The Week in Housing: winter is over, BSR wants more power and PAC concerned with remediation plan

Much of this week was spent in parliament, and up at the National Housing Federation (NHF) Housing Finance Conference in Liverpool.

First up, Inside Housing and Homeless Link’s Reset Homelessness campaign was launched during a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ending Homelessness.

The campaign launch came with an important piece of research from the national charity, titled Breaking the Cycle, which set out how a funding crisis is damaging service providers and the homeless people they work with.

Also appearing in front of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee session on Grenfell and building safety was Inside Housing’s contributing editor Peter Apps, who won the Orwell Prize for his book Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen.

He joined Grenfell survivors in calling on the government to prioritise and take seriously the need for a national oversight mechanism.

Mr Apps said: “You cannot leave it to departments, to officials and to ministers to police themselves. That’s why Inquest and others have been calling for a separate body to do it.”

Later in the same inquiry session, the boss of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) called for more powers as he warned the construction industry of its need to change amid “serious failings” in building control applications.

While the BSR was asking for more power, Berkeley Group and London’s largest housing associations were calling for a review of its Gateway 2 approval process after becoming frustrated with delays.

In Liverpool, Kate Henderson, chief executive of the NHF, wasn’t the only sector professional taking to social media to share pictures of the spring sun at the organisation’s Housing Finance Conference near the city’s iconic Albert Dock.

Inside Housing was also in attendance, and heard a senior figure at Homes England say that the agency is urging the government to provide a third top-up to the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) to tide landlords over in 2025-26.

One chief finance officer at a housing association said he feels that the Housing Ombudsman’s approach to regulation has become overly prescriptive and “confuses the regulatory landscape”.

Prior to that, delegates were debating how important it is for the sector to own its own homes. The chief executive of a large London housing association has said he is not as “wedded” to owning stock as he used to be, as more landlords in the sector look to equity investments as a way of shoring up their finances.

Trading updates and quarterly reports from the English regulator have not always painted the best picture of the sector’s financial health of late. But there was good news from Liverpool: a senior figure at S&P Global said he expects fewer social landlords to see negative rating actions in the future due to better risk management in the sector.

In response to the points raised about its work in Liverpool, the ombudsman defended what it described as an evidence-based approach. As part of its work this week it highlighted 16 landlords for safety failings, including a disabled woman who had to be carried downstairs for almost two years because of a faulty lift.

One London authority revealed that it had taken an interesting approach to the new consumer standard landscape after it commissioned a mock inspection ahead of being examined by the Regulator of Social Housing.

There was a mix of policy announcements that were either welcomed or left many in the sector at some level of despair.

On a positive note, Awaab’s Law will be introduced in Scotland. But there was bad news for those on disability benefits in England as work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall announced billions of pounds of cuts.

A leading accessible housing provider and several charities highlighted how the cuts and tightened eligibility for personal independence payments could “disproportionately affect those on already squeezed budgets”.

Can a minister who lives in a £4m London house – who bills the taxpayer for her energy costs – really understand how her policies will impact social housing tenants and others in the private sector?

I am not convinced. Knowing all MPs are entitled to this payment doesn’t make it any less jarring. It’s not like there isn’t a direct link between low levels of disability benefits and Local Housing Allowance, low pay and rising homelessness.

These were all points made by another group of leading housing charities, which also called on the government’s homelessness strategy to include plans for long-term funding of services and an AHP that mainly focuses on social housing.

A decision on the AHP is expected in June as part of a multi-year Spending Review. With that in mind, the sector shared what it would like to see from the announcement.

I sat down with the recently appointed boss of Great Places to talk about her plans for the landlord, and hear about a career that began when Titanic was still in the cinema.

With the first report by the Co-operation in Social Housing Commission report published, Inside Housing learned what both landlords and tenants need to improve engagement.

One of our most essential reads of the week was the story of a shared owner and domestic abuse survivor, whose experience exposed a worrying gap in the system that can cause survivors problems long after they have left the relationship.

Have a great weekend.

Stephen Delahunty, news editor, Inside Housing

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