Camerons plans to reform social housing.

[Brendan]

Well you could argue that in a country where so many people rely on council housing it is discrimination to treat them differently. The reality is that council housing is not a safety net for the most vulnerable but an real necessity for normal people because of the gross inequality in British society.

But of course it also serves the conservative agenda to pretend that they live in some sort of fantasy land where more than half of the population don?t earn less than 20K a year and a handful of networked millionaires can somehow serve the interests of people other than the their elite peer group who continue their historic robbery the rest of the country.

No, they just try to take away the things that people rely on without any attempt to even the playing fields so that they can provide for themselves.

The sickest thing is that they then try to bundle it up with some sort of ideology about common decency which is insulting to those of us who actually posses it.

People wonder why I can?t retrain myself from pointing out the truth about their characters.

[Brendan]

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Well you could argue that in a country where so

> many people rely on council housing it is

> discrimination to treat them differently. The

> reality is that council housing is not a safety

> net for the most vulnerable but an real necessity

> for normal people because of the gross inequality

> in British society.

>

> But of course it also serves the conservative

> agenda to pretend that they live in some sort of

> fantasy land where more than half of the

> population don?t earn less than 20K a year and a

> handful of networked millionaires can somehow

> serve the interests of people other than the their

> elite peer group who continue their historic

> robbery the rest of the country.

>

> No, they just try to take away the things that

> people rely on without any attempt to even the

> playing fields so that they can provide for

> themselves.

>

> The sickest thing is that they then try to bundle

> it up with some sort of ideology about common

> decency which is insulting to those of us who

> actually posses it.

>

> People wonder why I can?t restrain myself from

> pointing out the truth about their characters.

[DJKillaQueen]

adjusting private rents to suit people's budget is a silly suggestion

But is it, when so many employed people in private rented accomaodation need tax payers money to fill the gap between their salaries and their rent. Tax payers are subsidising private Landlords too, only that money goes directly into the pockets of the Landlord whereas in social housing the money is reinvested in the system. If you are going to tamper with one it is only fair to tamper with the other, which is why I suggested early on the some kind of rent capping in the private sector is needed too.

And as has been pointed out, the vast majority of those in social housing will never earn the kind of salary that would be considered the benchmark for the private sector, so the number of homes freed up wouldn't even scratch the surface of the waiting lists. Meanwhile millions of people will still be forced to live in private accomodation they can't afford whilst nothing is done to curb the ballooning inflation of the housing market.

One can not impose any kind of measures for social housing without addressing the wider issues and doing something about them too.

More than anything, what council wants to administer the vast mountain of reassessing all of it's tenants every five years? Salaries, medical needs and so on. Does anyone have any idea of how much work that would involve...followed by appeals and all of the other extremely time consuming processes involved, to actually force someone out of their home. It is just never going to happen. The right to evict from certain sectors 'based on salary' is never going to become law. The European courts would never allow such a descriminatory piece of legislation to happen.

[Brendan]

I say. I'm so incensed I?m quoting myself for no apparent reason.

[DJKillaQueen]

Yeah I wondered what was going on there lol.

[silverfox]

Brendan said:

"Well you could argue that in a country where so many people rely on council housing it is discrimination to treat them differently..."

That would imply that you shouldn't give them subsidised rent as it discriminates against them.

[DJKillaQueen]

That would imply that you shouldn't give them subsidised rent as it discriminates against them.

No it doesn't. Descrimination is understood as something that has a negative impact on a group. How can an affordable rent impact neagtively on anyone benefitting from it? Whereas forcing someone to move into accomodation that is less secure and costing more is definitely an act detrimental to the person affected.

And plenty of people in the private sector have their rent subsidised to a far higher degree by housing benefit (and therefore tax payers).

[Jeremy]

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Well you could argue that in a country where so

> many people rely on council housing it is

> discrimination to treat them differently.

Why did you suggest it then?

if they are living in a 4 bed council house for low rent just charge them full market rates and they'll soon move somewhere they can afford.

[Brendan]

Was just exploring a line of thought.

[Ridgley]

In regards to this hole issue I think each case should be assessed, I understand what the goverment is trying to do to tackle this but look at each case individually before assuming things. There are some tennants that could move to help larger families that are on the waiting list, but there tennants that even after a five year tennacy agreement will not be able to afford to move anywhere else or buy there own home, there are just some people that will never be able to aford to buy there own homes.

Also you will find that the tennants that are working are mainly on minimum wage or earn under ?20,000 a year some of these people are key workers in the capital if they are forced out of there council properties. we will be the first to complain there is no one to clean the streets, or work in the caring profession serve you at the supermarkets.

Just judge each case fairly!

[James Barber]

Fro memory Southwark Council has debt of around ?750M or which circa ?550M is from building council homes in the 60's and 70's. The average rate of interest is 14% which plunges to around 8% in 2014 when certain debts mature and get replaced.

All borrowing has to occur via a treasury vehicle which blocks Southwark or any other LA borrowing on the open market.

If Southwark could borrow on the open market at market rates it would borrow more to fix issues that cost too much to patch - roads being one - and then save sufficient revenue to pay down debt. Most Southwark debt interest is paid for by central governtment as a central govt council housing subsidy.

So current council housing is in debt. 45,000 tenanted properties divided into ?550M = ?12,222 per property.

Southwark typcially receives around ?85pw rent from tenants.

[GinaG3]

Somethings got to give somewhere down the line. In 10 years whats going to have stopped the homelessness rate in this country doubling or tripling etc? Nothing I suppose. I hate to think of the world my daughter is going to be living in.

You can exhaust every housing option with Southwark and still get nowhere. I hate to think of people trying to get affordable housing in Southwark, its a nightmare to say the least.

[James Barber]

That is a remarkably unfair representation of Cllr Nick Stanton and what he has said and his views and those of the Liberal Democrats. Nick doesn't broadly agree with conservatives on the free market and council housing. As with any coalition compromises were agreed.

I think you'll find Nick's view is that an area such as E&C so near to central London SHOULD NOT be poor. It should have lots of oppotunities and schemes to get currently residents well employed. Nick created lots of local apprenticeships, insisted suppliers take local apprentices, ensured every new building with S106 maximised local training and employment. That's the argument he was trying to make. He laos guranteed that every resident can return to the regenerated E&C but if they've moved to other parts of Southwark they can choose to stay there. I've spoken to several very happy East dulwich residents who moved down from the Heygate estate.

The regeneration discussions of E&C were started way before the Lib Dems led the council from 2002-2010. Including the Heygate estates into the scope was agreed before Nick became council leader way back in 2002.

The final signed regeneration scheme signed in July by the new Labour administration REDUCES the social housing that the draft document that could not be signed during purdah.

Genreeally the social housing problems in Southwark and UK generally are related to the inability of Southwark to legally borrow on the free market. Southkwark is only allowed to go via treasury vehicle that charges ridiculous rates.

It also means Southwark can't borrow to force those 5,000+ empty homes back into use. The mere ability to say the council could would move many of those homes back into use.

[DJKillaQueen]

So why are there NO 'council' owned homes as part of the E&C development then James to replace the ones being demolished? Is that not a policy of reducing the councils housing stock.

You take a typical politicians view....just as the lib dems when they led the council were never to blame for anything they did badly.

You guys put a CONSERVATIVE counciller in charge of Southwarks housing for goodness sake. If that isn't a belief in conservative housing policy I don't know what is.

The lib dem council blew ?100 million on a call centre (disgraceful amount of money) and then complained that there wasn't enough money for decent homes.

As for housing debt. A good part of Southwark's stock were built in the 1930's - should the tenants of those flats subsidise debt, esp while (as is the case of my ward) one estate had it's decent homes work dropped after only the stage one contract (something my local Labour councillors are now fighting on - we never saw their Lib Dem predacessors!).

The inability to use proceeds from 'right to buy' for reinvestment in housing under Thatcher's government was also a policy designed to discourage councils form replacing stock and I have sympathy for the point you make about a councils inability to raise funds for that kind of capital programme.

Of course council's can only spend what they have but hiking up social rents is not the answer when a third of the workforce need housing benefit in addition to the unemployed. Or do you and your party really have no view on the unaffordability of private rents and housing by more than a third of the population James?

[DJKillaQueen]

Published today.......c/o reuters....

England "to lose over half social housing budget"

The government is expected to cut England's social housing budget by 50 percent or more as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review, according to the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), a professional body in the sector.

The social housing sector provides homes at below-market rents for nearly four million households, or one in five, in England. A drastic budget cut could have far-reaching social consequences and a major impact on firms reliant on the sector.

The BBC reported on Tuesday that the budget would be "cut in half." Richard Capie, director of policy and practice at the CIH, said that would be at the least pessimistic end of the range of expectations, and the cut could be even deeper.

He said the budget could be slashed to 3 billion pounds for the four years covered by the spending review, which would be a cut of close to 65 percent compared with funds allocated to the sector in the last spending round, for the 2008-2011 period.

"The exact percentage depends on which way you look at the figures, but in any case we are talking about massive cuts," said Capie, who is familiar with government plans on the issue.

This could cause serious problems for low income families left to fend for themselves in the private housing market at a time when conditions for obtaining mortgages have become much tougher.

Capie said he expected the government to announce plans to phase out tenancy for life, meaning that while families already in social housing could remain in their homes for life, new tenants would have their situation reviewed periodically.

Prime Minister David Cameron had flagged the idea in August during an unscripted question-and-answer session with voters, angering some of his Liberal Democrat coalition partners who said the policy had not been agreed and they would oppose it.

Cameron's spokesman told reporters on Wednesday that the plan was still being considered but gave no further details.

Chancellor George Osborne will reveal details of the Comprehensive Spending Review on Wednesday.

Capie said that forcing families to move out of their social housing when their circumstances had improved was a risky policy as it would remove the most successful people from communities, leaving poorer and more vulnerable households behind.

He said those families that had managed to use their social housing as a base to improve their situation by getting stable jobs, for example, were often role models in their communities and it would be damaging to move them away.

A better policy would be to leave such families in their homes but to gradually hike the rent as their income increased, he said.

So I guess that signals the end of the decent homes policy......same old tories

[peterstorm1985]

This is a very long thread that I have tried to scan but may have missed someone saying something similar to my thoughts, so apologies if this is duplicated.

I worked in Social housing for a while in three different parts of London. In one area there was no point wasting money looking for tenants who had gone up in the world - virtually all tenants had their rent paid by the state. In the second there was a very high percentage of elderly/disabled who needed special provision that is rarely available in the private sector. The few able bodied were often quite wealthy but were too important to the social mix (and socially responsible) to want to get rid of them. The third had a significant proportion of bankers, lawyers and other high income earners who were living in expensive period houses (mostly Georgian) at minimal rent that made me sick every time I looked at what they had compared to what I could afford in the private sector. There were certainly enough of them to make an annual salary assessment financially viable. I wouldn't throw them out of their homes but I would like to see the rents increased for them to a level similar to the private sector.

[DJKillaQueen]

Today in the spending review there was no sign of any effort by the government to aid affordable housing. In fact Cameron said that new tenants would face rents up to 80% of private sector rents whilst those already tenants would continue to have lower rents. What kind of stupid madness is this? We are going to see a return to homelessness and it's a disgrace.

[Ridgley]

This does not surprise me, this is the Tories through and through how are new council tenants suppose to afford this, council properties are meant to be affordableI can see London being so divided the have?s and have not by the time the Tories leave power.

[James Barber]

I think you'll find councils can choose what rent they charge upto 80% of the local market rent.

I would not exepct any changes in London as the market rents are so very high. I could see changes in council rents in places where the market rent is very low and 'only' beign able ot charge 40% sees ridiculously low rents than mean insufficient money to maintain council properties.

Point was made earlier about a Tory leading on Southwark's council housing. This was the main ask of the tories to form a coalition. It seemed to work fine for the first two years but....the background and energy of the cllr involved promised much and the programme was agreed by the whole councillor executive. Just hearing the treacle to get anything done was astounding e. Stock condition report taking so very long and when finally produced showed 65% of Southwark COuncil homes met decent homes standard and not the 54% reproted by council officers.

The great news is that councils will keep ALL of the rent they collect and ALL of the monies from any property sales. Unfortunately Southwark Labour instantly announced they'll be aiming to sell 100 properties a year to raise capital. I can understand why but the zeal of this worries me. The flip side is local authorities will have to pay interest on loans they've taken out for council home buildings. Great news that councils can be left to get on managing their finances and then borrow if they choose against council rents. THat is why it is expected that overall 150,000 new council homes will be build.

During 13 years of Labour the net increase in council homes was 20,000 homes - less than the number of extra prison cells they built.

[DJKillaQueen]

I would not exepct any changes in London as the market rents are so very high.

I tend to agree with this. But then you contradict yourself. In London, social rents are more likely to be 40% of private sector rents because of the high cost of housing so are you saying that Southwark should hike up it's social housing rents (as many of them are around 50% of private sector rents)?

If you are arguing for that then you are arguing for a massive increase in the level of Housing Benefit needed to help pay the rents of the low waged and unemployed living in social housing (whilst requiring them to earn higher wages if they do find work to make ends meet). This is exactly why the coalition's policies are self defeating (when it comes to the mantra of saving money) and makes no sense given the demographic make up of the vast majority of people in social housing.

Stock condition report taking so very long and when finally produced showed 65% of Southwark Council homes met decent homes standard and not the 54% reproted by council officers.

What report was that based on? Because no FULL servey was ever done on the entire of Southwarks housing stock. A report was published in 2003 (I think it was 2003) - I have a copy of it somewhere. It surveyed only a small cross section of properties and drew it's conclusions from that. It's because of that poor survey that the level of work needed under some decent homes contracts was under estimated.

Look at the debacle of Rye Hill Estate for example. Buildings needing 100% refurb, being awarded a contract for only 38% because no proper survey was done, instead using a figure taken from that report for the contract. In the end the contract was withdrawn and no internals work was done. This was what went on under YOUR council led watch....I'm glad to see the back of it.....whilst still fighting for answers on contracts (using FYI) and working to make sure that the promises made will be honoured, and might I say with the full support of the newly elected Labour councillors. Local people never saw the previous Lib Dems ones.

And seeing as you can never resist political point scoring.......here's another reason why the Lib Dems lost control of the council.

They spent ?100 million on a private company to provide a call centre that only handles around 20% of local authority calls in the end. ?100 million is almost one third of Southwark's entire annual budget! So it's a bit rich James for you to go on about short comings in local government funding and spending.

[James Barber]

The latest stock condition report has had much higher sampling rate and taken much closer look at acquired street properties. So it should be a lot more accurate.

Problem seems to be supply and demand. Lots more people want to live in London - high demand. Very few homes being built - low supply. Rentals, prices have shot up. Housing benefit correspondingly out of control.

Changing demand and supply is the key. If we allow so many people into London we'll have to build enough homes so the rents and prices are at sustainable levels.

It really is dreadfully sad that so many people aren't paid enough to rent homes on the open market and that the open market due to over demand/under supply is so very very expensive.

[DJKillaQueen]

Yes but what are the coalition going to do about the unaffordability of rents and property? They can not keep going up at the rate thay have done for the past 30 years.

Raising the lowest rents closer to that of the unaffordable private sector for the poorest is NOT the answer. It WILL (along with some of the more unfair changes to HB) make London a ghetto for the more well off.

You should be ashamed of proposals to cut HB by 10% for the LTU......in some cases forcing them to live on as little as ?47 a week as a result, and most of them in areas where there just aren't jobs there for them to take. Which brings me onto my next point.

One of the reasons for that decade on decade influx into London is that young people move from other parts of the country (as indeed did I twenty years ago) to find work. My home town Liverpool is not unlike any other northern town where population has declined for decades, with the demise of jobs and industry. Again, where is the great government scheme to reverse that trend and regenerate all parts of the country, something Labour equally failed at too, after the hatchet job of the Thatcherite government before it.

All of these issues are related. To deal with one whilst ingnoring another is poor government. It is ridiculous that we have one half of the country stagnant (a half incidently with good transport links and connections to Europe and America) whilst the other half becomes more and more crammed with people chasing the jobs that do exist, not helped by the idiotic comments of people like IDS saying people should move to find work.

People already DO move to find work but in an economy where the unemployed have consistently outnumbered vacancies by at least 5-1 for years you'll all have to do far better than that if you think any of those proposals are going to change anything for the better.

These measures are going to hit real people hard, people who already have miserable and hopeless lives.....think really hard about that.

[DJKillaQueen]

I was talking with a poverty action group this morning as well and there may be scope for a legal challenge on the 10% levy, because the base rate of benefit for a single unemployed person is set by law as the MINIMUM amount needed for that person to live on. That amount is set with regard to the fact that the unemployed person has rent and council tax paid by other benefits. To apply something that devalues that base rate means technically the base rate should rise or be reviewed (which would lead to a rise).

The government know they can't cut that base rate without going through a review (which in all likelyhood would say it is too low) so are trying to effectively cut that base rate by changing the rules on associated benefits. Housing however is seen as an 'essential' living cost and therefore would be a factor in what that minimium base rate should be.

I think we can expect a legal challenge on this one, and a challenge that will cost the government coffers far more if sucessful than anything they thought they would save from the 10% levy.

[James Barber]

Hi DJKillaQueen,

One project that will shrink the country and make businesses more receptive to having locations outside of London is high Speed 2. That's certainly been the effect in France. Not a panacea but it will help.

Social rents for council housing. The government has given the option for newly rented properties to charge up to 80% of the free market rent.

I would be horrified if any Lib Dem used that new power in London.

I could see a council in remote parts finding that the market rent was so low that only being able to charge 30 or 40% of it a council rent meant they just could'nt afford to maintain the property. So clearly giving this freedom to local authorities has risks but local voters will have every chance to penalise any silly decisions at the ballot box.

Long Term Unemployed. Locally The Shard will create 15,000 jobs. As part of the permission to build it a jobs package was agreed three years ago and the next major tranche of ?4.4M was released by the last planning committee. Clearly this also isn't a panacea but I can't think of many areas in the UK with such opportunities.

[peterstorm1985]

James Barber Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Locally The Shard will

> create 15,000 jobs. As part of the permission to

> build it a jobs package was agreed three years ago

> and the next major tranche of ?4.4M was released

> by the last planning committee.

I am always perplexed when I see statements like this. How will it create 15,000 jobs? And will those 15,000 jobs not simply mean a reduction by the same amount somewhere else? The chances are that many of those who take up jobs generated by the Shard will simply be moving on from another very local job and the job they leave may not be refilled.

More detail please on how these jobs will actually be new jobs that take people out of unemployment and not result in a job disappearing elsewhere.