Housing Corporation News Release

Housing Corporation responds to Cave Review on regulation

22 February 2007 

Ref: 19/07

The Housing Corporation today set out its radical vision of a new regulatory system for social housing in England, based around a new relationship between housing providers and consumers.

In its response to the Cave Review of Social Housing Regulation, published on its website today, the Corporation calls for:

• a re-definition of the core purposes of a social housing provider to reflect wider community needs, interests and concerns;

• all social housing tenants to have the same tenancy rights, service level expectations and access to performance information, regardless of their social landlord;

• a simplified registration system, open to both housing associations and other private sector providers;

• simplified and reduced regulatory requirements, with greater use of self-certification;

• new rights for residents, including increased access to information on landlord performance, resident scrutiny committees, compensation for poor performance, and a new collective right to change housing manager;

• stronger powers of intervention when things go wrong.

Launching the response Peter Dixon, Chairman of the Housing Corporation, said,

"Our existing regulatory system has successfully delivered for residents, housing associations and government over the last thirty years.  But we now need to modernise that system if we are to meet the challenges identified in John Hills' report.  That means more freedom for housing providers to innovate in their service delivery, more rights for residents and communities to hold landlords to account and a better deal for tax-payers.  That is the vision we are mapping out today."

In addition, the Corporation calls for:

• a new ability for local authorities to hold social landlords to account in relation to local concerns such as neighbourhood management and anti-social behaviour;

• a new inspection framework, with larger providers commissioning their own externally validated inspections, including resident led inspection, rather than relying on periodic statutory inspection;

• a new explicit statutory role for the regulator to deliver efficiency and control rents;

• incentives for registered bodies to endow residents' groups with assets to develop community ownership and services;

The Corporation explicitly rejects calls for a system built mainly on self-regulation as insufficient to protect resident and tax-payer interests, although it outlines an expanded role for self-certification of performance within the new regulatory framework.

Ends.

Notes for editors

1. For presss enquries please contact either Naomi Evans on 020 7393 2118 or Sandra White on 020 7393 2094. 

2. The full text of the Housing Corporation's response to the Review of Social Housing Regulation being carried out on behalf of Communities and Local Government by Professor Martin Cave can be found at www.housingcorp.gov.uk.  The terms of reference for the Cave review can be found at: http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=15052663.

3. The Housing Corporation is the Government agency responsible for investing in new affordable homes and regulating over 1,500 housing association across England.  It biggest ever investment programme of £3.9 billion for 2006-08 will fund 84,000 homes; 49,000 of these will be for affordable rent, and 35,000 will be for affordable sale through the Government's new HomeBuy initiative, helping people to get a foot on the property ladder.

4. The Housing Corporation is working with English Partnerships and Communities and Local Government to establish the proposed new national housing and regeneration agency, Communities England.