FUNDING BLOW HITS SOCIAL HOUSING

Why they struggle  to help the homeless

Michael Gove, pictured, wants to build more social rented housing.In fact, he thinks it is “unconscionable, indefensible” that people in work are relying on low-quality temporary housing and wants 30,000 social rented homes a year to start turning the tide. 

These were the comments the housing secretary made in a recent interview with ITV News  saya an article in in the social housing magazine Inside Housing

 

 The article goes on “Well-informed readers need no reminding of these numbers. But just for the record, when the Conservatives came to power as lead partners in the coalition government in 2010, there were 39,562 social rented homes being built every year and 49,680 households in temporary accommodation. 

“Last year, we built 7,644 social rented homes and now have 101,300 households in temporary accommodation. 

“The reduction in social rented homes is solely and completely to do with the government’s decision to stop funding them in 2010. While Mr Gove’s colleagues will doubtless brand this among the “difficult choices” they had to make at the start of their reign, it has also undoubtedly been a political one.

“In the interview, Mr Gove took credit for a renegotiation of Affordable Housing Programme funding which will see it deliver 30,000 social rented homes over the five years to 2026. 

“But this remains a historically low figure – owed as much to Theresa May as it is to Mr Gove. It is around half the number of homeownership products the programme will produce and comes at about one-twelfth of what most experts think the requirement is in England to meet demand.

“As “indefensible as it might be for families to live in temporary accommodation, the cabinet in which Mr Gove serves evidently does not agree. Otherwise it may feel inclined to raise Local Housing Allowance rates, which  have slipped to the lowest 18 per cent of the local rental market and make it nigh on impossible for local authorities in high demand areas to find permanent housing for their homeless families.”

   Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277

EXECUTIVES GET DOUBLE THE AVERAGE PAY

Greedy housing bosses lose their way

 With their bosses earning twice that of other charities, have housing associations lost their social purpose? asks Andrew Kersley, pictured, in an article in the publication, Byline Times.

 The UK’s 13 biggest housing associations paid their executives over £22m with bosses earning almost double the average for the UK’s biggest charities says the article

 

 Analysis of annual accounts for the members of the G15, the group of the UK’s biggest housing associations, found that their chief executives earned netted some £3.9m between them, or an average pay packet of around £300,000.

Meanwhile, the average salary at the UK’s 100 largest charities, was just £175,000. Pay at major housing associations outstripped the pay for the heads of some of the country’s biggest charities, including Mind and Cancer Research UK.

Non-executives, meanwhile, earned almost £2.5m last year usually for giving the 13 firms a few hours of advice a month.

The findings have led housing campaigners to warn that the nominally ‘non-profit’ housing associations have lost their “social purpose” and were wasting money even as many were failing to give thousands of their tenants a “decent home”. 

Housing associations are private non-profits that run 63% of social housing in the UK – accommodation linked to local incomes in order to make it affordable for those on average incomes or using benefits. 

But the G15 housing associations in particular – including L&Q, Clarion, Peabody, MTVH and Notting Hill Genesis – have been the subject of constant scandals in the past two years over the poor quality of the homes they offer their often vulnerable tenants.

Byline Times previously found the biggest private providers of social housing are registering billions of pounds in surpluses – despite the record numbers of tenants reporting damp, mould and other disrepair in their homes.

This blog which is published byCarlisle  Tenants` and Residents Federation has frequently  campaigned agaunst the very excessive surpluses  and  grossly excessive pay to executives of the Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association

 Andrew Kersley`s article continues:The three highest-paid G15 executives worked for Peabody, Clarion and L&Q, and all netted over £320,000 in pay and bonuses last year, with the highest-paid directors at Peabody earning £438,000 in pay and bonuses.

One Housing Group – which was recently taken over by fellow housing association Riverside in search of  "financial resilience" – paid over £1.7m across its leadership team in pay and bonuses last year, one of the highest rates in the G15.

Pay has stayed steady for executives at the 14 ‘non-profit’ housing providers and did not significantly drop between last year and the year before. 

“It’s just another symptom of the fact that major housing associations have lost their social purpose,” says Suzanne Muna, the secretary of the Social Housing Campaign Group.

“If you look at the traditions and where these associations come from their founders would be horrified”. 

Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277