| Introducing
his paper on sustainable communities, a programme of action to tackle pressing problems,
the Deputy Prime Minister referred to the repairs backlog in local authority housing
inherited from the Tories as if it had been eliminated. “Our first priority was to
deal with the £19 billion backlog across the country” he said, adding “Now we
must tackle the fundamental problems of high demand in the south and the collapse of
housing demand in some of our most deprived communities”. All good stuff and an extra £5.4 billion extracted
out of the Chancellor too. Though this is not
a sum of money to be sniffed at, it is woefully inadequate to the task the Government has
set itself.
Take the promise to bring all
social housing up to the decency standard by 2010; far from having dealt with disrepair in
council housing, a written answer from housing minister, Tony McNulty, reveals that the annual investment needed to meet this target is
£3.5 billion for local authority-owned homes alone. This figure was absent from Prescott’s statement as he announced a three
year programme to improve council housing totaling a mere £2.8 billion. Even adding the
£2 billion for “arm’s-length management organizations” that can take over
the management of council housing and £800 million in PFI credits (a sort of hire
purchase whereby private companies take over the responsibility for improving and
maintaining properties in return for an annual fee from tenants’ rent) does not meet
the shortfall - and it is impossible to unravel the figures to tell what amount of double
counting is going on. What’s more,
according to McNulty, the amount needed to achieve the same standard for homes owned by
housing associations has not even been quantified.
Meanwhile, back in Birmingham, following the stock transfer debacle,
Ann Power’s Housing Commission has recommend reorganization of the housing service
into 35 community-based housing organizations. CBHOs, covering about 2500 properties, will
take all decisions about repairs, lettings and estate management with control of 100% of
the entire repairs budget and 80% of the housing management budget. They will be “structurally and
organizationally separate from the Council” but with overall policy co-ordinated
through a pared down central strategic operation and area office support. The option to
evolve down different pathways depending on repair and investment needs, community
strengths and tenants’ choices should be available.
The similarity between this
latest blueprint and the restructuring of the housing service I began whilst in charge of Birmingham’s council housing between ‘84
and ‘87 is striking. A report from 1986
refers to a fundamental review that had been carried out to reflect the policies of the
Council on devolution, decentralization to neighbourhood offices, the use of new
technology and participation and consultation with the public. New structures and the redirection of resources
were to be introduced to provide a community-based service and to extend caretaking and
environmental maintenance. It didn’t
happen. Decisions went back to the centre and
responsibility for different elements of the service was given to a raft of assistant
directors, with confusing lines of responsibility. Compulsory
competitive tendering did not help, but the serial mismanagement by officials with the
best line in quick fixes and their gullible political “bosses” has been the main
problem. Year on year, tenants became more and
more disillusioned by the meaningless promises that were made to them whilst staff morale
slumped because they had no power to deliver the services they knew tenants want.
The Commission recommendations
on structure need to be taken forward to improve efficiency but the early signs on
implementation are not good. The jobs that are
going are those of housing officers and concierges (a service I introduced) who are being
redesignated tenancy support officers to make use of a new pot of funding being made
available by the Government under the heading “supporting people”. The lost posts are to be covered by combining
functions between offices (for example the Fold and Cotteridge) so that officers are
responsible for larger areas – the exact opposite of the Commission’s
recommendations to move staff out of head office into local communities.
It is also very disappointing
that the Commission has not been prepared to criticize the Government’s unfair
policies towards council tenants, in particular the refusal to provide adequate funding
for direct investment in council housing. Despite
the overwhelming vote by tenants against stock transfer, the Commission has suggested
local stock transfers as the only means of attracting sufficient Government funding,
whether or not this is what tenants want. How
this fits in with their emphasis on tenant involvement and empowerment is a mystery.
During the last 6 years, the
Labour Government provided Birmingham
only £9 million a year more than was managed by the Tories in their last 6 years of
office. Plans for the next three years offer
little hope of substantial improvement on this record.
The Government must be forced to live up to its own rhetoric and really
introduce a step change in housing resources and this will only happen if the Council
works with its own staff and tenants to challenge Government policy. Otherwise, the only way authorities like Birmingham can achieve the decent homes target will
be to demolish, rather than refurbish, their substandard properties. With no prospect that demolished homes will be
replaced, what this will mean for the Government’s other target on reducing
homelessness should be only too clear!
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