Spot the key workers

The successor to the Starter Home Initiative, it will spend £690m in the next two years to help key workers in London and the South-east get access to affordable housing. It will offer a range of assistance such as low-interest equity loans of up to £50,000 to help qualifying workers buy homes.

All eyes will be on Key Worker Living to see if it can get off the ground faster than its late-flowering predecessor, but the most pertinent question is who these "qualifying" workers will be.

Housing minister Keith Hill says the aim is to help those "at the heart" of the government's programme to modernise essential public services – health, education and security – to get the homes they want so they will stay in the areas that need them.

He says: "We are aware that because of high house prices in the South-east, there is a need to supply affordable housing to retain and recruit employees in key public services."

Like the Starter Home Initiative, Key Worker Living will target teachers, nurses and police officers, but the government has increased the categories to include occupational physiotherapists, prison workers and teachers working in further education. The government will monitor the needs of other low-income groups, but the focus will be frontline public sector employees such as clinical NHS staff.

But for these medics to do their job, they need a host of support staff, and this begs the question: who, exactly, is a key worker?

It's a highly emotive term, says David Clayton, head of key worker housing at Shepherds Bush Housing Association. "Lots of people believe they play a key role in the provision of either public services or the economy," he points out. Hill admits that under the SHI there was confusion as to who qualified as a key worker. This time, the government intends to make things clearer.

Key Worker Living will be delivered by a raft of registered social landlords known as "zone agents" (see "Delivering KWL") and each zone will have the same qualification criteria – unlike the Starter Home Initiative, which allowed social housing providers to develop their own interpretation. The qualifying categories have been drawn up through consultations with employers in the health, education and security sectors. But have they got it right?

Yes, according to Graham Moran, director of Metropolitan Home Ownership, the low-cost homeownership arm of London-based association and Key Worker Living zone agent Metropolitan Housing Trust. Moran is confident because the consultation period for developing Key Worker Living has been longer and more rigorous than for the SHI. "[Employers] understand better now where their needs lie because they have researched who their priority groups are, and what they need if they are to be retained," he says. "They have worked closely with us to ensure we deliver products that are wanted."

He adds that the salaries of key workers and the price of property in their locality has been carefully analysed to produce grants that are high enough to make homes more affordable. One criticism levelled at the SHI was that its grants, originally around the £10,000 mark, were too low. He points to the example of the Department for Education and Skills; it identified a problem retaining senior staff who work in underprivileged areas. About 1000 of these individuals will now qualify for loans of up to £100,000, whereas all other key workers will be eligible for grants of up to £50,000.

Most housing professionals agree that these high loans will help encourage high-achieving teachers to stay in their borough, but some feel Key Worker Living's definition of "key worker" is too narrow. Colin Sherriff, chief executive of Berkshire-based Parkside Housing Group, is concerned that essential service providers such as bus drivers, care workers and even his own employees are being overlooked.

"These workers aren't even considered part of the public sector," he says. "Our own organisation employs 300 care workers who, arguably, provide a key service. But because we, the employer, aren't in the public sector, they tend to miss out on housing programmes aimed at the public sector. Then, of course, there is the fact that our care workers can't do their job without our finance, IT and human resources staff."

There is, at present, no flexibility for local authorities to use the scheme to support other important public services david clayton, shepherds bush housing association

It is a view shared by Shepherds Bush Housing Association's David Clayton. Also, he points out, Key Worker Living doesn't have the scope to take into account specific, local recruitment needs: "There is, at present, no flexibility for local authorities to use the scheme to support other important public services.

"I hope that as the scheme develops, the ODPM's definition of key worker will widen to include, where there is need, other essential public sector workers. Until this happens, it will fall to councils and sub-regions to provide other forms of intermediate housing to address local needs."

Who are they and what do they want?
Another London-based housing officer says the government has not done enough research to identify adequately the level of need for key-worker housing in the different boroughs. He says: "Key Worker Living is targeting those workers whom the public can most easily identify as key. Certainly, in our borough, I cannot see that much work has been done to determine what specific housing needs are and who is most essential to the growth of the local community."

Tony Newman, chair of the housing panel at the Association of London Government, has similar concerns. He would like to see more flexibility in the definition of key workers and for Key Worker Living to include others who contribute to public services, "to make it more responsive to local demand".

Hounslow council in west London has decided to address its local housing needs by expanding its definition of key worker to include anyone who lives and works in the borough and earns less than £35,000 a year. Councillors wanted to take into account the recruitment needs of major employers in the area such as Heathrow Airport and the housing needs of all low-paid workers. The idea is to use planning gain arrangements to help house those who don't qualify for government key-worker schemes.

Local response has been strong and when the council's affordable housing register was launched earlier this month, 85 people signed up in the first week.

Bernadette O'Shea, Hounslow's head of housing strategy and services, admits the council will still have to choose who will be a priority for housing assistance. "We will use our local knowledge to do so by looking carefully at the employment market in the area rather than automatically focusing on particular groups of employees," she says.

Hounslow is not unique in taking this approach. The London borough of Bexley regularly reviews its definition of key workers according to the demands of the local labour market. Likewise, Parkside counts employees of Legoland in Windsor, a major employer in its area, as a priority for affordable homes.

But for Chris Cheeseman, director of new business at Key Worker Living zone agent Moat Home Ownership, the programme's specific definitions of who qualifies for housing assistance are its strength. "The danger is that the definition could become too broad and then our focus would be lost. There is plenty of demand for affordable housing in health and education. We didn't want to raise expectations across all groups."

The government has created Key Worker Living to help relieve the South-east's recruitment and retention problems. Most of the regional housing boards in the rest of the country admit some disappointment that they have not been allocated additional, central government funds to alleviate similar problems in their areas.

Stephen Teagle, director of business at Devon & Cornwall Housing Association, says the South-west regional housing board has ringfenced £10m over the next two years for the South-west Key Worker Challenge Fund. "I'd like to see those funds come as additional funding; this funding is coming out of the board's budget," he says. "Generally, there is an acute need for more affordable housing in this region."

And despite the welcome funding that Key Worker Living is bringing to the South-east, housing providers in the area are still wondering how to make sure workers like ambulance drivers get access to affordable housing.