Communities and Local Government

• Housing
• Housing supply
• Affordable housing
• Delivery through the regions

Housing

Delivery through the regions

Background

It is important that investment in affordable housing is targeted strategically, informed by a proper understanding of housing markets; to ensure the best use of limited resources, to complement other investment activity, and to complement and support planning policies.

Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future (The Communities Plan), published 2003, introduced new regional arrangements to help deliver affordable housing.  Part of these new arrangements was the creation of a Regional Housing Board in each of the nine English regions.  Each Board was chaired by the Regional Director of the Government Office supported by senior representatives from the Housing Corporation, the Regional Development Agency, the Regional Assembly, and English Partnerships.  Other seats on the Board were allocated at each Board's discretion to reflect regional variations.

The Boards were advisory bodies brought together at the wish of Ministers: they had no legal entity. The Boards were responsible for:

(a) producing a Regional Housing Strategy setting out the key priorities and issues in their regions

(b) ensuring that the Strategy was properly integrated with the regional planning and economic strategies (by working closely with the regional planning body (the Regional Assembly) and the Regional Development Agency (both of whom had seats on the Board), and

(c) on the back of the Strategies, recommending to Ministers how and where their Regional Housing Pot should be targeted.

The Regional Housing Pot merged two existing funding streams:

• the Housing Investment Programme - which provided funding to local authorities to support their housing capital investment programmes, intended mainly for improvements to existing stock and area wide regeneration; and
• the Approved Development Programme  (managed by the Housing Corporation) - which provided support to Registered Social Landlords predominantly towards the cost of increasing the supply of housing for rent or sale below market rates (Affordable Housing) 

From 2006-07 the Regional Housing Pot also included support for the provision of new and refurbished sites for Gypsies and Travellers.

Regional Housing Pots do not cover the funding provided through the Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT), Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) and Market Renewal Pathfinder programmes and the Major Repairs Allowance (for council housing) but these resources are taken into account in the advice on Regional Housing Pot funding.

The split of Regional Housing Pot funds between regions is determined on a formulaic basis.  The formula combines a number of different measures of housing need - the main ones used to determine the 2006-08 settlement were homeless households in temporary accommodation, overcrowding / sharing, housing affordability, council housing and private sector decent homes and area regeneration.  Account is also taken of the variations in costs across regions.

The Future

Kate Barker, a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, was commissioned by the Government to undertake a major review of issues underlying the lack of supply and responsiveness of housing in the UK.  Her final report was issued on 17 March 2004 and one of the recommendations was that Regional Housing Boards and Regional Planning Bodies should be merged. 

Housing and Planning in the Regions, the consultation on the Government's proposal that merger would be best achieved by inviting the Regional Assemblies (the Regional Planning Bodies) (and in London, the Mayor) to take responsibility for the work of the Regional Housing Boards, ended in November 2004.

In March 2006 David Miliband, Minister for Communities and Local Government, invited the eight Regional Assemblies formally to accept responsibility for the work of the Regional Housing Boards.  He made it clear that he was happy for the Assemblies to take responsibility as and when they were ready to do so, but expected all to have assumed full responsibility before October 2006. 

The Regional Assemblies will advise Ministers on how investment for new affordable housing should be targeted from 2008-09 onwards.

In July 2006 Ruth Kelly announced new proposed powers for the Mayor of London.  She announced that not only would the responsibilities of the London Housing Board pass to the Mayor (in line with the other eight regions), but he/she would be given powers to prepare and publish a statutory London Housing Strategy and a strategic Housing Investment Plan and powers to decide the broad distribution of the affordable housing part of the Regional Housing Pot in line with that strategy. 

The Mayor will decide in broad terms how public money for new affordable housing will be spent in the capital.