18 October 2002
Two years later, and just six months after the corporation's inspection service got under way, he is being forced to dismantle it with about 30 inspectors preparing to transfer to the Audit Commission.
Undoubtedly, losing the right to run the single inspectorate for local authorities and housing associations to the commission was a blow for the corporation. But things could be worse.
Earlier this year, there was speculation that new regional assemblies might take over responsibility for investment in social housing, leaving the corporation as no more than a regulator.
But, as Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott confirmed the new inspectorate, he heaped praise on the corporation and signalled that it is to play an even bigger role in delivering affordable housing.
Details will be revealed at around the turn of the year when Prescott unveils his communities plan. But the corporation has already recorded its delight at being promoted to the top table of policy-making.
'We are being drawn into the inner circle of national policy decisions which is not something that the Housing Corporation traditionally gets involved in,' said Perry.
The corporation will be teaming up with English Partnerships, a quango created three years ago from the Commission for New Towns and the Urban Regeneration Agency, which owns about 6,000 hectares of land.
Together they will identify land suitable for new housing – including that owned by government departments – with emphasis on four target areas already identified for development in the Southeast.
The two agencies will also be helping to tackle housing market renewal further north, where English Partnerships is also a major landowner. But decisions to build in the south are likely to be more contentious.
'It's taken the government quite a long time to come to grips with the housing problems in the south,' says Perry. 'There has been a far quicker response to the challenges in the northern cities.'
Next year, the Housing Corporation is receiving nearly £1.3bn so that registered social landlords can build 22,700 new homes through the approved development programme (ADP). The corporation is proud of its record of meeting or exceeding development targets, something which helped it to see off any challenge from regional assemblies.
'There is no doubt that it has delivered on the investment side,' says John Perry, director of policy at the Chartered Institute of Housing. 'The ADP has been spent year on year.'
James Tickell, the National Housing Federation's deputy chief executive, is pleased there will continue to be a single funding agency for housing, rather than regional assemblies deciding how much money should go to each service. 'The experience of regeneration is that, when you put things into one pot, housing comes third or fourth in priority.'
The NHF will, of course, be watching the setting up of the new inspectorate closely. According to Tickell, it is 'far from ideal' that RSLs will in future have an inspector that is separate from their regulator. 'We will be vigilant to make sure that the new arrangements don't slip into double regulation and more bureaucracy,' he says.
Among the decisions that must be taken are whether RSLs should be rated using a star system, and to what extent the performance of the two types of landlord can be compared.
Roy Irwin, the Audit Commission's chief housing inspector, says these are decisions to be taken next year and that, in the short term, RSLs should not notice any real difference.
'Where possible we will be looking for some sort of commonality, but we don't want to shoe-horn into a box for the sake of neatness,' he says. 'We will look at the rating systems that we and the Housing Corporation use and decide how we are going to play it.'
PFoct2002
