The future role and shape of the Homes and Communities Agency Akin Durowoju 3 February 2011

Spending Review  As expected, the sharpest fall in capital comes in 2011/12  Implications – housing benefit reductions will be significant  The large fall in DCLG capital is largely explained by changes to affordable housing Total DEL in real terms – 2010/11=100 Total Capital DELs (£bn) DCLG capital DEL (£bn)

The Vision  The HCA is changing to reflect the Government’s new direction  The Agency will be a smaller and more strategic enabling, investment and regulation agency –working with local authorities and their communities at their request –ensuring Registered Providers are economically well run and financially viable –with a stronger role for local leadership Investment Enabling support Maximising assets for local benefit Supporting local delivery and services through regulation

The new HCA structure  Areas will be reduced from eight (excluding London) to five  The South East has been split and merged into the East and South West areas  Kent Surrey and Sussex now sit within the East of England managed by Terry Fuller

Investment – Three areas of activity Affordable housing Existing stock Land & regeneration  Total investment of £4.5bn over the spending review  Completion of existing commitments under the NAHP  A new affordable housing programme, up to 150,000 homes, many at the new affordable rent  Continuing provision for mortgage rescue, Places of Change and Gypsy and Traveller sites and for bringing empty homes back into use  A £2.1bn programme of investment needed to deal with repairs  Reaching a point where self-financing becomes viable  Enabling local authorities to connect this investment to other opportunities, especially around energy efficiency  A key test of our investment and enabling role combined  Using public land assets to deliver value and benefits for local communities  A central role in realising benefits from the land assets left by the RDAs  Access to £1.3bn fund for completion of existing regeneration commitments that are high priorities for local areas

Investment – A new approach to affordable housing  Spending review proposes “affordable rent” offer: –Rents set to 80% of market rent –Tenancy agreements reviewed after fixed period –RPs may convert vacant existing social rent to new form of tenure –Rent and tenancy terms for existing tenants will not be affected  Aim to deliver up to 150,000 new affordable homes over the period  DCLG to develop model over the coming months Latitude Walk, Ashford: Partnership with Ashford BC

Local Investment Planning – Moving Forward Guiding the HCA’s local offer Informing resource allocation Maximising impact  Local investment planning will play a central role in guiding the delivery of specific investment programmes  It will also provide the basis for establishing what other support local areas request from the Agency  Local investment planning can help support a localist approach to allocating resources  The detailed intelligence provided by local investment plans ensures that new investment is applied to meet local need  Local authorities find the planning process valuable in helping them to maximise the impact of all available investment  It does so by providing the basis for co-ordination across public and private investment, and in identifying the areas of greatest impact

Enabling Support – The overall approach  Understanding the needs of local areas to offer enabling support not available elsewhere Services with high costs Specialist expertise Value for money Strategic support  Providing national services that local partners can call on, where it’s not efficient for them to establish their own  Support and capacity building through technical services for local authorities  To include masterplanning, economic appraisal, brownfield land, sustainability and design, joint ventures and levering private investment  Using national scale and expertise in procurement to enable local authorities to get more for less, and encourage new delivery partners  Putting investment in a wider context, working with other public/private organisations and responding to new policy directions

Enabling support – Examples  Specialist expertise supporting local authorities –the HCA’s Advisory Team for Large Applications (ATLAS) is an independent reviewer of large planning applications, helping to unblock issues which may cause delays while increasing knowledge and expertise within local authorities  Creating access to new delivery partners –the HCA’s Delivery Partner Panel gives local authorities access to a wide range of development service providers, reducing procurement times and costs  Supporting new policy –helping local authorities take advantage of new policies like the New Homes Bonus, putting specialist tools (such as viability assessments) at their disposal

Regulation – to support local delivery  The review of social housing regulation recommends transfer of a new regulatory framework to the HCA by April 2012  At lower cost the HCA will provide affordable housing regulation that: –is robust, transparent and independent –commands lender confidence, protects taxpayers and tenants –supports affordable housing supply  The regulatory functions within the HCA will: –be separate from investment and enabling, via an independent committee –maintain a proactive role in economic regulation but reduce overall scale by adopting a back stop role in consumer regulation –be delivered under a principle of minimum interference –combine economic regulation with investment to achieve greater VFM in affordable housing delivery

HCA Building Standards  HCA will no longer be taking forward proposed design and sustainability standards. Instead a local standards framework will be developed to give local authorities more choice in the standards they use  The government wants to move away from national standards to allow local areas more control over the quality and design of housing in their communities  DCLG are hoping to introduce a new local standards framework in April 2012 as part of the new national planning policy framework  HCA existing standards will remain in place until the new framework is implemented

Next Steps  Continue to deliver HCA programmes in the current spending review period  Implement our internal change delivery plan  Prepare and publish a Corporate Plan for the spending review period, setting out the detail of our new approach

Keep in touch visit homesandcommunities.co.uk  Akin Durowoju Head of Area  Anita Pearce Investment and Regeneration Manager