Who's listening to the IPPR?

There have been housing inquiries before and there will no doubt be more in future. They come along every few years to brief excitement. But the reports produced are usually quickly forgotten. Who now remembers the results of the Duke of Edinburgh inquiry? A minister might be persuaded to write a foreword to the final report explaining what a valuable contribution it makes to the debate. But when they're making policy decisions later ministers usually ignore the whole lot.

At first glance it would appear that the IPPR's Forum on the future of social housing is heading for the same fate. However a closer examination suggests that this inquiry will be different.

For a start the IPPR has almost succeeded where collectively the housing lobby almost always fails - in popularising debate about housing. Its posters to re-brand council housing got people talking last year. And last week Professor John Hills' radical but technical paper for the forum was even discussed on Nicky Campbell's radio phone-in.

But successful press campaigns aside, it is the close connections with the forum and government's current thinking on housing that will set this inquiry apart.

The IPPR's strong links with New Labour are well documented - Matthew Taylor its director used to be director of policy at the Labour party. But the government's association with this particular inquiry is more intriguing. Ministers were not just present at the launch, they have been watching the inquiry with interest and even participating along the way.

And at a time when the housing Green Paper is being finalised these links were underlined by a recent change in personnel.

Until Christmas the housing forum was being run by the IPPR research director Carey Oppenheim. She now has a new job working in the Prime Minister's office, and her responsibilities include housing. With characteristic under statement, John Perry who is a forum member and Chartered Institute of Housing policy director, describes Oppenheim's move as "quite significant."

He adds: "The fact that IPPR is so close to government gives it a big advantage. They have access that any other non- government inquiry would struggle to find."

The government's hidden agenda in supporting the inquiry so enthusiastically is becoming clearer. It has emerged that ministers were hoping for specific outcomes from the forum. "It is an open secret that the government wanted the IPPR to come up with certain answers, and the continuation of council housing was not one of them," said a source.

The conspiracy theory goes like this. In opposition Labour strongly opposed forcing councils to transfer. In government both Raynsford and his predecessor have said that they didn't mind who ran social housing, councils or housing associations - as long as it is properly managed. To change this stance would involve an embarrassing U-turn, which is where IPPR comes in. Conveniently the forum is fast coming to the conclusion that there is no future for council housing.

Over the next few months, with their dirty work done for them, ministers can point to the result of the forum and endorse a massive increase in transfers over the next few years.

When asked to comment on this conspiracy theory, Perry says: "They certainly wanted us to ask some difficult questions and then answer them. I don't know that they necessarily wanted us to positively endorse transfer as an option, but Nick Raynsford made it very clear to the inquiry that council housing was not sustainable in its current form."

The other agenda for the forum is not so hidden. Because of its timing and the synergy between the IPPR's thinking and the government's, the forum provides a dress rehearsal for the debates on the housing Green Paper.

When it became clear that publication of the Paper was going to be later than billed, the forum discussed the option of publishing interim findings. The idea was that if these appeared before the paper it would help to at least set the tone of the debate. In the end the forum decided against this and opted to publish Professor Hill's paper instead (Housing Today, 27 January).

Members of the forum are keen to stress that the paper is very much Hill's own work and they distance themselves from many of the recommendations. But there is a consensus on much of Hill's analysis of the current problems, both among the forum members and beyond.

Hills presented his recommendations to a cross party group of MPs last week. And there was surprising agreement on many of the proposals. MPs from all sides for example praised the idea for more "fuzzy tenures" - an extension of shared ownership and greater equity sharing for tenants.

Liberal Democrat social security spokesman Steve Webb said: "Fuzzy tenure is good. Philosophically we are very attracted to choice and control for tenants and more diversity of tenure."

But the seminar also provided a foretaste of the likely opposition that the government will face on the Green Paper from its own backbenches. Brian Iddon, MP for Bolton south east and a former chair of housing, said: "I'm dead against shopping incentives, I'm dead against basing rents on capital values that would only continue social polarisation."

He added: "I have never understood why we have over hyped owner occupiership."

The government plans for housing benefit and rents were also attacked by a usually more loyal backbencher. Karen Buck, who represents Regent's Park and Kensington North said: "I'm the MP for an area with the highest housing costs in Britain, so I feel very much at the sharp end of this. Shopping incentive is deeply undesirable given the pressure on existing housing."

But the signs now are that introducing shopping incentives will only be a long term aim in the green paper. The government's has yet again shied away from radical reform of housing benefit in the short term.

Ministers' likely rationale for this were summed up last week by an unlikely source. Nigel Waterson, the shadow housing minister said: "As George Young said to me the other day, if it (housing benefit reform) was easy we would have done it years ago."

He characterises Hill's proposals on benefit as creating "benefits in the long term but upheavals in the short term. On the whole we politicians like short term benefits and long term upheaval."

You heard it at the IPPR first.