Housing is an example of how Scotland makes better use of its powers than Westminster

Shakethedisease

An interesting take. Especially re confidence and security to build without worrying about losing stock to RTB. Which is the better housing policy.. Hmmmm.... Any thoughts ?

It’s worth remembering that housing associations have been central to Scottish Government housing policy since devolution. Under Labour there was a clear policy steer towards a move away from council housing and towards housing associations. This was not an uncontroversial process, as the stock transfer from Glasgow City Council to Glasgow housing association showed. At this point in time the elephant in the room that Labour failed to address was the right-to-buy...

...but nevertheless building is ongoing with the Scottish Government on course to meet its target of 30,000 affordable homes by March 2016 (this figure being based on both private sector and public sector affordable homes).

When the SNP entered government and first consulted on repealing right-to-buy, the interesting thing about it wasn’t that the SNP proposed and consulted on it, rather it was the nature of the response that they received from stakeholders in the sector. The initial consultation was on the abolition of right-to-buy for all new build homes. The response from across the sector was along the lines of: “Well that is alright as far as it goes but can we extend it to new tenancies please”? To which the Scottish Government replied: “aye ok then”.


This was significant because what it effectively did was put an earlier safety net around social house stock meaning a greater number could be safeguarded over the short term from right-to-buy than if it had purely been limited to the Scottish Government’s proposals for new builds.
Part of the aim of the policy at that stage was to give the social housing sector confidence that they could invest in new stock without it subsequently being lost through right-to-buy....


..What was expected would happen, has happened. Local Authorities and housing associations are starting to build again...


...What the sector has gained through the abolition of the right-to-buy is confidence and security. Confidence that not only can stock numbers be maintained within the sector but they can be grown. Security to be able to plan ahead for the future based both on the current and proposed scale of physical stock and that they are basically on the same page as government as far as housing policy is concerned...


Now that the Tories have a full majority, their plan is to extend right-to-buy to housing association properties – just at a time when housing/homelessness and lack of affordability are at crisis point. Housing associations in England now face an uncertain future, as they are faced with more or less having to sell off their stock on an ongoing basis.
Is this the type of scenario in which you can engage in innovative future planning? Hardly. Are Housing Associations likely to feel empowered? No. Are they going to be able to think out of the box in relation to innovative and inventive ways through which they can help and support their tenants? No.

https://commonspace.scot/articles/2071/gary-elliot-housing-is-an-example-of-how-scotland-makes-better-use-of-its-powers-than-westminster

Full article at the link.

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

An interesting take. Especially re confidence and security to build without worrying about losing stock to RTB. Which is the better housing policy.. Hmmmm.... Any thoughts ?

https://commonspace.scot/articles/2071/gary-elliot-housing-is-an-example-of-how-scotland-makes-better-use-of-its-powers-than-westminster

Full article at the link.

We saw in the 60s and 70s that councils are very bad at owning houses. We'll see in time if they have problem licked. I doubt that they do but time will tell.

princeofpounds

I constantly marvel at how bureaucrats think about managing things. Why they should need 'confidence' to invest and why they should see stock of self-owned housing as an acceptable corporate target I have no idea. It's like a CEO managing his company for asset accumulation rather than for equity.


Furthermore - and this is a separate point - houses are not 'lost' to society when they are bought. They don't disappear off to some nasty tax haven. They still house the same people.

cells

council owned homes are a stupid invention that there is never enough of

I used to live in Hackney and the council owned nearly 60% of the homes in the borough twenty years ago....yes feking 60%....yet there were still waiting lists.

the borough in zone2 was a ghetto as they drew in Londons poor to give them subsidised housing. many of the poor families often immigrants and many pensioners had no need at all to be within walking distance of the city of London but they were put there while a million commuters travailed into and out of London 500 miles a week.


there were many mistakes in the council house building programs but one of the worst has to be the concentration of council house building with some areas building 5-10% of its stock as council owned while other areas were closer to 60%.


This is one of the many problems that should be addressed. Councils/HA which own more than 25% of the homes in their area should be forced to sell off all council homes as they become vacant until they are below 25%

cells

London has in excess of 850,000 council/HA homes of which ~ 40,000 become vacant each year.

These 40,000 should ALL be sold off to the highest bidder. I suspect they would fetch ~ £12 Billion a year

The £12B a year should be used to greatly upgrade and improve London and its infrastructure. 10 new 'cross rails' (with 200 stations) should be added. London should be extended to the M25.

Some 300-400k jobs would be created and London can grow to 12+ million people with infrastructure put in place before population growth.

Or you can abolish the RTB and keep putting poor immigrants into zone 1 and 2 housing while others are forced to live 50 miles away and commute to work daily

Generali

cells wrote: »

council owned homes are a stupid invention that there is never enough of

I used to live in Hackney and the council owned nearly 60% of the homes in the borough twenty years ago....yes feking 60%....yet there were still waiting lists.

the borough in zone2 was a ghetto as they drew in Londons poor to give them subsidised housing. many of the poor families often immigrants and many pensioners had no need at all to be within walking distance of the city of London but they were put there while a million commuters travailed into and out of London 500 miles a week.


there were many mistakes in the council house building programs but one of the worst has to be the concentration of council house building with some areas building 5-10% of its stock as council owned while other areas were closer to 60%.


This is one of the many problems that should be addressed. Councils/HA which own more than 25% of the homes in their area should be forced to sell off all council homes as they become vacant until they are below 25%

Agree 100%.

A mix of a Green Belt artificially restricting the size of a part of London and effectively forcing many Londoners to become long distance commuters whilst forcing certain 'client groups' of Londoners to live towards the centre of the city.

My Great Uncle was housed in Covent Garden after WW2 as he'd been in a detention camp in Germany. He lived there for ~50 years and was paying buttons in rent. The difference between his rent and a market rent was at the expense of all Britons really.

The reason he was in a detention camp in Germany? He was a Communist that didn't believe in the war so wasn't conscripted and instead was sent to the Channel Islands to pick spuds and then Germany invaded...

cells

Generali wrote: »

Agree 100%.

A mix of a Green Belt artificially restricting the size of a part of London and effectively forcing many Londoners to become long distance commuters whilst forcing certain 'client groups' of Londoners to live towards the centre of the city.

My Great Uncle was housed in Covent Garden after WW2 as he'd been in a detention camp in Germany. He lived there for ~50 years and was paying buttons in rent. The difference between his rent and a market rent was at the expense of all Britons really.

The reason he was in a detention camp in Germany? He was a Communist that didn't believe in the war so wasn't conscripted and instead was sent to the Channel Islands to pick spuds and then Germany invaded...

I don't understand why some people don't get it

If selling off council homes into private ownership was a terrible idea, then the state buying private ownership homes off the market and turning them into council rentals should be a fantastic idea?



but instead of the problem being solved the opposite is happening. London has a target that 50% of new builds are subsidised housing. So instead of London decreasing its stock of subsidised homes its increasing it further.

Housing benefits to Londoners are also distorting things greatly. There is no rent price signal for 2 million Londoners at all (council/HA tenants) and there are another about 2.5 to 3 million private tenants who gets some/all of their rent paid by the state.

So there is no market signal to the majority of renters. I suspect less than 300,000 London homes see the true market signal of rents and a lot of them have to be in London (eg lots of universities and their students)....actually they dont count either as they get 'loans' which are higher for London than elsewhere and whats a 18 year old kid to know about money and its worth when the most they have been responsible for in their life is the £20 in their wallet

So maybe a good deal less than 200k London homes set the market price for rents which set a benchmark for the 2 million or so rentals in the city which sets a benchmark for the whole 3.5 million homes!!


Sell off Londons council homes, introduce a cap on HB benefits to those who work, and London wont keep diverging from the rest of the country. of course this is extremely unlikely to happen and many people are betting on it continuing and getting worse.

kabayiri

I think the SNP should pay for a big sign alongside the M6 motorway as you enter Scotland :

"Welcome to the 1970s"

stator

Right to buy is a disgusting scheme designed to make people feel rich and vote tory.
Giving aware state owned assets on the cheap has become their raison d'etre

If SNP ran a candidate down here I might vote for them.

Generali

stator wrote: »

Right to buy is a disgusting scheme designed to make people feel rich and vote tory.
Giving aware state owned assets on the cheap has become their raison d'etre

If SNP ran a candidate down here I might vote for them.

That's because you don't understand net present value I suspect.

The SNP won't stand in England as they'll lose their core racist vote.

cells

stator wrote: »

Right to buy is a disgusting scheme designed to make people feel rich and vote tory.
Giving aware state owned assets on the cheap has become their raison d'etre

If SNP ran a candidate down here I might vote for them.

They dont need to give em away on the cheap they can sell them at the going price

also why is it wrong to make people richer?

if council homes were so fantastic for everybody why not just nationalise the whole freking housing stock and everyone can rent from the state.


Also the money doesn't disappear, selling London council homes as they become vacant could release enough funds to greatly improve London and its infrastructure while providing some 300,000 - 400,000 full time jobs in the process.