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Review to recommend rent and grant reforms in Wales
A Welsh government-commissioned review of affordable housing policy will call for reforms of the grant system and rent setting being employed in the country, Inside Housing understands.
The independent panel – chaired by Lynn Pamment, partner at PwC – is set to issue its final report on 1 May.
Sources have told Inside Housing that the panel will recommend a longer-term approach to social housing rent setting.
The current rent settlement in Wales is for just one year but there are calls for that to be extended.
The panel is also expected to tell ministers that changes to the system of allocating grant for affordable housebuilding are overdue.
Rent and grant are thought to have dominated discussions about the review over the past 12 months.
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The Welsh government announced an interim rent settlement of Consumer Price Index (CPI) for 2019/20, down from the previous deal of CPI+1.5% with an additional £2 of flexibility.
Housing associations warned that the lower rent increase for this year will make it harder to meet the Welsh government’s target of building 20,000 affordable homes from 2016 to 2021.
Grant in Wales is currently allocated on an annual basis at a flat rate of 58%.
The housing sector has previously called for a more flexible and longer-term approach.
The review, which was announced by the Welsh government in April last year, is intended to find ways of accelerating affordable housebuilding while ensuring value for money.
Affordable housing development fell 9% in 2017/18 to 2,316 new homes, while those delivered with grant funding fell 31%.
Measures aimed at boosting council housebuilding and reducing the carbon footprint of affordable housing are also expected to be among the panel’s recommendations.
