19 October 2007
The Audit Commission has lost its bid to regulate all social housing after ministers this week backed proposals for a new independent watchdog.
Housing associations, which are currently regulated by the Housing Corporation, are to be overseen by the new Office for Tenants and Social Landlords from 2009, with the watchdog's powers extended to local authorities two years later.
Housing minister Yvette Cooper ended months of heated debate when she announced on October 15 that she was backing Professor Martin Cave's plan for a stand-alone body. It would protect tenants from landlords that offer a poor service while reducing red tape elsewhere, she told Parliament.
Registered social landlords, lenders and private developers had also wanted an independent regulator. But councils and arm's-length management organisations supported a strong bid by the commission, which already inspects councils and RSLs, to extend its role.
An independent advisory panel will study the implications of bringing councils under the scope of the new watchdog by 2011, but both the Local Government Association and the Chartered Institute of Housing questioned why this should take so long.
Paul Bettison, chair of the LGA's environment board, said the association was drawing up proposals to show how housing regulation might be incorporated into the wider performance framework for councils within two years. 'The most important aspect to regulation is how effective it is, rather than the identity of who is conducting it,' he added.
Roy Irwin, the commission's chief inspector of housing, said it had proposed a more user-focused system of regulation, but ministers were clearly swayed by arguments put forward by others, including private lenders.
'The government has thought things through and made its decision. That's what it's paid to do,' he told Public Finance. 'We're looking forward to making the new arrangements work.'
The National Housing Federation, which was fiercely opposed to the commission regulating RSLs, welcomed the news.
PFoct2007
