It is deeply disappointing that a parliamentary inquiry that started so well, by posing basic questions about the housing situation in Northern Ireland, has finished by publishing a seriously flawed report (“Urgent action needed to prevent crisis in Northern Ireland social housing, says report”, HT 29 October)

The report contains three major mistakes about the contribution of housing associations. The first error is that the statistics purporting to show the number of homes developed by housing associations each year took no account of:

  • Old houses that have been brought back into use after extensive rehabilitation
  • Existing non-residential property that has been converted into housing
  • Shared accommodation for people who are single or need supportive services.

The effect of this omission is to imply that these three contributions play no useful role in meeting housing need.

Because these aspects were not counted, the committee came to the completely incorrect conclusion that housing associations in Northern Ireland missed by almost 25% the government’s output target for 2003/4. The true situation is that associations achieved 1,526 starts, compared with the government’s target of 1,575. They could have got even closer to the target but for the fact that the grant budget was exhausted.

Second, the committee’s analysis and conclusions confused two different concepts:

  • The Housing Executive's annualised estimate of the number of additional homes which the social sector should provide in Northern Ireland as a whole over 10 years
  • The output target that the Department for Social Development, the regulator and principal funder of the region’s registered housing associations, sets for the subsequent financial year.

The first is an estimate of the long-term requirement; the second is a one-year target that reflects what can be afforded within the government’s housing budget and other practical considerations.

On all but a few occasions the housing associations in Northern Ireland have met the development targets set by the DSD and came within a whisker of doing so in 2003/4.

Third, the committee was wrong to disregard some of the private finance with which associations have supplemented the budget available for social housing in Northern Ireland since 1991 – effectively bringing another £235m into the social housing budget. Every penny of this has been additional to the provision made by the taxpayer and the net result is that housing associations have built an extra 4,000 high-quality homes and let them to those in housing need.

If this fact were explained to the people living in those homes, would they agree with the parliamentary committee’s ill-informed criticism of underperforming housing associations?

Christopher Williamson, director Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations, Belfast

Source

Housing Today