Jonathan Walters will be an excellent new chief at the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). One of his many fine attributes is that he goes into the job with his eyes wide open. There will not be the dreaded ‘getting to know you’ waste of time we see so often.
But it’s one heck of an in-tray.
Private equity has made a pig’s ear of water. For years, the promoters of private equity have promised a wall of money for housing. If we don’t watch out that will turn into a vale of tears. Keeping a sharp eye on these players, and doing a stronger job than Ofwat, will be a task and a half. At the moment some are doing better in housing than others.
Given the poor state of UK finances, it’s a case of any port in a storm – so the government will want the cash from private equity without the catastrophes.
In an ideal world this would be an easy dilemma to avoid. If our existing landlords were in fine fettle it would be unnecessary to take the risk with new players. For better or worse the RSH keeps a close eye on association finances. So, we know from their quarterly surveys that the books aren’t in good shape. This walks us into all sorts of traps.
There will be a temptation to seek out innovative sources of finance. Is it time to bring back our old friend creative accounting? Many of us are still unpicking the PFI. Marry in haste, repent at leisure!
Faced with this, the RSH does the only thing it can really do and urges associations to make trade-offs. That’s what you say when there are no good choices.
The regulator has told landlords to survey all their homes to identify what needs fixing. As you would expect this leads to big bills.
At the same time homelessness is growing, with devastating consequences. Right now we’ve got 176,000 children parked in temporary accommodation. That’s no way to live and an all-party parliamentary group has linked it to the deaths of over 100 children.
Who’d want to lead the RSH? The stakes are far too high. If landlords stint on repairs there’s the risk of another tragedy like Grenfell. But if we don’t build then babies will die.
How has it come to this? We are in the midst of the poorest quality elections of all time. The biggest idea is to cap food prices. And the SNP blatantly nicked that from Count Binface with his heroic efforts to make croissants affordable. As I go around all I hear in local campaigns are endless gripes about potholes. Yes, they are a danger. But compared to kids dying in hovels? It’s got so bad I was thinking of calling for military rule. But then I remembered we don’t have much of an army left. So, we are stuck with what we’ve got – as the old cartoon says: “Well if you knows of a better ’ole, go to it.”
The idea of trading off repairs versus building is plain wrong. We must do both. In and of itself the RSH cannot fix this. The one and only answer is government funding. Better that it comes now in a calm rational way than in a panic after another tragedy. How much of a tragedy do we need to galvanise the British state these days?
Alistair McIntosh, Chief Executive, HQN
