The supply-side modernisation of social housing in England: Analysing recent dimensions and impacts of the post-2007 financial crisis Hal Pawson & Filip Sosenko Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

Sector restructuring by provider type Restructuring of social housing away from traditional LA dominance well-known Traditionally owned and managed LA housing down to 24% by 2008 Also in 2008 HA stock exceeded LA

Stock transfer and ownership pattern Most transferred stock handed over as ‘LA-wide packages’ About a fifth disaggregated through: –Whole stock transfers split across receiving HAs –Partial transfers to newly- formed HAs Result: localisation of management and accountability

Research remit and methods Alongside transfer process, sector restructuring also ongoing via HA ‘constitutional change transactions’ – i.e. merger and group structure activity Questions addressed: 1.How has the credit crunch affected the rate of sector restructuring via CCTs? 2.How far are CCTs obliterating the transfer HA vs traditional HA dichotomy? 3.To what extent are CCTs leading to stock ownership concentration? 4.What are the impacts of the CCT process on landlord accountability? Methods –Analysis of RSR data for 2002 and 2010 –Collated and analysed CCTs database –Collated and analysed stock transfers database –Analysed RSR data from 1990, 2000 and 2010 to look at longer term trends Remainder of presentation structured to address each of above questions

Incidence of CCTs 43% of all registered HAs subject to CCTs Rates of activity highest among: –Largest HAs –Stock transfer HAs Note that some HAs continue to emphasize community-based ethic

Forms of CCT and stylised 3-step process New agglomeration: –Group structure set up – 2 or more previously unrelated landlord entities –Enlargement of existing group – additional landlord entity absorbed –Merger of previously unrelated entities Group consolidation Internal group set up

CCT trends, Spike in CCT activity, 2006 – stimulated by Housing Corporation investment policy Follows on from earlier waves of HA sector restructuring: –Mid 1970s –Early 1990s –Late 1990s (Mullins, 2000; Mullins & Craig, 2005) Continuing fall in new agglomeration transactions possibly due to finance famine 2010 upturn in group consolidations reflects renewed pressures for efficiency gains Pattern also bears out stylised cyclical process [previous slide]

HA sector homogenisation? Most transfer HAs remain in existence – though 20% merged out of existence Only half of all transfer HAs remain as set up Process of integration with traditional HAs ongoing

Concentration of stockholdings? Avg social landlord size  26%, ; Now 4 HA groups with >50,000 homes But concentration of stockholdings proceeding relatively slowly: –Homes owned by 20 largest HAs up from 26%-30% of all HA stock –Smaller rate of increase, sector- wide Possibly reflects agglomeration via CCTs offset by initial dis- aggregation thru stock transfers [earlier slide] Agglomeration likely to dominate in future because of transfer hiatus

Accountability impacts? Major development is reduction in % of tenants with electorally accountable landlord Additional impacts from HA agglomeration (plus pattern of new housing dev’ment) –Rising % of tenants with ‘remote landlord’ where former local landlord entity abolished –Recent surge in group consolidations has important implications TSA attempting to counter trend via ‘local offers’ framework Total stock outside landlord ‘home LA’ No (000s)% of total Growing % of social housing managed ‘remotely’

Conclusions Complementing stock transfer, HA CCTs an important driver of supply-side modernisation of social housing (Malpass & Victory, 2010) GFC/new economic order has suppressed new agglomeration while spurring group consolidations Disaggregating impacts of stock transfer partly cancelled out HA agglomeration until No such offset in future Sector consolidation triggering important accountability consequences –Long term trend towards ‘remote management’ compounded by recent surge in group consolidations –But directly in conflict with Govt emphasis on localism Extent to which ‘local offers’ framework will enhance HA accountability to local communities remains to be seen