Interview: Campbell Robb, Shelter

Shelter chief speaks

It’s good to talk, but as Shelter’s chief executive Campbell Robb tells Mark Cantrell, with the housing crisis tightening its cruel grip on people across Britain the country needs to see some action – and soon

From Housing magazine, February 2014

Campbell Robb

POLITICIANS have been making a lot of noise over matters housing of late, but it’s not enough to make pledges and fine speeches that end up forgotten in the archives of yesterday’s news – sooner or later words need to become deeds.

In Shelter’s view – and in this it’s hardly alone – action can’t come soon enough, but it’s taken as a positive sign at least that housing is moving up the political agenda; if the politicians are talking the talk, there’s scope to encourage them to take the walk. It’s a start, in other words.

“Political polling shows that [housing] is now tracking at fifth in the main issues that people think needs to be dealt with at the next General Election. In London, the single biggest unprompted issue is around the cost of housing, so what we are beginning to see, finally, is a whole range across the political spectrum and within the public that recognises this is not an issue we can put off any longer,” said Campbell Robb, the charity’s chief executive.

“The failure is of successive governments; not just this one, but the previous government, should have – could have – built more homes and should have done more about this earlier. Moving forward, I’m pleased that politicians are talking about it. All three main parties are talking about it in England, and in Scotland the SNP is talking about housing as well. They’re making pledges, they are making promises. What we need to see is that being turned into reality.”

Shelter, of course, operates at the sharp end of the failure to build sufficient homes, dealing with the human cost and fallout from the housing crisis. The Festive season is typically a busy time for the charity, as the pressures of Christmas and New Year mount, but it’s generally not until January that the cold harsh realities hit home. That’s when its helpline heats up.

“Generally, what we get is a lot of people who have scrambled and struggled to try and get through Christmas and then they face up to those January bills, so we are expecting to see a significant level of people seeking advice throughout January,” Robb said. And this after a year that’s already seen increasing demand for its assistance.

“The number of people who contacted our helpline in 2013 compared to 2012 about not being able to pay their rent or their mortgage went up by a third. That was in a single year. We’re beginning to see people hit by welfare reforms, losing money because of the spare room subsidy and those types of things,” he said.

Hectic though this time of year is, Shelter reckons it’s not as busy as it could be – or should be – because not everyone facing difficulty reaches out for help. Pride or shame – even denial – means that many of us can’t even confide in friends or family about problems meeting housing costs; paradoxically, perhaps, some have turned to risky payday lenders to help meet their rent or mortgage payments.

All told, Shelter’s research presents a grim snapshot of ever-more households facing a precarious housing situation. Naturally, that’s a worrying trend for the charity to contemplate.

“We are going through a very significant change in the way that people in Britain are now living,” said Robb. “Last year was the first time in nearly 40 years that there were more people living in the private rented sector than are living in the social housing sector. Ownership has been dropping for years now. Housing costs – rents and house prices – are on the rise, so what we are seeing for the vast majority of people is the cost of housing is a much more significant part of their income than it has been for a very long time. And when you combine that with transport costs going up, and inflation (just now stabilising), it is a depressing snapshot of a broken housing market.”

Shelter itself hasn’t escaped these difficult times unscathed either, but it has soldiered on. Hit by the cuts to the legal aid budget last year, it was forced to lose some frontline staff and close nine of its offices, but several housing associations stepped up to help. “We raised over £300,000 from housing associations, which was a fantastic response,” said Robb.

“We’ll be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Shelter in a couple of years, and many of the housing associations were originally set up with grants from Shelter, so it was nice for them in our time of need to come back and support us.”

But the focus is on the future, working as a critical friend to the sector, raising awareness, campaigning and keeping the pressure up on those who hold the levers of power. So, as the politicians begin to talk up 2015, what’s Shelter’s ‘big ask’ to the party (or parties) that finds itself forming the next government? For Robb, it breaks down into three things.

“Fundamentally, at the heart of the problem we face is that we need to build more decent affordable homes across the country – genuinely affordable homes – that eases the pressure. So we need an extensive building programme from any of the political parties. That’s the first thing,” he said.

“The second thing we need is a commitment and understanding that some of the most vulnerable people in this country are beginning to fall through a housing safety net that has been severely changed and challenged by some of the welfare cuts. There are more people struggling, so we need to construct a really good comprehensive safety net because we shouldn’t have people falling through the net – we should be able to support them.

“The third thing we need is a genuine commitment to reform the private rented sector, because until we build all those houses we’re going to have a lot of people, in particular families with children, living in unstable, unsecure rented accommodation and we need to give them something that really makes a difference.”

Ultimately, however, these asks are all rooted in one firm foundation: “we need to build more homes”. And that takes action.


This article first appeared in the February 2014 print edition of Housing magazine. It was subsequently re-published on the Housing Excellence website, 1 April 2014

Cover Story: Guilty As Charged?

With malice aforethought: the makings of a political crime

The bedroom tax doesn’t have to make sense, not even to its creators, because when all is said and done it’s a policy designed to punish people for a politically manufactured crime

By Mark Cantrell

From Housing Magazine, December 2013/January 2014

WHEN you stop to think about it, there is something actually quite ominous about a minister of state who simply decides one day that thousands of hitherto law-abiding citizens are guilty of wrongdoing – and so duly punishes them. That, in essence, is the bedroom tax.

Some might protest that’s a gross over-simplification, and they’d have a point, but it’s no gross caricature. Iain Duncan Smith did not invoke the bedroom tax into existence by decree alone, after all; no, the legislative process was required to enact the measure as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012. Nonetheless, the bedroom tax remains a draconian and autocratic device.

To emphasise the point, recall that it has been expressly designed to target a very specific segment of the UK population, and that its criteria of judgement was deliberately placed backwards in time. With the flourish of a Royal Assent, many thousands of people woke up one April morning to suddenly discover they were, well, crooks. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an April Fool joke, but deadly serious.

Talk about shifting the goalposts. David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation (NHF), certainly did so in a blog he wrote to mark the first six months of this “nasty, pernicious, and economically disastrous” policy. He introduced the fictional family – mischievously named the Freuds – who through no fault of their own had found themselves subject to Government retribution.

“Without any consultation, Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP decided that any family like the Freuds, with two children under 16 of the same sex, or a boy and a girl under 10, had become a public enemy, under-occupying [their three-bed home] and subject to a penalty if they are claiming housing benefit,” he wrote. “Just to be completely clear, this is a family that signed a tenancy contract in good faith, in accordance with Government rules, now being penalised purely because the Government changed the rules. That, in a nutshell, is the bedroom tax.”

The kernel, however, is another matter; it has a bitter taste to say the least.

Ministers tend to take umbrage at the use of the term ‘bedroom tax’, but the terminology they prefer reveals a distinct lack of clarity in their minds as to its precise nature and purpose. Indeed, it’s all rather ‘Jekyll and Hyde’. At times, they go for the ‘disinterested administrator’ – that’s the removal of a “spare room subsidy” – at others government chooses to present the face of a ‘stern enforcer’, with its hardline talk of an “under-occupation penalty”.

This confusion of terms, along with that insidious (not to mention invidious) shift in the position of the goalposts, does nothing other than reveal the toxic flavour of the nut. The whole thing stinks of politics, but the peculiar political signature doesn’t end there.

More telling is the Government’s ongoing refusal to listen. Before the bedroom tax went live earlier this year, housing sector bodies were expressing their concerns about the impact of the policy. Sure enough, ministers pressed on regardless. Since then, the sector has presented hard evidence about the devastating consequences of the penalty; suffice to say, it’s been ignored. Meanwhile, the bedroom tax has taken its toll.

By November, 523,000 households had been hit with the penalty, losing on average at least £14.50 a week from their housing benefit, according to DWP figures. A lack of suitable smaller properties means that the vast majority are stuck; they face an impossible choice – eat or heat or pay the rent. Many are falling into arrears – paving the way for eviction further down the line.

The impact of the bedroom tax is proving a double whammy for social landlords, hitting their rental income courtesy of arrears, but also increasing their costs, whether that’s from legal bills around evictions, or outlay on projects and schemes to help mitigate the impact of this punitive housing benefit cut. In turn, this loss of financial capacity threatens their ability to invest in the delivery of new homes.

Perversely, social landlords are also reporting difficulties in letting out two- and three-bedroom homes; a policy allegedly intended to free up family sized homes is instead leaving them empty. You have to admit, that’s a nice touch; the bedroom tax is certainly an artful piece of work.

By its own proclaimed measures, the bedroom tax cannot succeed, but as a piece of malignant political machination, it’s clearly working a treat. If there’s any lingering doubt that underneath the mantra of “fairness” there lurks sinister ulterior motives, then consider the plight of the disabled.

For a supposedly exempted group, they are being hit particularly hard by the bedroom tax. A study by Habinteg Housing found that, as with other aspects of welfare reform, it was having a disproportionate impact; two thirds of its affected tenants had a disability.

Meanwhile, a consortium of over 50 disability charities – the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) – has written to Iain Duncan Smith to challenge Government claims that the disabled have nothing to fear: “We have been deeply frustrated at reports that disabled people and their families are protected from this policy. The stark evidence since the policy was implemented in April clearly shows they are not,” said the letter.

Among the signatories are the chief executives of Disability Rights UK, Carers UK, Scope, Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), Child Poverty Action Group, the Terence Higgins Trust, and many more. Carers UK teamed up with 18 charities to write a follow up letter to the Prime Minister David Cameron, taking issue with his own claims in the House of Commons that the disabled are exempt.

“In that letter [to Duncan Smith], we expressed our frustration at repeated reports that ‘disabled people are exempt’. They are not,” the organisation said. “As we had warned, the Government’s discretionary fund of temporary support for disabled people is inadequate and completely inappropriate for those with long-term housing needs. Far from being exempt or protected, day after day we are seeing the evidence that disabled people and their families are amongst the hardest hit by this policy…

“You said on Wednesday [27 November] that this policy reflects a fundamental question of fairness. Surely, if disabled people, those with serious and terminal illnesses and carers caring for their loved ones need additional accommodation, they should not be told this space is ‘spare’ and forced to pay or apply again and again for insufficient, temporary support just to stay in their own homes.”

The sad truth is that the bedroom tax has nothing to do with “fairness”, nor is it concerned with promoting a more efficient use of social housing stock. The bedroom tax is a political device, with a political intent, and one that is demonstrably intended to be harmful to social landlords and their tenants. It is malignant of purpose in every respect.

You could consider it a form of political repression, but some might think that’s going too far; there is no escaping the conclusion, however, that the bedroom tax is a political punishment for a political crime, devised on a ministerial whim. And frankly, that is sinister.

# # #

Keeping score

North West

• Almost 83,000 families hit by the bedroom tax in August
• 66,839 families are under-occupying by one bedroom and 16,008 by two or more bedrooms
• Region hit by an average reduction in housing benefit of £748 per year
• Manchester hit hardest with 11,360 affected families, followed by Liverpool (10,705), and Salford (4,539)

London

• More than 55,000 families were hit by the bedroom tax
• 43,574 were deemed to be under-occupying by one bedroom and 11,552 were under-occupying by two or more
• The average reduction in housing benefit was £1,052 per year
• Lambeth was the borough hardest hit, with 4,308 families affected, followed by Southwark (4,080) and Hackney (3,664)

West Midlands

• Over 52,000 families have been hit with the bedroom tax 42,975 families are deemed to be under-occupying by one bedroom and 9,032 by two or more
• The average loss of benefit across the region amounts to £761 per year
• Birmingham was hardest hit, with 12,449 families affected, followed by Sandwell (4,896) and Walsall (3,935)

Yorkshire & Humber

• Nearly 51,000 families hit by the bedroom tax 42,029 families were under-occupying by one bedroom and 8,796 by two bedrooms or more
• Average impact was a loss of £684 housing benefit per year
• Leeds was the hardest hit (8,107) followed by Sheffield (6,217) and then Wakefield (5,294)

North East

• Almost 39,000 families hit by the bedroom tax
• 31,772 families were under-occupying by one bedroom and 6,773 by two or more bedrooms
• On average, affected families are losing £687 per year
• County Durham is the hardest hit (7,325), followed by Newcastle-upon-Tyne (5,668), and Sunderland (4,616)

South East (excluding London)

• Almost 37,000 families were hit by the bedroom tax
• 30,534 families were deemed to be under-occupying by one bedroom and 6,235 by two or more
• The average cost to affected families was £905 per year Southampton was hit the hardest, with 1,772 families affected, followed by Portsmouth (1,696) and Milton Keynes (1,609)

East Midlands

• Over 35,000 families were hit by the bedroom tax in August
• 29,055 families were under-occupying by one bedroom and 6,010 by two bedrooms or more
• Average cost to those affected was £718 per year
• Nottingham was hit the hardest, with 5,288 families affected, followed by Leicester (3,402), and Derby (2,303)

East of England

• Almost 34,000 families in this region were hit by the bedroom tax
• 28,071 families were deemed to be under-occupying by one bedroom, while 5,551 by two bedrooms or more
• Average reduction in benefit was £829 per year
• Norwich was the hardest hit, with 2,908 affected families, followed by Basildon (1,630) and Peterborough (1,504)

South West

• Over 27,000 families were hit by the bedroom tax
• 22,976 were deemed to be under-occupying by one bedroom and 4,317 by two or more
• The average cost to affected families was £782 per year
• Bristol was the hardest hit, with 3,939 families affected, followed by Cornwall (2,826) and Wiltshire (2,670)

Source: National Housing Federation

This article first appeared in the December 2013/January 2014 print edition of Housing magazine. It was subsequently re-published on the Housing Excellence website, 31 March 2014. Main photo courtesy: Paul Bevan (creative commons)

Squeezing The Juice

A nice little earner, if you’ve got the energy

It’s all very well Joe Public striving to be more energy efficient in the home, but if the providers keep on putting up their prices doesn’t less for us only become more for them?

By Mark Cantrell

From Housing magazine, November 2013

SHAMELESS might be one way of putting it; badly timed another. But with no discernible sense of irony whatsoever, four of the Big Six energy providers went and hit their customers with whopping price hikes last month [October 2013, when this article was first published] – just in time for Energy Saving Week (21-25 October). Maybe they’re trying to tell us something?

First came SSE, with an 8.2% rise to average household electricity and gas tariffs. Not to be outdone, British Gas leapt in with an 8.4% rise in the price of gas and 10.4% on electricity costs. As Energy Saving Week got underway on 21 October, nPower played its hand, revealing a 9.3% rise in electricity prices and 11.1% for gas. And then, just before Energy Saving Week drew to a close, Scottish Power ‘powered in’ with its own price hikes – gas up 8.5% and the price of electricity up an average 9%. Way to go, guys.

All we need now is for E.ON UK and EDF Energy to step up the price and then the gang’s all here, but at the time of writing, these two firms weren’t playing ball on this bandwagon. All the same, four is sufficient to give some substance to Adam Scorer’s point about the way energy companies “act in the security of the pack”.

Scorer, director of Consumer Focus, said the price hikes only added to the “sense of desperation” among many consumers that energy costs are spiralling “beyond their means”. The organisation has called for greater transparency in the workings of the energy business.

“Rising prices, the complexity of the market and Government policy is creating a crisis of confidence. Two reviews are needed. A competition review to look at the structure of the energy market. A value for money review to ascertain the costs and benefits of government policy,” he said. “Achieving affordable prices at the same time as reducing carbon emissions and meeting our energy needs is just about the most complex trade-off that we face. We need to take stock and see whether we are striking the right balance between affordability, carbon and security.”

The companies have all expressed similar reasons underlying their pricing decisions; increases to wholesale gas and electricity prices, the cost of making use of the National Grid facilities, and those “compulsory environmental and social schemes”, as Scottish Power put it, for such initiatives as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO); keeping investors sweet couldn’t have been further from their minds. Of course.

“The cost of purchasing and delivering energy to homes across Britain has risen significantly this year,” said Scottish Power’s chief executive of energy retail and generation, Neil Clitheroe. “With an increase in costs for delivering compulsory schemes to reduce carbon emissions and improving energy efficiency in homes, we unfortunately have no other option than to pass these on by increasing our prices for customers.”

Whatever the reason, higher prices means more people at risk of fuel poverty, as the charity National Energy Action (NEA) pointed out. “These rises will continue to disproportionately affect those who are poor and vulnerable unless we see urgent action by the Government in the coming weeks and months,” said Jenny Saunders, the organisation’s chief executive. “These price rises are set to be compounded with the pass through in investment costs, adding hugely to consumers’ bills in the short to medium term. While unit costs for energy remain competitive amongst the lowest in Europe, we will continue to have some of the least energy efficient housing stock in Europe without a major step change in investment by central Government.

“NEA estimates that if all suppliers follow suit then Treasury will gain around £150 million additional VAT revenue. We want to see this money recycled, along with revenue from other carbon and environmental taxes, to support a more ambitious national energy efficiency scheme which could for millions as well as reduce the burden on our health service and stimulate local economies.”

Meanwhile, in what can only be described as a ‘Marie Antoinette moment’ (“let them heat cake” you might say), Ian Peters, managing director of residential energy at British Gas sought to take the sting out of his firm’s price rises thus: “Energy efficiency is the best way to keep bills down, and I encourage anyone who has not benefitted from [such measures] to go online and check if they are eligible. On average, insulation can save you around £200 a year. A price rise doesn’t necessarily mean energy bills have to go up too. The amount you pay depends not just on the price, but on how much gas and electricity you use.”

So that’s us told. Don’t go crying to the utility companies when we find ourselves priced out into the cold, just use less gas and electricity. Actually, Peters has a point. When it comes to energy efficiency – less energy consumption, and therefore lower bills, doesn’t have to mean shivering by candlelight.

By and large, according to the Energy Saving Trust (EST), people are willing to muck in with improving energy efficiency, too; not just to take the strain off their wallet, but to do their bit for the climate by reducing carbon emissions. However, the organisation said people are “bamboozled” by the “mixed messaging” that emerges from UK energy debates.

This picture of confusion emerged out of a survey of 2,000 adults carried out by IPSOS Mori on behalf of the EST to mark Energy Saving Week. Among its findings, 26% thought it would be difficult to meet the UK’s energy needs by 2018. More than half (52%) were prepared to do their bit, expressing a willingness to reduce their energy consumption to help the country meet its energy needs in future. Around the same amount had looked at ways to reduce their energy use after hearing or reading about rising energy bills.

But there are factors at work to suppress these positive sentiments; only 18% had looked at ways to reduce their energy consumption after hearing about fracking, or windfarms (20%). In short, you might say consumers are being blown every which way over the course they ought to take.

“People are bamboozled by big debates leading to mixed messages on energy issues like fracking, rising bills, energy demands and wind turbines,” said Philip Sellwood, the EST’s chief executive. “On the one hand, fear around UK energy supply and rising bills is making people want to take action at home and reduce the amount of energy they use, but on the other hand debates on issues like fracking and wind turbines appear to be distracting the public from making meaningful energy efficiency upgrades which could save them even more money.

“While the big picture issues are an important part of the overall debate, we’ve got to focus on the things that strike a chord with people: saving money and guaranteeing we have enough energy for the future. Get these things right and people will take action at home. Pound for pound, using less energy in the first place is by far and away the most cost-effective thing to do and should be the UK’s number one priority.”

Given the latest round of price hikes, the rising cost of living and stagnating incomes, combined with the remorseless rise of fuel poverty, energy efficiency is becoming a pressing issue. For the most part, the focus is on physical means to improve a home’s performance – insulation, airtightness, the latest more efficient hardware, whether it is conventional gas or electrical equipment or renewable tech such as solar, air, or ground source heat pumps – but an often overlooked aspect is behaviour.

Our habits can make a huge difference to our domestic energy consumption, although of course in itself it is no silver bullet; encouraging us to take a long, hard look at our behaviour was part of Energy Saving Week. After decades of low prices and (seemingly) endless energy supplies, we’ve got rather used to our ‘profligate’ habits; it’s time to become mindful once again that sitting in front of the telly in shorts and t-shirt during the freezing heights of winter is not, well, normal.

Time, then, to take a leaf out of our stalwart and more economically minded grandparents’ generation. We don’t have to be cold – jumpers were invented for a reason – but we don’t need to turn up the heat either.

But, for all they preach the lessons of energy efficiency, and encourage us to use less gas and electricity, can we really expect the Big Six to sit back quietly and accept this reduction in consumption? After all, we’re talking about their revenues here – and the energy boys certainly have the power to extract the shortfall from our beleaguered wallets.

Well, it’s something to ponder as the dark nights draw in and the mercury levels fall.

# # #

Spending habits

• Only turn the lights on when you need them, and consider swapping ageing light bulbs – those old tungsten filament jobbies – for energy saving bulbs. This could save £3 a year per bulb. Not much, maybe, but it adds up
• Don’t leave televisions and electronic gear, computers or DVD players for example, on standby – switch them off at the mains or unplug them. Ensure children do the same for games consoles and computers in their rooms. Also, don’t leave phones on charge overnight
• Consider buying an intelligent mains controller so that all equipment linked to the TV is automatically turned off with the TV. Alternatively, plug devices into a extension lead with switches on each individual sockets so that devices can be turned off separately when not in use, while leaving others active – such as digital TV recorders
• Don’t use the TV to access digital radio; it uses more energy than a radio
• Check the settings on the TV. The brighter the screen, the more energy it is using. According to the EST, the factory settings on TVs are usually set too bright for home use
• Draw the curtains at dusk to keep the heat in. Close internal doors to keep heat in the rooms being used, and turn radiators off in unused rooms. Consider putting on an extra layer of clothing before turning up the heating
• In the cold weather, set the heating to switch off a short while before going to bed, and then switch on before getting up in the morning. Use a high tog duvet and keep some blankets by the bed to adjust the temperature during the night
• Use a hot water bottle to warm the bed rather than an electric blanket
• Draft excluders can be a low cost means of preventing heat being lost through doors on draughty old homes
• In the kitchen, only boil the water you need in the kettle
• Use the right sized hob and pan for the job. Keep the oven door shut as much as possible
• Cut food into smaller pieces to reduce cooking time
• Keep the lids on the pans as much as possible to keep heat in, turn the hob down when it begins to boil
• Defrost food in the fridge overnight rather than using the microwave
• Don’t keep the fridge or freezer door open longer than necessary

(Source: Energy Saving Trust)

This article first appeared in the November 2013 print edition of Housing magazine. It was subsequently republished on the Housing Excellence website, 27 March 2014

Cover Story: Philanthropy or bust

Raising the dead: Will philanthropy buy all our tomorrows?

Housing associations are being urged to hark back to their roots and encourage greater philanthropic involvement, but is the social good best served by appealing to the vanity and social conscience of a wealthy elite?

By Mark Cantrell

From Housing magazine, November 2013

PITY Sir Titus Salt. When the two thinktanks NPC and the Smith Institute teamed up with Peabody to publish a collection of essays extolling the virtues of philanthropic largesse (see below), the 19th Century textile baron just didn’t get a look in.

In a way, maybe that’s fitting; unlike George Cadbury, George Peabody, Joseph Rowntree, and the other philanthropists mentioned in the collection, Salt’s legacy is more or less as extinct as the man himself.

In a sense, it makes him yesterday’s man; in another it makes him a tidy encapsulation of the contradictory complexities of philanthropy, since his legacy, unlike those of his peers, hasn’t evolved beyond the precepts (and quite possibly the prejudices) of its progenitor.

Salt, a Methodist by religion, Liberal by politics, was an industrialist, social reformer, and politician appalled at the conditions created by thriving but uncaring industry. It was an environment many of his more illustrious peers in the pantheon of philanthropy would have recognised.

Back then Bradford in West Yorkshire put the ‘Hell’ into ‘dark and satanic mills’. Workers lived hard lives in squalid conditions: they were overworked, poorly paid, ill fed, lacked sanitation, and were badly housed. The city was rife with disease, filthy and polluted with toxic chimney exhausts; the average life expectancy of industrial workers was a lowly 18. This was a business engine where – let’s not be coy about this – people were worked to death for the refinement of a burgeoning middle class.

Salt, to his credit, was appalled by the conditions and determined to make a difference. The bearded patriarch took his people to a green and pleasant land – Shipley – where he built his new mill complex, and founded the model village of Saltaire. For the workers, living in decent homes, surrounded by the rolling hills of the Yorkshire landscape, this was almost literally a breath of fresh air, and must have seemed tantamount to paradise.

But here’s the thing. Salt possessed paternalistic impulses that bordered on the totalitarian. Certainly, as modern parlance would put it, the residents of his village lacked the kind of civil liberties and democratic rights we take – perhaps too much – for granted. Salt was very much the Lord of the Manor – for his workers’ own good. In this, he was no great exception within the philanthropic ranks.

History rightly honours the humanitarian efforts of the ‘great philanthropists’, but as the housing sector is encouraged to renew its relationship with this modern manifestation of noblesse oblige, should not the authoritarian side be acknowledged too? Forewarned is forearmed, one might say. To its credit, NPC et al’s essayists don’t avoid the darker side but they don’t exactly dwell on it either.

“[T]hese very well intentioned initiatives were characterised by what we would now regard as paternalistic supervision,” said architect Theresa Lloyd in her essay. “The lives of [Octavia] Hill’s tenants were monitored very closely by the weekly rent collectors; a similar approach operated at the Peabody Trust, where there were rules such as a night-time curfew.”

A curfew! It’s almost enough to make a man spit on the carpet; Lloyd goes on to further reveal how the lives of tenants could be micromanaged to a point bordering on the ridiculous – being evicted for not growing the right species of plant in the garden, for instance.

Photo courtesy: Tim Green

Salt, himself, had rules for residents/employees, including setting limits on freedom of assembly – no gatherings of more than eight people – and even stipulating how often “inmates” should wash. Oh, and no hanging out washing in the village either.

Some of this seems incredibly petty today, but the impulse to smile at the idiosyncrasies of 19th Century philanthropy must surely fade when we recall the power these men had over the lives of ordinary working people – on a whim they were able to deprive someone not only of their job but a decent home. The threat of destitution is a powerful tool for compliance – all the more so if you consider the quality of the homes and conditions Salt et al provided, compared to the general norm of slum housing.

Better living conditions for their workers generally meant greater productivity, which was all well and good, but there were other concerns to contend with – and that was the threat of social unrest and even insurrection. The era of classical philanthropy was an age rattled by protracted struggles to curtail the near-absolute power the industrialists had over the lives of millions of people. Heady days, indeed, as those millions reached out for economic, political and civil rights. In that sense, philanthropy can be seen as a shrewd move; a timely investment in the business community’s sense of self preservation, you might say.

But this is just history, right? The philanthropists of old were creatures of their time, after all, and bear no relation to modern philanthropy. Meanwhile, thanks to the political reforms of the past, the absolute power of wealth has been curtailed by the lively pluralism of civil society. Nowadays, even plutocrats know their place. Sure. Meanwhile, there remains a very pertinent question over the relationship between philanthropy and power.

As Stephen Pittam, a trustee of the Global Greengrants Fund, and a former Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust worker (1986-2012), discussed in Alliance magazine (The power of money, September 2013): “It has become increasingly obvious that philanthropy thrives at times of inequality,” he wrote. “This was as true for the first burst of early 20th Century philanthropy as it is for what some are now describing as the second golden age.

“A century ago Seebohm Rowntree faced the embarrassing discovery through his pioneering research on poverty that some of the workers in his own family’s company (part-owned by its foundations) were paid insufficient wages to keep them out of poverty. After a generation of relative equality in the second half of the 20th Century, in the Global North at least, we are now back to facing the same dilemma – and at a time when philanthropy is growing once again.”

Philanthropy, by its nature, is an expression of power; the philanthropists of old knew this very well, but the ‘golden age’ of such loaded giving had its last gasp in the 1920s, as the essay collection points out.

By then the State was beginning to take a more direct hand on matters of housing and social welfare, spurred on by political and social pressures at home, as well as internationally (in this day and age, we tend to forget quite the extent of fear and hope that Bolshevism then inspired across the socio-economic divide in that pre-Cold War era).

But now the State is stepping back – leaving, we are told, a gap for philanthropy to make a comeback in the provision of housing and social well-being.

“We believe there are significant opportunities for businesses, foundations, grant-making trusts and individuals who want to help build a better society to work with us – perhaps with a smaller financial return, but certainly with an excellent social return on their investment. This project brings together a range of perspectives on how these opportunities can be progressed,” said Stephen Burns, Peabody’s executive director for new business, writing in the essay collection’s introduction.

“We are not suggesting that philanthropy or strategic giving can solve the affordable housing crisis on its own. Nor are we advocating the withdrawal of government investment in affordable homes. But it is clear from these essays that there is a role for philanthropy in affordable housing, and there are shared aims and aspirations between the sectors to build on.”

The State – the Government, if you prefer – is no neutral arbiter; it has its own agendas, and as the sector knows only too well, the relationship has more than a touch of the Faustian about it. Even so, it seems a sad indictment of these times that the housing sector must go ‘cap in hand’ to the monied classes to preserve its ability to deliver houses and promote social well-being.

On paper at least, it could be argued that via the State we are all philanthropists, collectively pooling our resources to invest in the common good, however imperfect that might be in practice. There is no such illusion with philanthropy; any social good achieved is purely and completely enabled by the generosity of a wealthy patron. In a very real sense, civil society becomes subordinated to the favours of those with the economic clout to be worth beseeching. Please, sir, can we have some more...

In reviving the housing sector’s relationship with philanthropic benefactors, how do we guard against the resurrection of those earlier paternalistic impulses? Can we be certain that philanthropy’s generosity won’t come at too high a price?

Housing professionals, though, are perhaps not the best ones to address such questions. If stern paternalism does ride in on the back of philanthropy, they’re not the ones who will be expected to doff their caps and do as they are told.

The essayists have little doubt that philanthropic capital can be harnessed to beneficial and benign intent, but the road to Hell, as the saying goes, is worth bearing in mind. Be careful what you wish for. In the 21st Century, we all deserve better than to live by Salt’s rule.

# # #

Spare a few million quid for social housing?

The collection of essays published by Peabody, NPC, and the Smith Institute, hopes to ignite a debate about the role that modern philanthropy can play in helping the social housing sector deliver more homes and improve community well-being.

‘Rebuilding the relationship between affordable housing and philanthropy’ is an unwieldy title for an otherwise interesting collection of essays, written by some well-known figures in the sector.

Over the last century or so, housing and philanthropy have rather gone their separate ways as the State took on a more interventionist role, but with the Government now stepping back, it suggests there is room for a comeback. The collection argues that, while philanthropic capital can’t solve the housing crisis in itself, it can certainly play a significant role if the two sectors renew their old acquaintance.

“This report represents a new beginning in the relationship between affordable housing and philanthropy,” said Stephen Burns, executive director for new business at Peabody. “There are huge opportunities for businesses, foundations, grant-making trusts, and individuals who want to help build a better society – to work with us. I hope this report will be the catalyst to make these possibilities a reality.”

Contributors include: David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation; Lord Richard Best, chair of Hanover Housing Group; Nick Salisbury, director of Social Finance; Stephen Burns, Peabody; Vicki Prout, housing lead, NPC; Alexis de Raadt St James, chairman and founder of the Althea Foundation; Theresa Lloyd, of Theresa Lloyd Architects; Danyal Sattar, social investment manager, Esmee Fairbarn Foundation; Professor Peter Malpass; and Brian Ham, chief executive of the Dolphin Square Foundation.

# # #

Salt’s rule 

• Throughout the village, cleanliness, cheerfulness, and order must reign supreme
• Only persons who are good, obedient, honest and hardworking will be allocated a house in each village
• Anyone caught in a state of inebriation will immediately be evicted
• All persons living in Saltaire will enjoy comfort utility, healthfulness and convenience. Each house and its immediate exterior is to be kept clean by, or at the expense of, the occupant
• Any damage to any of the houses or fixtures, must be made good by the occupant, otherwise the cost thereof will be deducted from the weekly wage
• No animals to be kept in the village including chickens, rabbits, or pigeons
• The founder will make a periodical inspection of the village and housing
• No washing to be hung out to dry in front or behind any of the properties, or in the vicinity of the village
• The founder would recommend that all inmates wash themselves every morning, but they shall wash themselves at least twice a week, Monday morning and Thursday morning; any found not washed will be fined 3d for each offence
• All children living or working in the village must attend school half time, up to the age of twelve years and learn reading, writing and arithmetic
• None of the inmates… shall underlet the tenement assigned to him… or take any person to lodge or reside therein, without the written permission of the founder
• Gatherings or loitering of more than eight persons in the streets is strictly forbidden

(Source: Saltaire Village Experience/Saltaire Tourist Information Centre)

This article first appeared as the cover story for the November 2013 print edition of Housing magazine. It was subsequently re-published on the Housing Excellence website, 28 March 2014

Cover Story: Housing gets political

Hey, Dave, don’t think much of yours

This year’s conference season has revealed cracks beginning to emerge in the old political consensus, and with housing looking set to be an election battleground, it offers the sector a chance to tell the politicians – “social housing” is not a dirty word

By Mark Cantrell

From Housing magazine, October 2013

THIS is not a party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party, but after the Conservative Party’s more-of-the-same performance in Manchester, we’re walking a fine line here.

It just goes to show; sometimes it pays to break ranks if you want to get noticed. So in the interests of journalistic scepticism, not to mention objectivity, it’s worth bearing in mind the whole notion of politicians and promises. Read their lips, by all means, but keep a close eye on their fingers too.

Over the last couple of decades, we’ve grown used to the major political parties triangulating to capture a rightwards drifting centre ground, built around concepts of the market, and a consumerist ‘me first’ individualism. While admittedly a simplification, it’s led to contests over personality and style rather more than substance. For the cynical observer, this post-Thatcher consensus has led the parties to drift into a curious convergence.

But now, as David Cameron has bemoaned it, the Labour Party has suddenly veered left on a course towards “1970s socialism”. As if he should complain. The Prime Minister ought to be grateful for any alleged red shift in his opposite number’s political journey; it creates a gap where the two old contenders can begin to define themselves anew.

In Brighton, Ed Miliband finally threw a few wildcards onto the table; he pledged to abolish the widely hated bedroom tax, and whether the Tories want to fight the next election on this turf or not, the Labour leader made housing a key political battleground.

“There are nine million people in this country renting a home, many of whom would want to buy. We don’t just have a cost of living crisis, we have a housing crisis too,” said Miliband. “In 2010, when we left office, there was a problem. There were one million too few homes in Britain. If we carry on as we are, by 2020 there will be two million too few homes in Britain. That is the equivalent of two cities the size of Birmingham.

“We’ve got to do something about it and the next Labour government will. So, we’ll say to private developers, you can’t just sit on land and refuse to build. We will give them a very clear message – either use the land or lose the land. That is what the next Labour Government will do.

“We’ll say to local authorities that they have a right to grow, and neighbouring authorities can’t just stop them. We’ll identify new towns and garden cities, and we’ll have a clear aim that by the end of the Parliament Britain will be building 200,000 homes a year; more than at any time in a generation. That’s how we make Britain better than this.”

A commitment to build more homes has, as you’d expect, gone down well with the sector, given it has spent so long arguing the case for more homes. The number – 200,000 – may be some 40-50,000 shy of the annual figure that is generally accepted as a necessity to catch up with a shortfall in demand, but it’s proved a welcome figure nonetheless.

“Ed Miliband’s commitment to boost the number of homes is greatly welcome,” said David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation (NHF). “An ambitious, comprehensive house building strategy is what we have been calling for, and something that this country has desperately needed for decades to drag us out of our current housing crisis.

“Building more homes will stop house prices and rents spiralling out of control. Families will be able to live in homes that are more affordable, giving them a better standard of living. Young adults will be able to live independently without getting themselves into incredible amounts of debt. And it will ease the fears of older people wondering how they’ll be able to pay for a home that suits their needs when they retire.

“Whichever government is in power needs to be bold, and develop new towns and join up land acquisition, finance, infrastructure and housing delivery to transform the housing market into one that truly serves Britain’s people and communities.”

But John Cridland, director general of the ‘voice of business’ the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) offered a stern remonstration: “We have fallen woefully behind on house building and the commitment to build 200,000 homes a year is a great ambition. To achieve this we need house builders on board, not to be criticised for holding on to land when it’s not viable to build on it.”

On scrapping the bedroom tax – “no ifs, no buts” as Miliband put it on the eve of the Labour Conference – Orr urged the current Government to fulfil the Labour leader’s pledge and kill the tax he “despises”.

“We have spent over two years lobbying against this policy which penalises the poor and will not address the chronic housing shortage,” he said. “We now need the Government to give the same commitment to repeal this unfair and unworkable tax and commit to addressing rising housing costs through building more affordable homes.”

By the time the Conservatives gathered in Manchester, the Labour Party had clearly stolen their thunder, at least on matters housing. Here was a party establishment caught on the back foot, and left little room to regain the initiative – simply because most of its pieces are already in play.

Yes, David Cameron made political capital out of his early release of the second phase of Help to Buy – duly backed by his Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne – but the move had the inescapable feel of a man looking to snatch some headlines off the ‘other guy’.

In a similar vein, the mid-conference announcement of a ‘tenants’ charter’ – longer, fixed-term and “family friendly” tenancies – may already have been in the policy sausage machine, but the timing of its arrival spoke volumes of a Government wrong-footed and under pressure by calls for regulation and reform of the private rented sector. Here, then, is regulation and reform without the ‘strangling red tape’ but even with the backing of a cabinet heavyweight like Eric Pickles, it came across as an exercise in having something to show the troops.

Back to Cameron, and he also pledged to axe Housing Benefit for young people under 25 (a move mooted once before); a populist measure among the party faithful but it was quickly dubbed “dangerous” by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH).

“How do you build the economy without a young, mobile workforce? It would mean that young people would be unwilling to take risks such as moving for work because there would be no safety net for them,” said Grainia Long, the organisation’s chief executive.

“It also fails to take into account the reality of many people’s lives – many under 25s will have paid tax and National Insurance for several years before needing to claim benefits.”

As it is, perhaps the real measure of Conservative Party thinking on matters housing was delivered before the party conference season got underway. At the NHF’s conference in Birmingham, then housing minister Mark Prisk delivered his detailed summation of what the Government is doing to help people realise the homeownership dream, help the sector deliver more allegedly affordable homes, boost the private rented sector, and generally deliver the 170,000 homes under its extended Affordable Homes Programme.

Much of this was but a reiteration of his CIH Manchester speech from June. One highlight of both occasions was the message he had in relation to existing stock: effectively he told the sector it must work harder and faster to make social homes more expensive – by upgrading more of them to the Affordable Rents programme on relets. However much new housing the current Coalition – or a future Conservative – Government might deliver, it seems clear that as far as its thinking goes, social housing is history, rather like Prisk’s ministerial tenure, one might jibe.

All told, the Conservatives offered a familiar package at this year’s conference; such might also be said of the LibDems, despite the grassroots passing of a motion to take a good hard look at the bedroom tax. Here is a party that remains very much hopeful that it will be playing the role of ‘kingmaker’ – or rather PM-maker – come the 2015 election much as it did in 2010.

Cameron and Osborne, as they made clear in their speechmaking, want to be able to “finish the job” – to secure government via an outright verdict at the ballot box, rather than having to ‘cut a deal’ with Nick Clegg and his ilk. Labour, for its part, appears to be setting out on its own path to 2015, but for all that, there remains a discernible overlap in their conference themes.

The Conservatives pushed economic recovery; Labour the cost of living crisis which is not unrelated. In their respective ways, both parties gave their backing to “hard working families”. Cameron had his “land of opportunity”; Miliband had his “Britain can do better than this”. Whatever, the next election is a good 20 months away and with those cracks beginning to appear in the old consensus it opens up the possibility for the sector to grab some leverage as both contenders look to win friends and votes.

“Profit” is not a dirty word, Cameron told the party faithful in Manchester. What he didn’t say, but perhaps his Government’s policies say in no uncertain terms, is that “social housing” is tantamount to a foul-mouthed utterance that has no place in polite society. Still, language has a way of shifting.

So, hold off the soapy mouthwash; it is surely time now for the housing sector to start talking dirty to the politicians. Downright filthy even, until they go red in the face.


Main photo: Composite image created from original image sources: David Cameron courtesy of Steve Bowbrick; Ed Miliband courtesy of Ed Miliband at Flickr

This article formed the cover story for the October 2013 print edition of Housing magazine. It was subsequently republished on the Housing Excellence website, 25 March 2014