Why is everyone picking on key workers?

There appears to be a widespread view that the initiative is somehow a bad thing, distorting the property market and sucking resources away from more important priorities. Some feel it helps professional people who should really help themselves.

At a time when the National Housing Federation is spending a considerable amount of money on changing the public's perception of housing associations, this narrow-minded vision of what we should and should not be doing does not augur well.

If we are looking to differentiate ourselves from both the council sector and the private markets, then developing a set of distinct products, popular with the public, would seem to me one way of doing it.

The starter homes initiative for key workers is one product catering for one group of people with housing needs; a group of people who are unlikely to qualify for affordable homes through a council waiting list, but who cannot afford open-market prices. The type of people, in fact, that many housing associations were created for.

Supported housing is also a product catering for the housing needs of one particular section of society. Sheltered housing is another. Should we be criticising a focus on these markets? Or is it just that key workers are less deserving?

The government started to focus on key workers because house prices in many places doubled in less than five years, while incomes have grown much more slowly. According to the Halifax, average house prices in London and the South-east are now more than 6.5 times the typical teacher's annual salary.

To say that the starter home initiative is distorting the housing market is a nonsense. It is an effect of an already distorted market, not the cause

Ten years ago, the ratio was four times. The Halifax says teachers' pay scales would have to rise by £9800-£18,750 a year to restore the position to what it was in 1992. Many other key workers, nurses for instance, are paid less than teachers.

The demand for the starter homes initiative is enormous, which suggests that key workers certainly see themselves as a group with housing needs. Moat Housing Group committed more than 40% of its £22.5m three-year programme in the scheme's first eight months, including more than 70% of our programme for nurses and health workers in south London.

The initiative has not taken resources away from other areas of housing need; the government has increased other areas of housing investment far more significantly. Of the £2.5bn boost for housing detailed in the comprehensive spending review, only around £300m will go to key-worker housing.

To say that helping 10,000 key workers to buy homes over three years is distorting the housing market is a nonsense. Of 1.4m housing transactions a year in the UK, the initiative accounts for 0.2%. Even taking into account that the scheme focuses on the South, this figure only rises to around 0.5%.

The starter homes initiative is an effect of an already distorted market, not the cause. What is distorting the market is a combination of a serious lack of supply compared to demand, persistent low interest rates, and lenders who are prepared to offer multiples of income far in excess of historical norms. In some ways, the initiative is simply a pragmatic governmental response to housing a vital group of people when housebuilding is at a 75-year low. It is as much about enabling our essential public services to function properly as it is about housing; to stem problems of recruitment and retention of essential employees – problems often caused by the high cost of housing in London and the South.