Membership body warns of rise in disrepair claims due to ‘prescriptive’ approach
The Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) has called on ministers to re-assess and modify its proposed new Decent Homes Standard (DHS), warning that in its current form it would be too prescriptive and costly.
The membership body, in a representation ahead of the Autumn Budget on 26 November, said the DHS in its proposed form “introduces costly new elements” which it believes are “moving the standard away from a rounded approach to decency to a piecemeal approach which would lead to financial inefficiencies.”
NHC warned the standard as proposed will lead to a rise in disrepair claims, meaning landlords will be forced to divert spend away from improving homes.
“This means the implementation will make it more costly than a reformed standard needs to be for landlords to deliver the right outcome”, it said
NHC said it is “critical that the new DHS is reformed in such a way so that it continues to serve as a benchmark of housing quality and not focus on too much prescriptive detail which becomes more costly than is needed and risks distorting the concept of decency as well as being poor value for money.”
There has been mounting concern about the proposals in the social housing sector over the past few weeks, with many saying the cost of compliance will be higher than the government has estimated. An impact assessment in the summer put the cost at around £1.3bn in the social housing sector.
The G15 group in London last month raised concern about the government’s proposals to bring public realm components, internal communal areas and shared outdoor spaces within the revamped standard. While the National Housing Federation warned it cannot support the proposal to mandate floor coverings unless extra funding is made available. It has suggested a pilot programme to test the idea.
NHC is calling for the final DHS impact assessment to “provide a comprehensive evaluation of the full costs involved, alongside other significant changes such as Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards.
“The final assessment of costs must include detailed modelling which can be gained by working with individual social landlords, to understand the reality in practice and, thereby minimising the trade-off with new supply,” it said.
>>See also: Decent homes in practice: What an updated standard could mean for housing providers and residents
NHC also re-iterated its call for a dedicated place-based fund for regeneration, focused on areas with concentrations of poor quality or ageing housing stock, devolved to Mayoral Combined Authorities. It said this should run alongside the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme and ramp up to £470 million in 2030/31 at a total programme cost of £1.37 billion – reflecting the level of ambition shown by the last Labour Government’s Housing Market Renewal initiative.
The body also called for a new central funding stream for new supported housing, devolved to MCAs, “pooled with health partners who contribute their funding to maximise benefits delivered to a locally agreed joint outcomes framework”.
NHC said the government’s Fair Funding Review – through which the government recently consulted on its approach to determining new funding allocations for local authorities - should increase funding for areas that face higher levels of deprivation, many of which are found in the North. It called for the Area Cost Adjustment (ACA) – a tool used to measure variation in costs for local authorities- to be reformed to incorporate deprivation into its calculation.
Tracy Harrison, chief executive of NHC, said: “The NHC supports the government’s ground-breaking investment in social housing, including the £39 billion commitment to the Social and Affordable Homes Programme and the ten-year rent settlement.
“In our budget representation, we have highlighted ways the government can make sure the social housing sector in the North is able to deliver more new homes while also continuing to ensure existing residents can live in a warm, safe and affordable home.”
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