A report examined the political motivations behind housing policy in England.
Source: Nigel Keohane and Nida Broughton, Political Influences on Housing Policy, Social Market Foundation
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Nov
The government responded to a report by a committee of MPs on the private rented sector.
Source: Government Response to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee Report: The private rented sector, Cm 8730, Department for Communities and Local Government, TSO
Links: Response
Date: 2013-Oct
The government published further details on how the 'help to buy' mortgage guarantee scheme would operate.
Source: Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee Scheme – Scheme Rules, HM Treasury
Links: Scheme rules | Deed of guarantee | HM/PMO press release | CML press release | CIH press release | NIE press release
Date: 2013-Oct
A think-tank report called for a property speculation tax in order to stabilize the housing market. It highlighted speculative activity driven in high-demand areas by overseas investment, and said that the tax could raise £1 billion for much needed homes.
Source: Andrew Heywood and Paul Hackett, The Case for a Property Speculation Tax, Smith Institute
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Sep
The Northern Ireland Executive published (following consultation) an action plan for the delivery of decent, affordable, and sustainable homes over the period to 2017.
Source: Facing the Future: Housing Strategy for Northern Ireland – Action Plan 2012-2017, Northern Ireland Executive
Links: Action plan | NIE press release | NIHE press release
See also: Consultation document | Consultation responses
Date: 2013-Jul
An article examined the idea of localism in the context of housing policy and as mediated by the experience of devolution in England and Scotland. It considered the meaning and limitations of the concept when account was taken of the real nature of housing systems, and the experience of localism in the context of social housing provision. The implementation of localism by policy-makers had exhibited shortcomings, and the emerging interpretation of localism might lead to 'policy dumping' rather than enhanced real local autonomy.
Source: Duncan Maclennan and Anthony O'Sullivan, 'Localism, devolution and housing policies', Housing Studies, Volume 28 Number 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Jun
A report said that successive governments had failed to produce a coherent long-term strategy for housing. The housing market had not delivered enough homes at affordable prices, and further action was needed to increase the supply of properties. The report recommended doubling the existing target of 100,000 new homes on publicly owned land, and said builders should be made to start work within three years of acquiring planning permission. It called for the creation of an independent committee to advise politicians from all parties on housing supply, and a new body bringing together private sector and academic research on housing.
Source: More Good Homes and a Better United Kingdom, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Links: Report | RICS press release | NHF press release | BBC report
Date: 2013-Jun
An article said that the concept of evidence-based policy served as a convenient device for governments to present policy-making to a wider public, gaining legitimacy through an appeal to technical rationality and shielding underlying ideologies and politics from scrutiny. It illustrated this by reference to developments in housing policy, including public housing stock transfer, the housing market renewal programme, and the 2011 Localism Act. Although policy-makers continued to promote evidence-based policy, actual policy decisions were best explained by factors largely unrelated to 'evidence'; for example, the relative power and influence of interest groupings both within government and beyond.
Source: Keith Jacobs and Tony Manzi, 'Modernisation, marketisation and housing reform: the use of evidence based policy as a rationality discourse', People, Place & Policy, Volume 7 Issue 1
Links: Article
Date: 2013-Jun
A paper said that asking older people alone to move to smaller houses was ageist. There was a need to build more homes if older people were to do so – otherwise it could make things worse for first-time buyers if they and older people chased similar smaller homes. Older people would move if they were offered housing options that improved their quality of life, and led to a healthier and supported later life. But local authorities had seen retirement housing as largely for those with existing care needs: this had helped to exacerbate the sector's image problem.
Source: Dylan Kneale, Downsizing in Later Life and Appropriate Housing Size across Our Lifetime, International Longevity Centre – UK
Links: Paper | Summary | ILC press release | BBC report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2013-May
An article examined the coalition government's reforms to housing and planning policy in relation to affordable housing. Increasing housing supply and improving affordability in a recession would require the government to utilize limited resources 'innovatively'.
Source: Emma Mulliner and Vida Maliene, 'Austerity and reform to affordable housing policy', Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, Volume 28 Number 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-May
A report examined the economic aspects of housing in an ageing society. It said that all new homes should be designed to accommodate an ageing society, according to lifetime standards set nationally. The development of new homes needed to include a wider variety of housing designed for older people, across all tenures – including a range of options for those wanting to downsize to generalist housing, and purpose-built housing for retirement.
Source: Economic Implications of Housing in an Ageing Society, Housing and Ageing Alliance
Links: Report
Date: 2013-May
The second edition was published of a handbook of comparative social policy, examining key concepts and issues such as globalization, crime, diversity, housing, child poverty, gender inequality, and social policy regimes.
Source: Patricia Kennett (ed.), A Handbook of Comparative Social Policy (Second Edition), Edward Elgar Publishing
Links: Summary
Notes: Individual chapters included:
Julia O Connor, 'Gender, citizenship and welfare state regimes in the early 21st century: "incomplete revolution" and/or gender equality "lost in translation"
Norman Ginsburg, 'Structured diversity: a framework for critically comparing welfare states?'
James Midgley, 'Social development and social welfare: implications for comparative social policy'
Jonathan Bradshaw, 'Child poverty and child well-being in comparative perspective'
Ray Forrest, 'The contours of the housing question'
Date: 2013-May
A study examined the relationship between housing circumstances and the experience of poverty. It considered the relative importance of housing cost, quality, and location in the impact of poverty on people's lives; and the role of housing in enabling people to increase their income from work. It said that social policy should pay closer attention to the links between housing and poverty. Whatever the outcome of existing reviews of the definitions and measures of poverty, those interested in the links between poverty and housing should measure income poverty using income after housing costs, at least as a supplement to income measured before housing costs. They should also pay attention to groups living in poverty because of high housing costs.
Source: Rebecca Tunstall, Mark Bevan, Jonathan Bradshaw, Karen Croucher, Stephen Duffy, Caroline Hunter, Anwen Jones, Julie Rugg, Alison Wallace, and Steve Wilcox, The Links between Housing and Poverty: An evidence review, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Date: 2013-Apr
An article examined governance processes shaping the experiences of residential relocation in housing market renewal areas in England induced by neighbourhood restructuring. Residential relocation was delivered by complex networks of actors, and outcomes were the result of co-operation or non-co-operation of network members.
Source: Orna Rosenfeld, 'Governance of relocation: an examination of residential relocation processes in housing market renewal areas in England', Housing Studies, Volume 28 Number 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Mar
An article examined the contradictions thrown up by the 'localism' and 'Big Society' agendas, in the context of welfare reform and housing policy.
Source: Keith Jacobs and Tony Manzi, 'New localism, old retrenchment: the 'Big Society', housing policy and the politics of welfare reform', Housing, Theory and Society, Volume 30 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Mar
An article examined the connexions between global financial flows, the economic crisis, and housing in England. Rather than addressing the fundamental tensions and contradictions within the existing financialized model of capitalism, the coalition government had 'reinforced the recalibration of risk and responsibility'. It highlighted the emergence of strategies with the potential not only to reshape housing opportunities but also to further diminish people's access to secure, good-quality housing across all tenures.
Source: Patricia Kennett, Ray Forrest, and Alex Marsh, 'The global economic crisis and the reshaping of housing opportunities', Housing, Theory and Society, Volume 30 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Mar
A new book examined the legal, theoretical, and conceptual issues surrounding the notion of a human right to housing.
Source: Jessie Hohmann, The Right to Housing: Law, concepts, possibilities, Hart Publishing
Links: Summary
Date: 2013-Feb
An article examined options for the future of housing renewal in England. It discussed the Housing Market Renewal initiative 2003–2011, and presented the results of a study with a group of experts. A piecemeal approach was considered necessary in the existing climate. Strong planning policies remained important in supporting neighbourhood regeneration, which should be holistic and community-led, rather than undertaken through imposing top-down attempts at housing market restructuring.
Source: Chris Couch and Matthew Cocks, 'Housing renewal in England: where do we go from here?', Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, Volume 6 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Jan
An article examined the coalition government's housing policy. It said that the government was conducting an assault on the housing welfare safety net. The strategy was designed to unblock and expand the market, complete the residualization of social housing, and draw people into an ever more economically precarious housing experience in order to boost capitalist interests.
Source: Stuart Hodkinson and Glyn Robbins, 'The return of class war conservatism? Housing under the UK coalition government', Critical Social Policy, Volume 33 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Jan
