERE The government published its long awaited White Paper on Housing yesterday. In view of the length of time that it has taken to prepare and the advance publicity that it received I think it contained very little radical change and repeated many established policies. However, it has received a cautious welcome from the housing sector in England. The main announcements in the white paper include:
The White Paper says the following about development by housing associations and other non-profit-making developers such as local authorities: “The Government has already announced funding worth a total of £7.1billion through an expanded and more flexible Affordable Homes Programme. We will provide clarity over future rent levels. In return, we expect them (housing associations and local authorities) to build significantly more affordable homes over the current Parliament.” The aspects of the white paper that I find interesting include:
My briefing paper on the affordable housing programme can be downloaded from HERE 30th January 2017 We have just launched our seminars on: ‘The Future Funding of Supported Housing’. The Government is planning to change the way in which Supported Housing is funded with housing benefit and universal credit supporting only core housing costs and housing support services being funded separately. At present, tenants are eligible to claim housing benefit, but eligibility is to be capped at local housing allowance rates from 2019 and the same approach is to be taken with Universal Credit. At the same time, new locally administered schemes will be introduced to ‘top-up’ the funding that is required to fund housing support. The Government states that it is committed to protecting and boosting the supply of supported housing and ensuring it provides value for money and works for those who use it as well as those who pay for it. The government announced its plans in September 2016 and issued a consultation paper in November 2016. A Green Paper will be issued in the Spring of 2017. This seminar will explain and examine the government’s proposals and their implications for local authorities, housing associations and their tenants. This will include local authorities in their commissioning and provider roles. It is designed for people who are not experts in housing finance, but who understand the basics. It is suitable for councillors, board members, housing managers, tenant representatives, finance staff and others with an interest in the future funding of supported housing. The session will consider the following questions:
The session is accompanied by a very useful hundred-page book that is designed for reference after the session. There will be a session in London on 4th April and another in Leeds on 3rd May. The price is £250 plus £50 VAT, total £300 in London; and £195 plus £39 VAT, total £234 in Leeds. For more information or to make a booking please click HERE I have just been reading the ‘European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill’. It is remarkably short and could probably be sent as a Tweet or written on the side of a bus! However, what I find most disturbing is the section in the government’s explanatory note that is entitled ‘Financial Implications of the Bill’. This consists solely of the following statement: “The Bill is not expected to have any financial implications.” When I worked in local government as an accountant and ultimately as Director of Finance, one of my responsibilities was to identify the financial implications of proposals in committee reports and to ensure that they were fully explained in the ‘financial implications’ section of the report. Usually this was not problematical, but there were occasions when Councillors, Chief Executives or other senior officers wanted financial implications to be concealed or couched in particular terms. These were occasions when it was necessary to ‘speak truth to power’ and insist that all financial implications including financial risks were fully explained to Members and placed on the public record. Clearly, Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union will have significant financial implications and risks; and I hope that someone in Whitehall will set them out soon. Our next seminar is on ‘All You Want to Know about Service Charges in Social Housing’ and will be held in London in 15th February. For more information or to make a booking please click HERE 23rd January 2017 Last week I presented an in-house training session on right to buy, capital receipts and 1-4-1 replacement of sold homes at a local authority in Eastern England. The session was well received. Delegates said that the information provided was very relevant, the quality of the presentation was excellent and the training met their needs fully. They described the session as: practical, thorough, useful and valuable. Specific comments that were made included:
I am grateful to the local authority for inviting me to present this session. If anyone would like to enquire about in-house training please contact me at Adrian.waite@awics.co.uk Local authorities are in the process of preparing their budgets for 2017/18 and as part of this are consulting their residents. I live in Cumbria, that is a two-tier area, and so took the opportunity to respond to the budget consultations of Cumbria County Council and Eden District Council. In common with most local authorities, Cumbria County Council is experiencing significant budget pressures caused by reductions in government funding, restrictions on the Council’s ability to raise Council Tax and increasing need especially for Adult Social Care services. I therefore wrote in support of the Council’s proposal to raise Council Tax by the maximum increase allowed of 1.99% plus 2% to fund the additional costs of adult social care. However, I also commented on other options for Council Tax, Adult Social Care, Children’s Services, the Efficiency Strategy, the Reserves, the Capital Programme, Asset Management and inflation. A copy of my response to the consultation by Cumbria County Council can be downloaded from HERE Eden District Council’s budgets have been protected from the most severe reductions in local government funding ever since 2010 but in my view, they are not making best use of the resources available to them. In my response to their budget consultation I suggest that the Council consider:
A copy of my response to the consultation by Eden District Council can be downloaded from HERE Following the government’s announcement that the Starter Homes scheme will go ahead, I had some correspondence with my Member of Parliament, Rory Stewart, that I included in my blog last week (see below). In this correspondence, Rory Stewart questioned the conclusions of research by Shelter that I had quoted. Sara Mahmoud, an Economic Analyst at Shelter, has since responded by explaining their research and its conclusions as follows: "It's important to note that Starter Homes will be newly built properties, so the price of existing properties in an area is not a good measure of their likely cost. Based on the Office for National Statistics' House Prices for Small Statistical Areas for June 2016 and data from the Council for Mortgage Lenders , a typical new build in Cumbria is £205,000. With the 20% Starter Homes discount this will be £164,000 and will need a household income of £45,000 and a deposit of £25,000. "The Government has argued that Starter Homes will be the same price as cheaper new build properties. Using the 'lower quartile' price of new builds in Cumbria as a likely price of this is the case still means a pre-discount price of £154,000, which needs a household income of £33,000 and a deposit of £18.000. “The reference for how these figures are calculated can be found in this report: (click HERE for a copy) “Housing minister Gavin Barwell has indicated that the definition of Starter Homes may be broadened to include ‘affordable rent’ homes. Shelter would welcome this change and would urge the government to make sure that rents are genuinely affordable for normal local household incomes.” This supports my contention that a person on an average income in Cumbria would not be able to afford a Starter Home but is still expected to pay tax to fund subsidies for more prosperous people who can! I expect that a similar calculation in other parts of England would produce the same conclusion. Our next seminar is on ‘All You Want to Know about Service Charges in Social Housing’ and will be held in London in 15th February. For more information or to make a booking please click HERE 16th January 2017 I am writing this blog on the train. Tomorrow I will be presenting an in-house training session on right to buy, capital receipts and 1-4-1 replacement of sold homes at a local authority in Eastern England. This is obviously an important subject and I am looking forward to the day. Following the government’s announcement that the Starter Homes scheme will go ahead, I decided to ask my MP a question about it. My MP is Rory Stewart, who is Minister of State at the Department for International Development. I included in my question some local data but I think the main issues are relevant in all parts of England. I am grateful to Rory Stewart for replying and as I found his reply interesting I have decided to include my question and his answer in full in this blog. Question: “I am looking at the government’s starter homes announcement and some statistics about housing and incomes. “Shelter have calculated that to be able to afford a ‘Starter Home’ a person would need:
“According to the Land Registry the average value of a house in Cumbria is £145,000 and according to the Cumbria Intelligence Observatory the median average annual income of households in Cumbria is £25,000. It is clear that the Starter Homes scheme will benefit very few people in Cumbria. “I would therefore like to ask you the question: Why should the average Cumbrian with an annual household income of £25,000 and a house worth £145,000 pay their taxes to subsidise a person with an annual income of £77,000 and capital of £98,000 who wants to buy a house worth £450,000?” Answer:
“Over 220,000 people have achieved home ownership as a result of the Government's Help to Buy schemes, and I am delighted that the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme has been extended to 2021. This allows buyers with a 5 per cent deposit to benefit from a government loan of up to 20 per cent of the property price. “While mortgage repayments on a home might be manageable for someone who has already been paying market-rate rents for a comparable property, it is often the accessing of the deposit that is a major obstacle for first-time buyers. “Regarding Shelter's figures, I do not see how a conclusion can be drawn that the Starter Homes scheme is unworkable. Many properties in areas like Penrith and north Cumbria, are still affordable for a first-time buyer; a cursory check of a local property website just now shows me a wide selection of modern and period 2-bedroom properties available to buy for less than £100,000.” I wrote a briefing paper on starter homes last year that can be downloaded from HERE Theresa May, the Prime Minister is expected to announce on Tuesday that the United Kingdom is prepared to leave the European Single Market and the Customs Union because of the importance that she attaches to ending the free movement of labour and reducing immigration. In this context, Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave an interesting interview to ‘Welt am Sonntag’ (a German newspaper) that was published yesterday. In it, he suggested that upon leaving the European Union the United Kingdom could abandon the current European-style social model with European-style taxation and regulation systems, and ‘become something different’. The interviewer commented that: “The impression on the European continent is that your government sees the future business model of the United Kingdom as being the tax haven of Europe”. And Philip Hammond responded that: “We could be forced to change our economic model, and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. The British people are not going to lie down and say ‘too bad, we’ve been wounded’. We will change our model and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged.” So, it appears that the United Kingdom may be transformed into a competitive and flexible low-wage, low-taxation, low-public-spending economy that is capable of competing on equal terms with countries such as China and India. That would have many significant implications not least for public services. Our next seminar is on ‘All You Want to Know about Service Charges in Social Housing’ and will be held in London in 15th February. For more information or to make a booking please click HERE 10th January 2017 The Government made several housing announcements during the first week of January 2017. These included allocations under the affordable housing programme 2016 to 2021, an invitation to bid for further funding, starter homes, garden villages and towns and the Housing White Paper. We have published a briefing paper that summarises and provide commentary on these announcements. It includes sections on:
These announcements represent a less significant change in approach than many in the sector had hoped for. The government’s focus continues to be on arresting the decline in home-ownership rather than on the provision of social housing and the distribution of resources under the shared ownership and affordable homes programme reflects this. However, under the current continuous market engagement there may be some opportunities to develop social housing. The government is also progressing its plans for starter homes and garden towns and villages; and a Housing White Paper is expected soon. YOUR copy can be freely downloaded from HERE Eden District Council, in common with many local authorities, is in the process of establishing a commercial subsidiary company called ‘Heart of Cumbria’. The Council is intending to invest significant amounts of money in the company with the intention of gaining a return in the long-term. One of the objectives of the company will be to build affordable homes. This is another good example of a Council that is ‘thinking outside the box’. Some interesting quotes have appeared in the media this week regarding government and public opinion. For example:
Perhaps Jamie Reed’s quote is the most interesting. What does it say about Parliament if a person can do more for the community working at a nuclear waste reprocessing plant that as a Member of Parliament? Our 2017 series of seminars on ‘All You Want to Know about Service Charges in Social Housing’ will start in February. I am currently preparing for it and am looking forward to meeting the delegates. There will be sessions in London and Leeds. As usual, the seminar is proving popular but there are still some places available. For further information or to make a booking please click HERE Our 2017 series of seminars on ‘All You Want to Know about Local Authority Housing Finance’ will start in March. There will be sessions in London and Leeds. For further information or to make a booking please click HERE 3rd January 2017 I hope that all my readers have had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Gavin Barwell MP, the Minister for Housing, has kicked off the New Year with an announcement that the government’s controversial ‘Starter Homes’ policy will go ahead after all. This is the policy that will see £1.2billion of public money spent in partnership with local authorities on subsidising people who want to buy homes up to a value of £450,000. The £1.2billion Starter Home Land Fund was established in April 2016 to support the acquisition, remediation and de-risking of further suitable land for starter home developments. The Minister said that: “This government is committed to building Starter Homes to help young first time buyers get on the housing ladder. This first wave of partnerships shows the strong local interest to build thousands of Starter Homes on hundreds of brownfield sites in the coming years. One in three councils has expressed an interest to work with us so far.” I am not a supporter of this scheme because I would rather see the resources spent on social housing to support people in greater housing need; and because I think that subsidising home ownership will only serve to increase prices further thus frustrating the stated aim of reducing the decline in home ownership. Last year I wrote a briefing paper on Starter Homes that can be downloaded from HERE The effect of the government’s focus on home-ownership was demonstrated in an article in this week’s ‘Cumberland News’ entitled: ‘Fears over funding cast a shadow over housing plans. Supported accommodation schemes risk grinding to a halt’. The article looks at the prospects for supported housing in Cumbria and especially at the prospects for extra care elderly housing. The article quotes Councillor Beth Furneaux (Labour) Cabinet Member for Health & Care saying that: “Supporting older, disabled and vulnerable people to live independent and healthy lives is a key priority for the Council and developing extra care housing is one of the ways we will achieve this.” The article goes on to describe Impact Housing Association’s excellent recently opened extra care elderly scheme at Brampton in Cumbria and then quotes Mike Muir, the Chief Executive, explaining why it is no longer possible to deliver such schemes as follows: “Because of the uncertainty over long-term funding from central government, there are no providers at the moment willing to move into the market across the country because the risk is too great. It’s the risk of putting forward £3million of private investment into a scheme. Not knowing whether there would be sufficient revenue to cover it. “The only people who would be able to afford it are people on significant private pensions, which rules out a huge proportion of the population… I see it all grinding to a halt now.” Cumbria County Council forecasts that the need for extra care elderly accommodation in the County will increase from the current 700 units to 2,800 units by 2025. The 2017 series of seminars on ‘All You Want to Know about Service Charges in Social Housing’ will start in February. There will be sessions in London and Leeds. For further information or to make a booking please click HERE The 2017 series of seminars on ‘All You Want to Know about Local Authority Housing Finance’ will start in March. There will be sessions in London and Leeds. For further information or to make a booking please click HERE 22nd December 2016 This will be my final blog of 2016 so I would like to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you also for taking the time to read my Blog throughout 2016 and I hope that you will continue to do so in 2017. Monday was the closing day for the public consultation on the future of the future of Health Care in West, North and East Cumbria. There are many such consultations being held by the National Health Service at present. The principal issues facing the National Health Service are the same in all parts of Britain, although there are always specific local issues also. In Cumbria, it is proposed to make several changes including the closure of some community hospitals and reductions in the number of beds; the removal of consultant-led maternity care from the West Cumberland Hospital and a focus on ‘Integrated Care Communities’. I think there is increasing reason to be concerned about the National Health Service and its capacity to deliver the services that are required moving forward. In my view, there is a need to consider significant changes to funding, management and partnership working if the National Health Service is to continue to be fit for purpose. As I live in Cumbria I responded to the consultation in a personal capacity. My conclusion is that the proposals contained in the consultation paper do not appear to have been fully thought through, especially because:
A copy of my response can be downloaded from HERE The Local Government Finance Settlement for England for 2017/18 was issued last week. No new money from central government was included in the settlement. However, the Government will allow the social care precept to rise by an additional 1% in 2017/18 and 2018/19 (from 2% to 3%), on condition that the total increase to 2019/20 does not exceed 6%. However, as the total allowable precept increase over the remaining years of the Spending Review remains the same, this flexibility does not provide any additional resources in the long-term and does not address the £2.6billion funding gap facing social care by the end of the decade. The Local Government Association commented that: “Social care should be treated as a national priority. There needs to be an urgent and fundamental review of social care and health before next year’s spring Budget. Local government leaders must be part of that review. This is imperative to get a long-term, sustainable solution to the social care crisis that the most vulnerable people in our society deserve.” The Scottish Government has been pleased with its performance on social housing during 2016. The ‘Right to Buy’ came to an end in July. Also, between 2011/12 and 2015/16, 33,490 affordable homes were built in Scotland including 22,523 for social rent – meaning that the Scottish Government’s target for affordable house building had been exceeded by more than 10%. The New Year will see the introduction of new performance standards by the Welsh Housing Regulator. These will include standards on financial viability, governance and tenant services; and are part of the Welsh Government’s programme for the de-regulation of Welsh housing associations that is designed to prevent them from being classified as public sector bodies in the way that English housing associations have been. I expect that 2017 will be another year of significant challenges for public services including housing, local government and health. AWICS will continue to offer information and management consultancy and training that is designed to assist clients to manage those challenges. I will look forward to working with you again in 2017. 13th December 2016 I am writing this blog while on the train to London where I have a meeting this afternoon with a housing association that I am assisting with the calculation of service charges. I am finding that a significant number of my housing association and local authority clients are asking for assistance with calculating or de-pooling service charges or with training. Further information on services that I can offer in connection with service charges can be found HERE The 2017 series of seminars on ‘All You Want to Know about Service Charges in Social Housing’ will start in February. There will be sessions in London and Leeds. For further information or to make a booking please click HERE I recently presented an in-house session of ‘All You Want to Know about Local Authority Housing Finance’ to officers of a local authority in Kent. I am very grateful for the positive feedback that I received. Delegates said that the information provided was very relevant, the quality of the presentation was excellent and the training met their needs fully. They described the day as interesting, valuable, comprehensive, clear, thorough and useful. The 2017 series of seminars on ‘All You Want to Know about Local Authority Housing Finance’ will start in March. There will be sessions in London and Leeds. For further information or to make a booking please click HERE We have just published our briefing paper on the Autumn Statement that was made on 23rd November 2016. This was the first ‘budget’ after the referendum on the European Union that was held on 23rd June 2016. The purpose of this briefing paper is to summarise the statement with particular reference to its implications for housing and local government. It includes sections on:
The problems of the Adult Social Care service are well documented. They include demographic change; a lack of funding; and a lack of joined-up thinking and working between Adult Social Care, Health and Housing services. In my work as an Associate with the Local Government Association I often encounter local authorities that are having to reduce Adult Social Care budgets despite increasing need because of budget pressures; and authorities that struggle to achieve planned savings or to operate within approved budgets. Recent reports, though, have identified that the private sector is also at risk. A recent analysis of the accounts of 6,158 private care home providers that between them provide 96% of the care homes in the United Kingdom found that 28% of them had potential problems with financial viability while 12% of them had liabilities that exceeded their assets. Unfortunately, while these problems are widely recognised the government does not appear to be addressing them with the urgency that is required. |  February 2016 |
