16/11/2017

Today Housing 24 reported our welcome to the ONS decision to return housing associations to the private sector – but they are still not free of government control over rent levels.

This u-turn on the decision to classify housing associations in the public sector will help UK plc by removing £63bn from the national debt – and also free up housing associations to work with their local authority partners and others to build the homes the country needs.

For housing associations it means that they are, in theory, no longer bound by some of the public sector legal constraints that act like a dead weight around their necks.

The move will encourage those in the sector who want housing associations to break completely free from government control.

Unfortunately, housing associations will still be bound by their public sector past. Government will continue to control their rent setting. And (although housing associations no longer need consent to dispose of properties) if they do sell social housing homes, they will have to repay the grant relating to them.

Housing associations will also be bound by other public sector controls, including the obligation to procure goods and services via EU compliant procurement processes, and will continue to have obligations under legislation including the Freedom of Information Act.

Housing associations also need to be aware that section 93 of Housing and Planning Act (2016) affecting social housing is now effective from today (November 16).

The regulations reduce the influence local authorities have over private registered providers of social housing. They restrict the percentage level of officers that a local authority may nominate as board members of a private registered provider and remove a local authority’s ability to hold voting rights as a member of a private registered provider.

This will affect all the stock transfer associations in the country who still have their sponsoring local authorities as members and local authority nominated board members taking up more than 24% of the board.

Such associations now have six months to change their constitutions so that they are in compliance with these regulations, and it is likely that they will need their sponsoring local authorities to vote in favour of these changes at the relevant general meetings.

Our use of cookies

We use necessary cookies to make our site work. We'd also like to set optional analytics cookies to help us improve it. We won't set optional cookies unless you enable them. Using this tool will set a cookie on your device to remember your preferences. For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our Cookies page.

Necessary cookies

Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.

Analytics cookies

We'd like to set Google Analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collection and reporting information on how you use it. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone.
For more information on how these cookies work, please see our Cookies page.