David Mullins

Housing policy in the UK

Introduction The Origins of Housing Policy to 1979 Housing Under the Conservatives 1979-1997 Housing Under New Labour 1997-2004 Homeownership in Transition Deregulating the Private Rented Sector Transforming the Governance, Management and Regulation of Social Housing Policies and Problems in Social Housing Finance Incorporating the Non-Profit Sector Choice and Control: Social Housing Management and Access to Social Housing Housing, Social Care, and Supporting People Social Exclusion, Housing and Neighbourhood Renewal Private Sector Housing Renewal A New Comprehensive Housing Policy - Overcoming Fragmentation or Managing Complexity?

Local Authority Housing Stock Transfer in the UK: From Local Initiative to National Policy

Since 1988 stock transfer has been transformed from a local initiative into a central part of government policy for housing in the UK. It began as a largely rural and suburban phenomenon, generating substantial capital receipts, but has also become a vehicle for the regeneration of rundown urban estates. The trajectory of this process has continued to be rapid despite changes in government and devolution of housing policy in the late 1990s. This paper traces the development of the process in some detail, considering policy origins and antecedents, the emergence of national policy and its rolling out to embrace a wider range of circumstances. The impact of the policy is considered more briefly, reviewing the impact on the non-profit housing sector, on local authorities and on the key policy issues of rents and access to housing. Future prospects are reviewed in a concluding section.

Exploring the Meaning of Hybridity and Social Enterprise in Housing Organisations

While social housing has long been delivered through mixed economy mechanisms, there has been little focus in housing studies on what this means for housing organisations. This paper reviews recent international work applying concepts of social enterprise and hybridity to illuminate organisational behaviour. It addresses critiques of the explanatory value of these concepts by exploring their underlying meanings and their application to diverse case studies worldwide. The concepts are found to be most useful where they inform dynamic analysis of hybridisation and identify underlying change mechanisms, rather than simply providing static descriptions of hybridity. Analysis can be enriched by drawing on institutional theory to develop concepts such as competing organisational logics, trade-offs between social and commercial goals and resource transfers. The paper looks at policy as a driver for hybridisation and to the regulatory challenges for policy systems that have come to rely on hybrid forms of delivery. A research agenda is proposed building on these conceptual frameworks to develop systematic approaches to data collection and analysis to enable clearer and more consistent meanings to emerge.

Exploring Change in the Housing Association Sector in England Using the Delphi Method

This paper uses the Delphi method as a way of studying organisational and sector change. It provides a brief introduction to Delphi, its application to public management and its relevance to research on the transformation of social housing. It then describes an application to research on the future shape and structure of the housing association sector in England. The method is used to clarify areas of consensus and divergence, and to identify differences between types of association and key trends in sector transformation. Conclusions are presented on changing sector identity, governance, spatial level of operations, organisational scale and organisational form and on learning from this application of the Delphi method.

Conceptualising Social Enterprise in Housing Organisations

Recent changes in the provision, funding and management of social housing in Europe have led to the emergence of new types of providers. While some of them can be portrayed with traditional ‘state’, ‘market’ or ‘civil society’ labels, many correspond to hybrid organisational forms, encompassing characteristics of all three in varying combinations. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that there is a ‘common thread’ linking these organisations together, namely their core missions and values, which can be classified using the term ‘social enterprise’. Despite the growing body of literature on social enterprise, this concept has been poorly defined and applied to the housing sector. This paper aims to address this gap through a critical literature review encompassing Europe and the United States. Existing models of social enterprise are reviewed and a classification system for social enterprise is developed to reflect the specific features of the social housing association sector and as framework for future research.

Special Issue on Network Theory and Social Housing

This special issue of Housing Theory & Society on network theory and social housing emerged from a series of workshops on institutional change in social housing convened by a working group of the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR). Over several years of discussion on the nature of change in social housing systems in Europe, the working group became interested in the application of theory to understanding institutional changes in housing systems occurring at organization, local, national and European levels. Many of these changes in social housing systems were the result of reforms in public management and governance during the 1980s and 1990s that replaced hierarchical relationships among actors with market and/or network relationships (Hood 1991, Kickert & Koppenjan 1997). These new forms of co-ordination (Thompson et al. 1991) introduced different assumptions about communication, conflict resolution, flexibility and decisionmaking (Powell 1990). The working group’s research focused on both the nature of change processes and how these affected outcomes at the organizational level and at the sector level. While a range of perspectives including new institutional economics, new public management (Mullins, Reid & Walker 2001), welfare regime theory and social constructionism (Mullins 2002) have been considered as potentially fruitful frameworks for the group’s work, over time our attention became increasingly focused on frameworks associated with networks and systems thinking, and this special issue is intended to illustrate the potential of these frameworks. The network approach to studying aggregate organizational behaviour offered a number of advantages over rational actor approaches, such as principal:agent theory, that treat policy actors as independent agents responding to incentives in pursuit of their individual objectives. In addition to addressing the characteristics of and constraints

From regulatory capture to regulated competition: An interest group analysis of the regulation of housing associations in England

Abstract This paper suggests a framework in which the key influences on the regulation of social housing providers can be understood. It draws on a wider literature to locate and describe the types of regulation found in the English social housing sector. It develops an approach based on interest group theories which see regulation as “an exercise among groups and between groups and the state” (Francis, 1993, p. 8). The development of the English regulatory regime is examined over time from the perspective of a number of different interest groups. The regime is shown to have been strongly influenced by the interests of the providers themselves, indicating a degree of ‘regulatory capture’. However, this relationship has been increasingly challenged by external pressures and interests and the promotion of competition by government. Special issues arising from the proposed, but as yet unimplemented, introduction of competition from profit distributing companies are discussed.

Market Concepts, Coordination Mechanisms and New Actors in Social Housing

Abstract This introduction to the special issue on ‘market concepts, coordination mechanisms and new actors in social housing’ makes the case for multi-disciplinary and multi-level studies of the impacts of market-oriented policies aimed at social housing. The authors suggest that privatisation, tenant purchase programmes, market oriented policy shifts, increased regulation, changing household needs and lingering problems with stigmatisation have combined to create a challenging operating environment for social housing providers and that the phenomenon of ‘marketisation’ of social housing has four distinct strands. These are: 1) problematising, 2) bypassing, 3) replacing and 4) transforming social housing, and the focus of the articles in the special issue is on the fourth strand. Transforming social housing encompasses policies aimed at increasing the interaction between social and private housing providers, encouraging managerialist approaches to housing provision and introducing regulations and/or incentives to increase competition among social housing providers as well as between social and private landlords. The editorial concludes with suggested directions for research into the marketisation of social housing and recommends that researchers continue to pursue the connections that can be made among different disciplines in the study of organisational change in this sector.

Modernization and Change in Social Housing: The Case for an Organizational Perspective

It is argued that past approaches to the research of housing policy and housing organizations are now inadequate and unable to provide a clear explanation of modernization and change. The modernization of social housing is associated with changing core organizational competencies and the movement towards a variety of partnership approaches. In response we develop a tripartite theoretical framework based around new institutional economics, strategic management and institutional theory. An exploratory review of the evidence at a sectoral level (examining social housing as a field, regulation and the profession) and the organizational level (focusing upon changing organization behaviour) is used to illustrate the legitimacy of this approach. In conclusion a research agenda is outlined.

Scaling-up or going-viral: comparing self-help housing and community land trust facilitation

This paper explores two sector-based case studies of social innovation in community-led housing that have taken root in the last ten years: community land trusts (CLTs) set up to ensure access to affordable homes in perpetuity and self-help housing organisations set up to bring empty homes back into use. These innovations benefit from a groundswell of support, as their specialised local focus and people-centre approach to housing has strong resonance with policy agendas of localism and community empowerment in England. Yet to take root such innovations need more than rhetorical support; they require practical and ideological strengthening to secure flows of resources and legitimacy required for survival alongside professionalised and better resourced forms of organisation. This paper compares the forms of support provided by intermediary organisations that have been used to facilitate the growth and diffusion of these community-led housing models. It describes how the CLT sector has scaled up to create a formal institutional framework operating at different spatial scales to support locally-rooted community groups and considers the implications of this for the self-help housing sector, which has shown a preference for ‘viral’ solutions that focus on small-scale projects and community leadership. While intermediary support is clearly of importance, there are tensions in its provision, as sectors that scale up may begin to question local independence and dilute community ethos, while viral solutions may face challenges in accessing technical skills and resources without becoming overburdened or diverted from initial objectives. The paper concludes that while partnerships with technical experts that act as intermediaries may be crucial for the diffusion and expansion of CLTs and self-help housing, there are tensions in accessing technical skills and resources in a manner that maintains the local scale, accountability and unique added value of community-led housing.