United in a vision for the future

For most of the 20th century, social housing was considered a huge success story. Today, social housing is associated with the most visible failures of housing policy and with some of the most pressing problems facing society. It is now commonly regarded as part of the problem not part of the solution.

It was in this context that IPPR got together a group of experts from housing and related fields - tenants, chief executives of housing associations, housing directors, key members of the private and voluntary sectors, academics and policy makers. This array of experience and expertise made up the Forum on the Future of Social Housing. The forum was set the challenge to generate a wide-ranging debate and to develop a consensus on the long-term future of the social housing sector.

This week, with the publication of Housing United, the forum reports its conclusions. The report aims to set out a coherent vision for the future of social housing which is both radical and realisable, built on existing good practice in this country and from abroad. The report contains a raft of recommendations, but four key elements build the foundations of the forum's long-term vision.

A sector of choice
The first is the need to reinvent social housing as a sector of choice, rather than allowing it to remain a sector of last resort. The forum has concluded it is both necessary and feasible for social housing to become a mainstream choice, and that it cannot be allowed to continue as a residualised symbol of failure. This will be achieved through the sector retaining its remit to provide for people who could otherwise not afford good quality housing, but do this in the context of providing for a wider range of income groups.

Not only should this help remove the current stigma of the sector, but it will help meet a wider range of modern needs and aspirations that are currently not well met. It will require a more diverse and flexible range of housing options to be provided under the umbrella of one sector. This would include subsidised and market renting, together with a greater "blurring" of tenure; a variety of part and shared ownership schemes, and the ability for people to move between renting and owning and vary their equity stake, as household circumstances change.

Breaking down barriers between tenures and sectors will be a key part of achieving this vision. The new sector will be independent, straddling the boundary between the public and private sector, operating in a commercial way but with a social purpose. The Forum calls this vision community housing.

Sustainable communities
The second element can be surmised from the proposed name for the new sector - the sector must have a central objective of developing sustainable communities.

Areas with high concentration of very poor and vulnerable people are unlikely to work well, and the forum recommends that housing strategies should try to ensure all areas have a mix of incomes. This could be achieved through mixed tenure developments becoming the norm and through widening access to social housing.

The forum believes all existing social landlords need to become attuned to local housing markets, and diversify their current stock to cater for wider needs. They would do this through encouraging sales in some areas, buying on the open market, and refurbishing property for subsidised renting, market renting or sale. Landlords may start off with homogenous stocks of rented housing, serving mainly people without jobs, but they would aim to diversify over, say, a ten year period into catering for wider needs –without losing their original market.

The forum also recommends all community housing organisations should develop ways of increasing the commitment of residents to their community. It is suggested this could be through "contracts" between landlords and tenants which promoted good behaviour and community involvement, and in return rewards would be fed back to individuals or to the community.

Diversity of providers
The third element of the vision is that there is not one best model of ownership and management - "what counts is what works" and different models will work in different places at different times. The forum thinks this diversity should promote a measure of managed competition and foster a climate of innovation and accountability.

The forum does recommend that strategic and housing management activities of local authorities should be separated to strengthen both functions, and are recommending all council housing be moved to an arms-length arrangement. This could be a housing or tenant management organisation, an arms-length company or transfer to a registered social landlord. The forum recommends that the outcome should be determined by a Best Value review of stock and a tenant ballot, rather than by national targets.

The forum proposes that all community housing organisations should critically examine and be more flexible about the ownership and management of their stock. This means that large-scale monopolies should be broken up in some areas and ownership and management rationalised to better meet the needs of communities in others.

Diversity of providers should also enable specialisation: community housing organisations would have housing at their core but would operate flexibly as regeneration, social care or community development agencies.

Comprehensive strategies
The final core element of the vision is the need for comprehensive strategies across all housing. Housing policy at all levels needs to not only keep up with but also get ahead of and anticipate demographic, social, economic and technological change. Strategies need to develop choices which match modern needs and aspirations. Individual landlords and all strategic bodies need to be more forward and outward looking than in the past.

Local authorities need to have clear responsibility for providing strategic leadership in their area. The forum recommends this be facilitated through a new range of legislative duties and powers. This could include a duty to assess overall housing demand, a duty to ensure integration of housing and planning strategies and a duty to consider the quality and management of the private sector stock.

Taking the debate forward
The forum does not claim to have found all the answers, and many of the ideas in the report will require further debate and development in the coming months. It is hoped that the report will make a useful contribution to the Green Paper consultation. The forum has also aimed to raise the profile of housing and crucially to illustrate why housing matters. As Victor Adebowale, chair of the forum, says in his foreword:

"Housing is critical to wider social and economic outcomes, and critical to how our communities develop and are sustained. Public policy on housing must no longer be viewed as an add-on to support the homeless and hopeless - but as core to the development of community."

The forum is confident that this vision is achievable within the next 20 years but that it will require a common sense of purpose and commitment, locally, regionally and nationally - in short, housing united.