Essays on Housing Policy

The British Scene

J. B. Cullingworth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000296822
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie urbaine

Originally published in 1979, these essays provide a guide to the labyrinth of issues which together made up 'housing policy' in the late 20th Century. The focus is on the practical and political difficulties of devising measures which meet policy objectives – difficulties which are just as prevalent in the 21st Century. The search for 'comprehensive strategies' is shown to be a vain one: given the number of relevant issues and their complexity, only an incremental approach is practicable. Major issues are discussed in the context of an analysis of the institutional, historical and financial framework within which housing policy is formulated and operated.

1 The Institutional
Framework

Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger.

Matthew Arnold

Many institutions operate in the field of housing policy. Indeed, they are so numerous that a major problem of policy is to ensure that they operate in harmony – or at least with the minimum of conflict. National housing policies (to the extent that there are such things) are the responsibility of central government, but execution is the responsibility of a multiplicity of agencies: 460 independent political entities of local government (and, in Northern Ireland, the Housing Executive); development agencies such as the new town development corporations and the Commission for the New Towns, the Scottish Special Housing Association, and some 2,000 housing associations; finance institutions such as the Public Works Loans Board, the Housing Corporation and 380 building societies, as well as the joint stock banks and the insurance companies; an unknown number of private landlords, ranging from major companies to (more typically) individuals owning a very small number of houses or simply letting part of their own dwelling; and some 88,000 building and contracting firms.

These are the instruments of housing policy, and the control which central government exercises over them varies greatly. Absolute control applies only over the tiny number of houses built by government departments (1,259 in 1975) and, even here, the ‘control’ is operated by each of the departments concerned and their ministers (not the minister responsible for housing).¹

The execution of policies is also affected by independent bodies such as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (the ‘ombudsman’), the Commissioner for Local Administration (the ‘local authority ombudsman’), the Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the National Consumer Council, the district auditor and, in Scotland, the Commission for Local Authority Accounts. The powers and influence of these ‘watchdogs’ varies, but they are performing an increasingly significant role not only in protecting the citizen against maladministration, but also in promoting changes in both the operation and the character of ‘policy’. In this they supplement the traditional if somewhat erratic role of the mass media.

Then there are the citizen and community groups which, in recent years, have adopted pressure tactics of a more strident and active character than that of the longer established professional and amenity organisations. Finally there is Parliament itself and the parliamentary institutions of the Expenditure Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, and the Comptroller and Auditor General.

None of these bodies is ‘executive’ but, in the same way that it is misleading to separate policy and administration, so it is inadequate to consider either in isolation from the wider range of institutions which bring their influence to bear on both.

In what follows, some of the more important institutions are selected for discussion. The objectives are to sketch the institutional framework and to illustrate problem areas of policy by reference to particular issues.

Central Government

Why, it can usefully be asked, do we talk in terms of housing policy? Would it not be more appropriate to consider housing as an aspect of broader policies relating, for example, to health or the environment, or economic development? Certainly, the changing names of the central government departments responsible for housing suggest that the question periodically arises. In England and Wales the central department was, from 1919 until 1951, the Ministry of Health. Since 1970 it has been the Department of the Environment. By contrast, Scotland (with its different and more intransigent economic problems) has the Scottish Development Department. Other countries align responsibilities differently: in the USA there is the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in Italy the Ministry of Public Works, and in Canada the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (together with the more recent Ministry of State for Urban Affairs).

Such comparisons are interesting and thought-provoking, but there are so many factors influencing the organisation of government that it is easy to read too much into the selected distribution of functions. In Britain, housing policy (like town and country planning policy) developed out of sanitary policies, and it was therefore natural that it should be the responsibility of the department concerned with ‘the health of towns’ problem – the Department of Health for Scotland, and the Ministry of Health in England and Wales. The Ministry of Health retained this function until 1951 (though it lost planning to a new Ministry of Town and Country Planning in 1943). The redistribution of functions which took place in 1951 was the result of two quite different forces: the pressure on the Ministry of Health created by the rapidly developing national health service, and the perceived need to bring housing and planning together. The result was the Ministry of Local Government and Planning. Its title, however, was changed in the same year following the return of a Conservative government which was unenthusiastic about planning but committed to a major expansion of the housing programme. Housing ousted planning and the name was changed to Ministry of Housing and Local Government. And so it remained until the beginning of the seventies when huge super-departments became the fashion.² Housing now became a part of a gargantuan department which for a time embraced the Ministries of Housing, Transport and Public Building and Works.

The need to bring road planning into closer relationship with town planning and housing development had long been recognised, but the merger also attempted to resolve ‘the difficulty arising from the separation of the housing department’s responsibilities from the responsibility for much public sector building and for relations with the construction industry, held by the Ministry of Public Building and Works’.³ In line with current fashion, the new ministry was entitled the Department of the Environment. The name was considered (at least with hindsight) by a former senior Treasury official as being particularly relevant, ‘for it has given a sign to give fresh illumination to a wide variety of tasks which were not formerly regarded as having anything in common’.⁴

The approach here was basically to bring together functions relating to the physical environment. The new department, in the words of the White Paper The Reorganisation of Central Government:

... will cover the planning of land – where people live, work, move and enjoy themselves. It will be responsible for the construction industries, including the housing programme, and for the transport industries, including programmes of support and development for the means of transport. There is a need to associate with these functions responsibility for other major environmental matters: the preservation of amenity, the protection of the coast and countryside, the preservation of historic towns and monuments, and the control of air, water and noise pollution . . . And it will have the leading responsibility for regional policy . . . and the particular responsibility of ensuring that people’s rights are adequately protected wherever they are affected by the proposals of their neighbours or of public authorities.

The rationale was clear; and it reflected the growing concern for a better relationship between the many facets of environmental planning. Ironically, the change was made just at the time when concern for a different pattern of functional relationships was emerging – between housing policies and a wide range of social programmes for the relief of poverty, for helping coloured people to overcome the problems they faced in a white society and, more generally, for dealing with ill-defined problems of what came to be termed ‘urban deprivation’. The introduction of a national housing allowance scheme in 1972 raised further questions on the relationship between rent rebates and supplementary benefits – a matter which became more problematic with the growth of the ‘better off problem’ and the ‘poverty trap’. Later, a rise in the recorded rate of homelessness resulted in controversy over the allocation of responsibility between ‘housing’ and ‘social services’.

Such issues – which are discussed later – raised some doubts about the logic of the new department. Though it provides a context for reviewing and elaborating new lines of housing policy, that very context might make it difficult to follow up radical changes in policy, for example, in promoting house production and improvement by tax incentives, or assisting low-income households with their housing costs by a social security, supplementary benefit or tax credit system.⁵

When such proposals arise they are dealt with at central government level by a host of interdepartmental committees. Following the establishment of the Cabinet Office Central Policy Review Staff, a new initiative was taken to design an effective ‘joint framework for social policies’.⁶ Among other features of this was the setting up of a study of ‘the relationship between housing policy and other social policies’. At the same time, a major review of housing finance within the Department of the Environment developed into an even bigger review of housing policy. This rapidly found itself involved with bigger questions concerned with assistance to low-income families – questions which had to be passed on to an interdepartmental review of the relationship of means tested housing assistance to other social benefits.⁷

Incomes and prices policies added further complications and led to parliamentary pressure for a ‘select committee to examine housing problems and the link between social security and the tax system and the incomes policy . . .’⁸ Finally (though it should be noted that this list is illustrative rather than comprehensive), concern for the ‘inner city problem’ which had been growing throughout the seventies developed into a political issue of significance, with an emphasis on the relationships between employment, incomes and housing. In the words of the Minister of Housing:

... solutions to the problems of our inner cities... is not just a matter of applying major programmes and policies individually. They must be welded together in a co-ordinated and comprehensive approach. Housing and employment policies for example must work together and support each other to get a better match between people, jobs and homes. This could have major significance for the machinery at all levels.⁹

This recital of the changing context within which housing problems and policies are perceived underlines the difficulty of determining the ‘best’ allocation of functions between government departments. More to the immediate point, it demonstrates the many-faceted nature of ‘housing’. Whatever administrative organisation is established, problems will always remain of finding the most effective framework for formulating policy. When the emphasis was on environmental issues a merger in a single department was logical. (Whether it has been effective is a different matter.) Now that the emphasis has shifted on to a broader social front – and additionally encompasses employment – no reallocation or merger can conceivably provide a logical solution.

In short, it is impossible to conceive of a central government department which would undertake responsibility for all the issues which are related to ‘housing’. (A similar conclusion would emerge from a consideration of ‘health’ or ‘education’ or ‘planning’.)¹⁰

This leaves a problem of crucial significance to a consideration of the formulation of housing policy: how can a basis be found for ensuring that housing policy adequately takes into account those relevant aspects which are the responsibility of other departments? It is difficult enough for a single department to co-ordinate all aspects of its work (and the bigger the department, the greater these difficulties are likely to be);¹¹ but once issues go beyond a single department, the difficulties grow enormously.

The difficulties are exacerbated by the natural tendency to departmentalism. Each department has its own framework for thought and action, its own methods of working, its own system of internal (and external) communication, and its own approach to the definition of those problems which fall within its area of responsibility. Like all organisations, individual departments develop particular styles of administration (which may be more easily felt than described), particular sets of loyalties, and a degree of isolationism which ministers all too frequently find themselves defending. Whatever ministers may say collectively, they are individually in competition with each other – for influence as well as resources. Interdepartmental co-operation tends to be alloyed by interdepartmental rivalry if not outright conflict; and the one leads easily into the other.

Exhortation to co-ordinate policies, to adopt a ‘unified approach’, or even to remove inconsistent practices leads to a host of difficulties. As was explicitly recognised in the White Paper Policy for the Inner Cities, though ‘concerted action should have a greater impact’ on the problems being addressed, ‘the difficulties should not be underestimated: special efforts of co-ordination and joint working’ are required ‘which cut across established practices’. It is significant that the ‘unified approach’ which is seen to be required to deal with the problems of inner cities is to be restricted at first to a limited number of areas:

The powers and finances of central and local government will need to be used in a unified and coherent way. New forms of organisation and new methods of working may need to be tried. In the government’s view, success is more likely to be achieved by concentrating special attention and the major part of urban aid on a few major areas initially.

Whether the achievements of this selective approach will be replicable over a wider area remains to be seen. Whatever success is attained in co-ordination in particular localities is hardly likely to be translatable to the national level. In the words of another CPRS report:

. . . central government is, in fact, a federation of separate departments with their own ministers and their own policies. The aim of the Treasury and of the DoE in its capacity as the ‘department of local government’ often cut across those of the spending or service departments. They in turn compete with each other for scarce resources. The development of an interdepartmental view about a local authority service is a rare achievement.¹²

It has to be accepted that there is no satisfactory solution to these problems. The interconnections between policies are far too complex, and the effectiveness of particular programmes too uncertain. The Central Policy Review Staff have argued that:

The treatment of social issues should, in principle, be related to some broad framework of social policy. In practice, there is an inevitable tendency for them to be dealt with individually as they come to the forefront. This can allow different departments to put different emphases on different major policy instruments – for example, means testing or helping the worst off through ‘positive discrimination’, rather than through general improvements in programmes.

To meet this and other related problems, the CPRS proposed that a group of senior ministers most closely concerned should meet and think (my italics) every six months or so in a ‘strategic’ capacity; that periodic ‘forward looks’ at likely forthcoming developments in the social field should be carried out by officials – here the major objective being ‘to identify possible links and possible inconsistencies’ ; that ‘social monitoring’ should be improved; and that a programme of specific studies should be mounted, for example on financial poverty, central-local government relationships, social aspects of housing policy, housing the elderly and the handicapped, and the implications of a possible long-term...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 The Institutional Framework
• 2 Housing Need and Demand
• 3 Council Housing Finance
• 4 Rent Control
• 5 Improvement and Slum Clearance
• 6 Owner-Occupation
• 7 Alternative Tenures
• 8 Housing Allowances
• 9 Housing Policy Questions
• Notes and References
• Index