New National Housing and Planning Advice Unit Set Up

Published	7 November 2006

A National Housing and Planning Advice Unit has been established by the Government to provide independent advice on improving housing market affordability.

The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) will help strengthen the housing market evidence base and analysis currently available to the regional planning bodies. This will help to ensure that new homes identified in regional plans have a positive impact in improving housing affordability.

Also announced today are the Board members. They are:

Stephen Nickell (Chair)
Professor Glen Bramley
Bob Lane
Professor Paul Cheshire
Dr Peter Williams
Max Steinberg.

The Board took up its role from 1 November 2006 and the appointments are for 3 years.

Housing and Planning Minister Yvette Cooper said:

"The new unit will have a key role in offering advice and support to the regions in their work to ensure that new homes improve housing affordability. The board members have an impressive calibre and a wide range of expertise in housing and economics which they will use to steer the work of the unit."

The NHPAU has been set up in response to one of the key recommendations in Kate Barker's Review of Housing Supply, which found that during the last 30 years of the twentieth century housebuilding rates halved whereas demand for new homes increased by a third. This has led to a shortage of homes in some areas and corresponding increase in house prices.

The Board appointments have been made in accordance with the Code of Practice of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

Notes for editors

1. The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit is a Non- Departmental Public Body (NDPB) sponsored by Communities and Local Government. It will provide independent advice and strengthen the evidence and analysis on improving housing market affordability available to the regional planning bodies throughout the planning process. The full remit of the Unit is attached.

2. The NHPAU comprises an expert Board and a small specialist team of around 12 staff. The Board will shape and steer the work of the Unit. Day to day leadership will be provided by a Chief Executive, Kevin Williamson, who was also recently appointed. He will head a Unit comprising economists, statisticians, planners and researchers.

3. The time commitment for the Board is around 2.5 days a month (maximum 30 days a year) with remuneration of £468 per day for the Chair and £350 per day for the Board Members.

4. The NHPAU will be fully staffed and operational in early 2007. Its offices are at the Office of National Statistics site in Titchfield near Southampton.

5. The Board appointments have been made in accordance with the Code of Practice of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees' political activity (if any declared) to be made public. None of the appointees has declared any political activity.

Biographies of Board members:

6. Stephen Nickell (Chair): is currently Warden of Nuffield College Oxford. He was an External Member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee from 2000 - 2006 writing a number of pieces on the subject of the UK housing market. Until 2005 he was School Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, following his role from 1984 - 1998 as Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of Economics and Statistics at the University of Oxford. He has also had earlier roles as an economist at the London School of Economics, in Paris and at the University of Princeton. He has been awarded a number of academic honours including Fellow of the British Academy and Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published widely in numerous branches of applied economics.

7. Prof Glen Bramley: has been Professor of Housing and Planning/Urban Studies at Heriot - Watt University in Edinburgh since 1994 leading research on planning, housing and urban policy. Prior to this he lectured in Urban Studies at the University of Bristol from 1976 to 1993 specialising in local government finance, housing and economic aspects of public policy. He has published papers and conducted extensive research analysing the economics around housing affordability and the relationship it has with planning and house building.

8. Prof Paul Cheshire: has been Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science since 1995. Prior to this he was Professor of Urban and Regional Economics at the University of Reading and has spent time at Washington University in the USA. He has written extensively and conducted research on applied urban and regional economics, particularly the economics of housing, land markets and land use regulation.

9. Max Steinberg: has been Chief Executive of Elevate East Lancashire, a housing market renewal pathfinder since 2003, following 25 years at the Housing Corporation where his roles included, Director of Investment & Regeneration for the North and Regional Director of the North West and Merseyside. He is a leading UK practitioner in Urban Regeneration and Housing. Max is Chair of the Board of Liverpool John Moores University European Institute for Urban Affairs and the Chair of Governors at King David High School in Liverpool.

10. Bob Lane: is currently Chief Executive for Catalyst Corby/North Northants Development Company responsible for growth and regeneration in the area. His previous roles include Chief Executive of Speke Garston Development Company, Liverpool, Assistant Chief Executive of the Merseyside Development Corporation and roles at Oldham and Lambeth Councils managing urban programmes. He is a specialist in the delivery of complex urban regeneration projects, with more than twenty five years experience as a regeneration practitioner/manager and in 2004 was awarded the OBE for services to regeneration.

11. Dr Peter Williams: is an independent consultant on housing and mortgage markets and housing policy and acts as Executive Director of the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association. Since 2004, he has been chair of Thames Valley Housing Association. From 1997 to October 2006, he was Deputy Director General of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Prior to that he was Professor of Housing Management at the University of Wales, Cardiff, Deputy Director at the Chartered Institute of Housing and Research Fellow on housing and urban issues at the Australian National University (Urban Research Unit) and the University of Birmingham (Centre for Urban and Regional Studies). He has previously served on the Boards of the Housing Corporation (1995 - 2002) and Housing for Wales/Tai Cymru (1989 - 1994). With a PhD on the inner London housing market from the University of Reading, he has worked on housing market issues for over well over 30 years and is on the Editorial Boards of Housing Studies, the leading academic housing journal, Roof and Welsh Housing Quarterly.

Remit - The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU)

12. The NHPAU's objective is to advise Government and the regions on the implications for the level and broad distribution of future house building of the Government's national ambitions for long-term market affordability and housing supply.

13. To provide and publish authoritative, non-binding advice to Government, the relevant Regional Assemblies (RAs) and the Mayor of London for the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) process (in London the Spatial Development Strategy (SDS) process), on:

(i) a distribution of regional affordability targets that would be consistent with the Government's overall ambitions for housing affordability and supply;
(ii) the methodology for translating regional affordability targets into housing numbers;
(iii) its assessment of the implications of the recommended regional affordability targets for the level and broad distribution of future house building in the region

14. To develop its advice in dialogue with the RAs, the Mayor of London and other regional stakeholders. The NHPAU should quickly establish strong clear links with these bodies. It should also seek to establish good working relationships with other relevant bodies to ensure consistency and to avoid duplication: for example the ONS, the Regional Observatories and the Academy for Sustainable Communities.

15. To provide authoritative advice to the Examination in Public on the RSS /SDS, including advice on the affordability implications of proposals for housing put forward by the RA or Mayor of London within the RSS /SDS and their consistency with other relevant regional strategies.

16. To encourage the compilation of nationally-consistent regional evidence in support of the preparation of the RSS/SDS and other relevant regional strategies.

17. To disseminate and help Government and the RAs develop consistent methodological practice in assessing the implications for economic, social and environmental sustainability at different spatial scales of different quantities and distributions of house building.

18. To commission research and disseminate good practice in support of the above activities

19. Ministers will examine and review the effectiveness of the remit within two years of the unit becoming operational.

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