Cross-party concern over Supporting People cuts

Over 500 councillors from across the political spectrum have signed a letter, written by the National Housing Federation and published by the Times, urging town halls in England to avoid making disproportionate cuts to services supporting some of the most vulnerable people in their communities.

The Times has also published a list of 50 services for vulnerable people that have already closed or are closing soon because of the reduction in their core funding from statutory budgets. They include mental health drop-in centres, anti-bullying advice programmes, libraries, welfare advice groups and training centres for the unemployed.

The Chartered Institute of Housing’s UK Housing Panel, representing a cross-section of the organisation’s senior members, warn that schemes could close with particular concerns about the loss of homelessness services and reductions to the support for older people. Measures being considered include reducing staff hours or pay, seeking alternative sources of funding and working more closely in partnership with other providers.

Homeless Link has contacted over 500 homelessness services across England to build a picture of likely cuts to their funding from April 2011, and has found that services expect their total funding for 2011/12 to be reduced by 25 per cent with the number of bedspaces reduced by 16 per cent.

NHF urges government to reconsider 'punitive' benefit rules

The National Housing Federation has issued a statement claiming that 108,000 disabled people could be made homeless when under-occupancy deductions from housing benefit take effect.

The controversial measures, to become law under the Welfare Reform Bill, would see people living in an adapted social home losing up to 25% of their housing benefit for having two 'empty' bedrooms.

Federation chief executive David Orr said:

'Under these proposals disabled people could effectively be evicted from their homes and forced to live miles away from their networks of support.

'Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money will have to be spent on adapting homes for displaced people to move into, while stairlifts, ramps and specialised bathrooms may have to be ripped out of their old homes to allow new families to move in.

'The proposed under occupancy penalty simply doesn’t make sense on a moral or a financial level and should be scrapped. We would urge the Government to reconsider this punitive measure and look again at what the true costs of pushing ahead with it would be.'

Community budgets on target

The pilots are focused on
families with complex needs

The 16 community budget pilots announced as part of last year's Comprehensive Spending Review will be up and running by 1 April, according to Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.

Speaking at a conference on place-based budgeting in London, Pickles said 16 areas, covering 28 councils, would be pooling local and national funding pots for tackling social problems around families with complex needs. Place-based budgeting had been piloted by the previous Labour government under the Total Place initiative.

Pickles said:

"For too long we've handed out pocket money to local agencies and told them how to spend like an overbearing parent. It's time to let local areas grow up. To do things their way.

"It needs to be done. We need to be ambitious and bold. And if this causes discomfort to some Whitehall bureaucrats - good. This is about transforming the future of public spending.

"Councils are going to become almost unrecognisable in a very short period. Local communities are going to be in the driving seat."

Ministers believe community budgets will help drive down overhead costs by removing the bureaucratic financial restrictions that have generated waste and duplication in public spending. Local areas will be able to redesign and integrate frontline services across organisations and share management functions to reduce running costs for the best local outcomes.

A second phase of the Local Government Resources Review will be launched in April, focusing on the rollout of community budgets. The government wants all areas to be able to tackle problem families and other key local priorities through community budgets from 2013.

Lib Dem revolt over HB benefits cap

Jennifer Willott
(Cardiff Central, Liberal Democrat)

Sunday's Observer reported that the Liberal Democrats had joined forces with charities and senior figures in local government to oppose a rigid cap on benefits.

Jenny Willott, the Lib Dems' welfare spokesperson, told the Observer that she wants ministers to build more flexibility into the system – and to consider removing child benefit from the cap altogether, as suggested by the TUC's Nicola Smith at a recent session of the select committee reviewing the Welfare Reform Bill.

"I am very concerned about the effect on child poverty," she said. "There are a number of possible changes that are being discussed, but at the moment I am certainly not happy with what is being proposed."

Willott made clear she had Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's support and believed that ministers would amend their plans to ensure they pass through the Commons.

Shelter's head of policy Roger Harding told the Welfare Reform Bill committee last week:

"Analysis at Shelter shows that much of the south-east will become unaffordable to three-children families because of the cap. For a typical family of two adults – with one or both working – and three children, if both parents lose their job they will suddenly face not receiving enough housing benefit to live not only in their town, but in their region."

Budget brings forward shared room rate change

Last week's budget included changes to the Shared Room Rate (SRR) that have not received much attention.

Crisis's private rented sector website explains that the SRR will now be extended to those under 35 in January 2012 (not April as previously stated). This will mean that current claimants will face a reduction in Local Housing Allowance rates (both the forthcoming caps and move to the 30th percentile) at the same time as they are moved onto the SRR.

The timetable the Department of Work and Pensions is now working to is:

• Currently drafting regulations
• April 2011 - Taking regulations to Social Security Advisory Committee who will consult
• June 2011 - Laying regulations in Parliament
• January 2012 - Implementation

The SRR restricts claimants to the rate for a single room in a shared house, rather than the rate for a self-contained one bedroom property.

In February, Crisis (quoting Treasury figures) estimated that 88,000 people will initially be affected, with the average loss being £47 per week and some people seeing their benefit entitlement literally halved. In more than half of areas the shared accommodation rates are around a third or more lower than the one bedroom LHA rate.

Transparency or information overload?

The Centre for Public Scrutiny (CFPS) has responded to the DCLG's consultation on data transparency, saying they feel their draft code, 'focuses too much on technical issues and process, without considering the wider cultural implications of increased transparency.'

They are worried about a lack of context for much of the data to be published, highlighting the coalition's principle of 'demand-led' data, and reminding us the Government suggests, 'that publication should be demand led, with authorities understanding what their communities want' in terms of useful information.

The CFPS goes on to stress that, 'Demand-led should also include a presumption to be value-led' meaning that when information is requested, there should be sufficient commentary and background to make it genuinely useful.

They point out that 'data dumping' huge quantities of (albeit accessible) information on people may be useful for, 'national and local journalists to mash data and produce internal comparisons', but this is likely to, 'present a picture largely divorced from the realities of service delivery on the ground.'

The CFPS also questions the wisdom of disclosing senior salaries over £58,200 in local authorities. This move is supposed to increase accountability, ensuring that salaries are in-line with responsibilities. However they say, 'Experience suggests that publication of this information would not enable local people to make a judgment on whether salaries are consistent with levels of responsibility.'

Budget 2011 effects on the housing sector

Chancellor George Osborne's Budget 2011 offers a number of incentives to aid development of new houses. Deeper down in the budget are a couple of tax changes that affect social landlords and VAT exempt bodies.

Planning

The Chancellor unveiled plans to make the planning process smoother by introducing a powerful new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default is ‘yes’ and pilot land auctions, starting with public sector land.

The government intends to speed up planning by introducing a number of measures to streamline applications and related consents regimes. This will include a 12 month guarantee for the processing of all planning applications, including any appeals.

In accordance with current government thinking, it will localise choice about the use of previously developed land, removing nationally imposed targets while retaining existing controls on green belt land.

First time buyers

The Government will provide £250 million to support first time buyers to purchase a new-build property. The FirstBuy programme will assist over 10,000 households with equity investments jointly funded with house-builders. The proposal is that the buyer puts up 5%, the government 10% and the housebuilder 10%. The buyer can then obtain a mortage with a 75:25 loan to value ratio.

Homeowners

The Government will help homeowners facing difficulties by extending temporary changes to the Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) scheme for a further year. The 13-week waiting period and £200,000 limit on eligible mortgage capital will now remain in force for new working age SMI claimants until January 2013.

Bulk purchases

The Government will strengthen demand for residential property by reforming the stamp duty land tax rules applied to bulk purchases. This will reduce a barrier to investment in residential property, promoting private rented housing supply.

Green Deal

The Government is committed to the success of the Green Deal and will act to encourage and incentivise take-up so that the Green Deal will appeal to households, businesses and prospective providers alike, before it is introduced in 2012.

Tax changes

The Government will continue to consult on implementation of a VAT exemption for services shared by VAT-exempt bodies, including charities.

The Government intends to abolish relief on shared ownership transactions and transfers to registered social landlords after 2012 in future Finance Bills or other legislative vehicles.

Sector response

The NHF and the CIH have both published responses to budget.

Bonkers conkers

Housing minister Grant Shapps turned his mind to the unseasonable sport of conkers last week, in a debate on the Local Government Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill.

Shapps said that the Government believes that local authorities have become overly cautious in respect of health and safety, and referred to the old chestnut about banning conker fighting.The minister clearly looks back fondly to his conker-fighting schooldays and seemed an expert on hardening techniques - apparently you can bake the conkers in advance but vinegaring them doesn't work!

The bill is a private members' bill introduced by Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative) which seeks to extend the powers of the local government ombudsman to provide redress against local authorities that unreasonably ban events on the grounds of health and safety. It ran out of time during the second reading debate on 18 March and will be on the Order Paper to resume its Second Reading debate on 13 May 2011.

Loan costs - good and bad news

Inside Housing  reports that the Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH) is to hold talks with one the UK’s largest banks to try to secure a joint loan deal to meet the one-off payments to the Treasury totalling £13bn that will be needed before the housing revenue account subsidy system is wound up in April 2012.

The report explains that the government has assumed councils would secure the necessary funding from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) but a change in the ground rules in October would mean local authorities paying a premium of 1% above the government bond rate - an increase of 0.83%. ARCH hopes its bargaining power may secure more favourable rates from the banks.

John Bibby, director of housing at Lincoln Council, told Inside Housing that local authorities would compare the cost of private borrowing with the terms offered by the PWLB and might decide to use more than one lender. Those taking on significant extra debt, such as Wandsworth, are considering the further option of a bond issue.

In a separate article Inside Housing reports that Newcastle Building Society is seeking to reprice existing social housing debt where loan agreements permit this and claims that five NBS borrowers, including the Bromford Group, have received notification that the society wants to increase their costs. The article suggests fears that, if NBS succeeds, it will set a precedent which could cost the sector hundreds of millions of pounds.

Committee queries government's building plans

The abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs) could have far reaching consequences likely to last for many years says the all party Commons Communities and Local Government Committee.

The Committee's report - Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies: a planning vacuum? - warns that the loss of RSSs will create a, 'vacuum at the heart of the English planning system' which will, 'hamper the UK's economic recovery and delay new house building'.

This threatens the coalition's promise to build 150,000 'affordable homes' over the next four years.

The report follows hard on the heels of criticism of the impact of abolishing RSSs from the Transport Select Committee earlier this month.

Regional Spatial Strategies were introduced by the previous government, and were criticised for forcing development schemes on communities. The new Localism Bill will remove RSSs, devolving decision on new builds to local communities. The Committee's report is wide ranging and covers:

• housing targets and the New Homes Bonus
• the implications of abolition
• the new planning system
• the pros and cons of RSSs
• evidence and monitoring

The National Housing Federation welcomed the report, which quotes Federation evidence extensively. NHF chief executive David Orr said:

'The select committee’s report echoes the Federation’s warnings about the Government’s hasty and damaging dismantling of the planning system before it was able to put anything in its place.
  
'However with 4.5 million people in England in housing need, the priority now must be to ensure the new localised planning system effectively delivers new affordable homes. 
  
'The Government must heed the committee’s recommendations to support robust and consistent assessment of housing need by councils. 
  
'This will mean providing help for over-stretched planning departments and a stronger obligation for councils to work together to meet the overall housing need in each part of England. And as the Committee recommends, revisions are needed for the new homes bonus to provide adequate incentives for new affordable homes.
  
'The National Housing Federation will keep working with the Government to ensure the new planning system delivers the new homes that are so desperately needed.'

Green Deal for energy and employment

The government has announced plans to introduce a Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) package as part of their new 'Green Deal' scheme.

Billed by Energy Secretary Chris Huhne as, "the first of its kind in the world", this is effectively a subsidy for households who want to generate their own renewable energy to boost the emerging green energy market.

Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said, "This is a scheme designed to provide support to all of the technologies that can replace carbon technology." It will be introduced in two phases:

1. Long-term tariff support will be targeted at the non-domestic industrial, business and public sectors.
    
2. Phase two will see households moved to the same form of long-term tariff support offered to the non-domestic sector in the first phase. This transition will be timed to align with the Green Deal, which is scheduled for October 2012.

The scheme will support a wide range of sustainable technologies including solar power, geothermal energy and biomass fuels.

From July 2011 the government will provide £15 million in grants - called Renewable Heat Premium Payments - to subsidise the cost of installing domestic renewable heating systems. Funding details will be announced in May 2011, and grant recipients will be expected to provide feedback on their experiences.

The Guardian has produced a useful Q&A page, covering the RHI scheme.

In addition, the government will help towards training 1,000 apprentices to install home insulation as part of the Green Deal. The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said, "The Green Deal is about the future – and it is important we ensure that future generations have the skills they need to take advantage of the opportunities of the green economy."

Does self-financing deal hide threat to HRA ring-fence?

Steve Hiditch, writing in Labour Housing Group blog Red Brick, points out that the previous government's proposals to reform council housing finance included a commitment to issue updated guidance on the Housing Revenue Account ‘ring fence’.

The ring fence is the name given to the rules that govern transfers between the HRA, which records income and expenditure on council housing, and the General Fund, which covers the rest of council spending.

Hilditch is concerned that the coalition's reform proposals "Implementing self-financing for council housing" have abandoned plan for revised guidance, stating:

"In line with our emphasis on localism we do not intend to issue new guidance on the operation of the ring-fence. We expect local authorities to take their own decisions, rooted in the principle that ‘who benefits pays’."

Hilditch's article points out the huge scope for council finance directors and local politicians to 'raid' the HRA. He concludes:

"The temptation will be just too great – and it will undermine the move towards council housing being run as a self-financed business within the council, with services paid for out of rents in a very transparent way. The case for central guidance is strong.

"Tenants have been vigilant on this in the past – witness the ‘Daylight Robbery’ campaign a few years back. In future, detailed tenant scrutiny of the local arrangements will be essential, and well-informed campaigning tenants groups could make a real difference."

Committee clash over mutual exchanges

The government has been accused of a u-turn over protecting tenures for tenants in mutual exchanges.

In a committee stage debate of the Localism Bill, junior minister Andrew Stunell was asked by shadow housing minister Alison Seabeck to clarify whether 'lifetime' tenants mutually exchanging into 'affordable' tenancies would retain security of tenure.

Stunell said that 'if a tenant chooses to move to an affordable rent property....discretion should be available to the landlord as to whether [security of tenure] remains in place'.

Nick Raynsford summarised tenants' situations by stating 'it is Hobson's choice - either they have to move to get a decent home of they have to stay in grossly overcrowded conditions to retain their security'.

This provoked a cautious response from Mr Stunell, 'I will take stock of the precise nature of what we have announced. I certainly do not want to contradict anything that the Secretary of State has said on the matter'.

The MPs were debating clause 132 of the Localism Bill which deals with exchanges involving flexible or assured shorthold tenancies.

Shapps slams 'identikit Legoland homes'

Housing minister Grant Shapps has written to the Design Council - which recently merged activities on housing design with the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment - encouraging them to help developers to work with local communities to bring forward creative and innovative designs that respond to local character and identity. 

Shapps argues that England's suburbs have been dominated by "identikit" homes that could be anywhere in the country and that instead, developers could look to take the character of the local neighbourhood more into account in their designs.

Referring to the neighbourhood plans provisions in the Localism Bill, he said:

"But power also rests in the hands of the residents. Neighbourhood plans, designed and voted on by communities themselves, could offer vital support to those architects and developers who are more sensitive to the look and feel of the place in which they are building."

Planning and Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark added:

"Neighbourhood planning will give people the chance to exercise meaningful choice over the look and feel of the places where they live - from the location of new homes, shops and offices, to the choice of materials used. That way, developers who work with local people are likely to benefit from a smoother process for obtaining planning permission."

Benefit cuts will leave a third of UK unaffordable for low income households

Government plans to change the way housing benefit is calculated will price low income households out of a third of local authorities in England and push them away from areas with higher employment, new analysis by Shelter and the Chartered Institute of Housing reveals.

The move to up-rate Local Housing Allowance for private tenants using the Consumer Price Index of inflation rather than the cost of local rents, planned for 2013, will break the link between the housing support people receive and the housing costs they pay. Over time, where rents rise faster than the CPI, this will mean housing benefit will cover less and less of the housing costs people face.

The report shows that by 2023, just ten years after the change comes in, 34 per cent of local authorities outside of London will be unaffordable for people claiming Local Housing Allowance, including working households on low incomes and those unable to work such as pensioners, carers and people with disabilities.

The areas most affected are concentrated in those regions with the biggest proportion of claimants in work and the highest rates of employment. Meanwhile, regions that remain affordable in 2023 are those with the above average rates of economic inactivity and unemployment.

Chartered Institute of Housing Chief Executive, Sarah Webb said:

“These changes will undermine the government’s own welfare reform ambitions to make work pay and to support people back in to jobs.

“You don’t help someone back in to work by forcing them to move from neighbourhoods where they have established support networks and make them move to areas with fewer employment opportunities, miles from the very support that can make work viable. We need welfare changes that help get our economy growing again, not changes that will entrench unemployment and dependency further.”

Government targets red tape in review of legal powers

Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark has announced a review of statutory duties which government departments place on local authorities.

16 departments and agencies of government have publishing their initial draft list of of more than 1,200 statutory duties for which their departments are responsible, imposed mainly by primary legislation and covering wide ranging and diverse interests such as housing, planning, crime and policing, adult social care, public health, equality, the environment and licensing.

The list is not exhaustive. DCLG's draft list of over 200 includes 51 housing duties. It excludes duties relating to building regulations and inspetions as these are subject to separate review.

Clark said:

"Until now no Government has comprehensively reviewed the relevance and worth of these legal duties to check if councils aren't being smothered by top down bureaucracy. That's why today we're asking councils to tell us which duties actually serve the public and which ones serve to create unnecessary burdens."

The government is inviting comments on the duties and is asking councils to challenge government on those which they feel are burdensome or no longer needed. An online consultation will run until 25 April 2011.

This latest move follows on from  the government's review of data burdens on councils and Clark's "Barrier Busting" website.

Pro-growth, pro-enterprise and pro-aspiration

Prime Minister David Cameron told the Conservative Party's Spring forum and Welsh conference held in Cardiff on 5 and 6 March 2011 that backing the UK's entrepreneurs was the "only strategy" for growth.

Attack on bureaucracy

David Cameron said the government is taking on the "enemies of enterprise" in Whitehall and town halls across the country, and he would personally challenge public officials who obstruct the private sector. He listed three "enemies of enterprise' in his speech to the Conservative spring forum:

• "The bureaucrats in government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible, particularly for small firms."
• "The town hall officials who take forever with those planning decisions that can be make or break for a business - and the investment and jobs that go with it.
•  "The public sector procurement managers who think that the answer to everything is a big contract with a big business and who shut out millions of Britain's small and medium sized companies from a massive potential market."

The Budget on 23 March will be used, he said, "to tear down the barriers of enterprise" and would be the "most pro-growth this country has seen for a generation".

Pro-growth Budget

Chancellor George Osborne told the conference that his forthcoming Budget will be "unashamedly pro-growth, pro-enterprise and pro-aspiration" and will include new enterprise zones to boost some of the most deprived areas of Britain.

Jackie Sadek Chief Executive of UK Regeneration said in The Telegraph, "My organisation, UK Regeneration, has been campaigning for EZs since last summer. For us, they are a no-brainer. They provide the simplest possible measure to get real growth away from the South East without any up-front funding, unlike the old Regional Development Agency model, which depended both on funding expensive secretariats and the purchase of land."

Speaking to the City of London at Mansion House on Thursday 3 March, Secretary of State Vince Cable outlined the Government's work in growing the economy.

New Conservative Policy Forum website launched

Speaking at the Conservative Party Spring Forum and Welsh Conference Oliver Letwin, Minister for Government Policy, launched a new Conservative Policy Forum (CPF) website.

The website gives Conservative party members the opportunity to take part in policy discussions and get their voice heard as well as providing information about their local CPF groups.

The first discussion paper in the main CPF programme is looking at what challenges Britain will face in skills, apprenticeships and youth employment in 2015.

The current proposed timetable for other papers in 2011:

• March – Balancing our economy
• May – Housing
• June – Credit after the credit crunch
• July – Making Britain work better

At the re-launch of CPF in January 2011 the Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party, Baroness Warsi said:

"Over the next five years, the CPF is going to have a big role to play in our Party. This is a real opportunity for a fantastic exchange of ideas. Thanks to the new CPF structure, there’s a straight line which goes from your constituency to Conservative Ministers in Government. With just one e-mail or one conversation in your constituency CPF group, your idea could be on its way to Whitehall."

Increase in DFG programme funding

The government has announced an increase of 8 per cent for 2011-12 in the Disabled Facilities Grant programme in England compared to 2010-11.

Publishing details of the local authority allocations Housing Minister Grant Shapps confirmed that an extra £11m a year will be made available from April 2011.

The funding is allocated through councils, and the 150 with the highest level of relative need will see the amount they receive go up next year, with other areas continuing to be funded by the same amount.

Housing Minister Grant Shapps said:

"This funding will also help our Coalition Agreement commitment to help older people to live in their homes for longer through solutions such as home adaptations and community support programmes."

Mr Shapps also announced that from April 2011 the grant will no longer be ring-fenced, continuing the government's commitment to provide councils with the maximum flexibility to support local needs.

Second reading for Protection of Freedoms Bill

The new Protection of Freedoms Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons on 1 March, and ministers claim it will protect millions of people in England and Wales "from unwarranted state intrusion in their private lives". The areas outlined below will be of interest to landlords.

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) & CCTV

The bill includes changes to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in terms of CCTV and other surveillance technology. This will impact on landlords who are trying to investigate ASB using covert video monitoring. The bill will end the use of the most intrusive RIPA powers used by local authorities to investigate low level offences and impose a new requirement that all applications by local authorities to use any RIPA techniques are approved by a magistrate.

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) recently wrote to The Times, 'expressing concern at moves to make local authority noise surveillance more difficult.'

If the bill becomes law, the home secretary will be required to publish a code of conduct on using CCTV and other surveillance cameras. The Home Office published a consultation draft to coincide with the debate.

Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks

The bill will reform the vetting and barring scheme and criminal records regime for checking people who want to work frequently with children or vulnerable adults. The proposals will scale them back to 'common-sense levels' in an attempt to end the fear that many adults have of working with children.

Freedom of information

The bill makes amendments to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to create an obligation on Government departments and other public authorities to proactively release data sets in a reusable format; to extend the freedom of information regime to cover companies wholly owned by two or more public authorities; and to enhance the independence of the Information Commissioner.

Powers of entry

The home secretary told parliament that the government was committed to reducing the number of statutory powers of entry into residential and business premises. She said there had been a huge increase in their numbers in recent years, and that there are now some 1,200 separate powers of entry.

Sixteen of these appear in various Housing Acts, while others relate to gas safety.

The bill gives ministers powers to repeal unnecessary powers and places them under a duty to review the existing powers of entry and report to parliament on the outcome of such reviews within two years of the bill being enacted. Provision is also made for a code of practice governing the exercise of powers of entry and associated powers. 

Wheel clamping and towing away

The bill prohibits wheel clamping on private land by making it a criminal offence to immobilise, move or prevent the movement of a vehicle without lawful authority. The intention is to outlaw 'cowboy clampers'.

The changes will not affect clamping and towing which has lawful authority, such as the powers of local authorities to immobilise and/or remove vehicles from the highway or their car parks, or to remove abandoned vehicles.

It will, however, apply to housing associations and to many local authority housing estates, where landlords may need to introduce alternative parking control measures.

More information

The Home Office website has a Protection of Freedoms Bill - useful documents page.

The Bill itself is on the UK Parliament website and the House of Commons Library prepared a research briefing for the Second Reading debate.

U-turn on ministerial powers to scrap quangos

The government has dropped the controversial Henry VIII provision  in the Public Bodies Bill that would have allowed it to abolish, merge or modify quangos without the need for primary legislation.

Conservative Whip Lord Taylor of Holbeach, speaking in a House of Lords debate,  removed schedule seven from the bill, which originally contained a list of 150 organisations that could be abolished or merged by ministers, including the Tenant Services Authority (listed under its official name of the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords).

The plans were criticised in a report by the Lords constitution committee and Conservative Whip Lord Taylor of Holbeach yesterday told peers:

"I can confirm to the House that the government have accepted the arguments that bodies and offices should be listed in the schedules of this Bill only where Parliament has given its consent in primary legislation."

However, it is unlikely that the TSA will be saved, since Lord Taylor said that as a result of the removal of schedule seven, the Government would attempt to move a "small" number of bodies listed in it to the other parts of the Bill, allowing them to be abolished, merged or otherwise significantly reformed, adding:

"These changes will ensure that all reforms announced as part of last year's review of public bodies can be implemented."

 Labour's leader in the Lords Baroness Royall said the Public Bodies Bill was of "extraordinary" low quality as a piece of legislation:

"It was an unnecessarily rushed Bill and it is clear that the proposals were not properly thought through and that there was no proper consultation."

Regeneration research in latest legacy studies

Grant Shapps has announced the publication of another batch of "legacy research" commissioned by the previous government.

The 10 reports are the products of research commissioned in 2008 and 2009, and include studies of the role of regeneration in addressing the problem of worklessness and a one that looked at modelling and forecasting court claims and orders for mortgage repossession.

The reports and findings are of general policy interest, but do not relate to forthcoming policy announcements. They can be downloaded from the historical research reports page of the DCLG website.

Next steps to social housing reform

The government has published a paper setting out the next steps in its reform of the social housing system, in light of the responses it received to the policy document, 'Local decisions: a fairer future for social housing', published last November.

The paper also contains a summary of those responses.

The statutory basis for the proposals has already been included in the Localism Bill which is currently being considered by Parliament. The principal elements of reform proposals concern:

• tenure
• allocations
• mobility
• homelessness
• overcrowding and under-occupation.

Tenure

The Localism Bill requires local housing authorities to publish a tenancy strategy and creates a new flexible tenancy for local authority landlords with a minimum fixed term of two years. 

A large majority of respondents felt that two years would rarely or never be enough for a general needs social tenancy, but the government plans to retain two-year tenancies as an option whilst saying it expects the majority of tenancies to be for longer terms, especially for vulnerable households and those with children.

A new tenancy standard will be introduced from April 2012 (not to be confused with the current TSA consultation on the Tenancy Standard applicable from April 2011 to accommodate "affordable rents").

The 2012 standard will require social landlords to publish and maintain a clear and accessible tenancy policy with certain mandatory elements, including the type of tenancies they will grant and the circumstances that will determine the tenancy offered; rights of appeal; grounds on which a decision to renew a tenancy will be made; provisions for the vulnerable; advice and assistance to be offered to those not granted another tenancy and details of when discretionary succession will be allowed.

Allocations

The Localism Bill allows local authorities to restrict access to their statutory allocation scheme, and to exclude existing council and housing association tenants unless they have reasonable preference. This paper states that the government currently does not plan to make any changes to the existing statutory ‘reasonable preference’ categories which determine who has priority for social housing.

The paper stresses that landlords will not be forced to set up a separate system  for transfer requests, but have the freedom to make arrangements that best suit the needs of the local area.

Mobility

The government plans to go ahead with proposals for a national home swap scheme. The Localism Bill envisages a new regulatory standard governing services to support mutual exchange.

This standard will require all social landlords to subscribe to an internet-based mutual exchange service that is available free of charge to tenants.

The landlord must chose a scheme that shares exchange property details with other schemes, or else participate in a range of different schemes. The government has been working with existing service providers who have recommended a system where the landlord's preferred exchange service serves the tenant its own suggested matches and provides a clickable link to other service providers for further matches.

The Chartered Institute of Housing will work with the industry to produce a service level agreement that defines minimum technical, information and security provisions for data sharing.

Landlords will also be expected to publicise the exchange scheme to its tenants and assist the digitally excluded.

The government favours a payment by results model for exchange services and will fund a series of vanguard projects to trial various approaches. Details will be announced in the spring.

Homelessness

The Localism Bill will allow local authorities to discharge their homelessness duties through an offer of a privately rented home. It does not plan to make any changes in its proposals in the light of responses to the consultation.

Overcrowding and underoccupation

The government says that the reforms to tenure, allocations and homelessness in the Localism Bill will help tackle overcrowding.

It has promised £13m to the 50 biggest local authority landlords to tackle under-occupation and intends establishing a new national team of advisers based at the Chartered Institute of Housing to support councils who want to help tenants to downsize.

Doubts raised over shared services agenda

Eric Pickles's presumption that local authorities can shield frontline jobs and services from cuts by merging back-office departments has been roundly challenged by a new report from localism thinktank, the New Local Government Network (NLGN).

Its report, 'Shared necessities: The next generation of shared services', comments on the coalition's 'hugely optimistic' 40% targets for back-office savings, saying this would represent just 3.6% of councils' annual expenditure.

NLGN suggests that 20% is a more realistic target for back-office efficiencies, yielding savings amounting to just 1.8% of councils' total spend.

Councils face grant cuts of of 26% in the period up to 2014, and some are expected to save as much as 8.8% of their total budget in the first year - with a median target of 5.8%.

Pickles is pressing councils to share functions like finance, human resources and payroll, arguing this would cut waste and release funds to protect vulnerable services like children's centres, social care and libraries.

The report recommends that councils expand the concept of shared services across all their service areas and adopt a presumption in favour of sharing services, including high spending areas such as social care, waste and recycling.

According to the Guardian's Patrick Butler, there is scant evidence that council 'mega-mergers' actually save money. He writes, 'The relatively few studies there have been of mergers in the public sector suggest even the most successful marriages achieve little in the way of financial savings, while the worst cost millions more and trigger catastrophic collapses in safety and service quality.'

The NLGN's report includes a toolkit for local authorities who wish to initiate shared services agreements.

Tenancy deposits amendment in Localism Bill

Liberal Democrat MPs Stephen Gilbert and David Ward have tabled a new clause (NC12) for the Localism Bill that would amend the tenancy deposit protection provisions in the Housing Act 2004.

David Smith, writing in Nearly Legal, says:

"The changes dispose of the unclear concept of ‘initial requirements’ and remove the late protection loophole revealed by cases such as Draycott v Hannells and Tiensia v Universal Estates.

"They also remove the loophole utilised by some landlords of returning the deposit to the tenant and then asserting that s214(4) only requires that they pay the three times penalty if they have also been ordered to pay the deposit back. This will mean that tenants will find it far easier to pursue landlords or agents who have failed to protect their deposits and landlords will not be able to rush deposits into schemes after the 14 day period and thereby avoid penalties.

"The changes also clear up other areas of uncertainty, such as the status of multiple tenants, which have not yet come before the higher Courts."

Smith goes on to explain that the amendment also brings improvements for landlords as it would mean that ignorant landlords will still be penalised but they should be able to bring the size of the penalty down to a more manageable level.

He thinks it's likely that the amendments will receive government backing and go through.