Michael Cameron – Blog – Urban Landlord Group meeting – 1 May 2024
We held the fourth meeting of the urban landlord group on 1 May 2024. This is one of the three standing groups of senior people from Registered Social Landlords we meet with regularly to discuss important and topical issues in social housing in Scotland. We meet with the groups to help us understand the challenges faced by those we regulate.
As in the previous meetings of the group, the discussion was wide-ranging. Here are the main points covered.
The group firstly reflected on significant developments since it last met in November. These included the Scottish Government’s budget announcement of a significant reduction in funding for new homes, worsening statistics on homelessness, and the recent developments in national politics and what those might mean for social housing.
Group members spoke of the impact of increased uncertainty resulting from recent political developments, but also highlighted what they described as a growing sense of “policy drift” and a slowing of decision-making at national and local level. Group members noted the challenge this presents to social landlords’ budgeting and planning, in the short and longer terms. The group raised the possible benefits of reestablishing a national housing agency to help deliver longer term planning and greater certainty for social landlords.
There was a consensus within the group on the importance of tackling homelessness, and in particular reducing the number of people in temporary accommodation. Members of the group expressed their willingness to do all that they could, but also highlighted the challenge in increasing the number of homes they let to people who are homeless and the reality that this means others in housing need have to wait longer to have their need addressed. Some warned against a policy position that risks making a homelessness application the only route to a home and stressed the importance of prevention work. Group members highlighted the importance of government listening to housing providers when deciding policy responses to homelessness. The group members recognised that supply of new homes was critical to address the homelessness challenge, but also that a major increase in the number of new homes would take time to deliver and would need significantly higher levels of public subsidy.
The conversation moved on to the proposed Social Housing Net Zero Standard. Most of the group members thought that the proposed standard was preferable to the current Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing, but that there will be significant challenges for social landlords in delivering it. The first challenge the group identified is funding; members were clear that major investment in existing homes will be needed, and that the impact on rent levels could be unsustainable if there is not substantial levels of government subsidy to support this work. Group members also raised a concern that, given current technologies and the price of electricity, the installation of clean heating systems can increase the cost of heating for tenants and can work against the important objective of reducing fuel poverty. Members also highlighted the challenges around investment in mixed tenure blocks, the need to develop an adequate supply chain for net zero work, and that innovation was more challenging in the current difficult economic context.
The group members recognised that homelessness and climate change are “wicked problems”, and some felt that there is an opportunity, amidst the current uncertainty and difficult context, to reset the general policy framework for social housing. Members spoke about changes to enable landlords to maximise the use of existing houses to meet need and a more realistic route map to net zero for social housing.