Post-War Homelessness Policy in the UK by Jamie Harding

Author:Jamie Harding
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030221171
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The role of voluntary organisations in the Rough Sleepers’ Initiative (RSI) came under particular scrutiny, as will be shown in a later section.

The Social Rented Housing Sector

Despite the rhetoric, Mishra (1990, p. 23) argues that radical proposals in a number of areas of social policy were rejected by the Thatcher governments on the grounds that they would be electorally damaging. Ellison (1998, p. 33) argues that the Conservatives had to satisfy themselves instead with limited reforms designed to re-order the method of providing public services to ensure that they benefited from the disciplines of the market. However, it was in the area of housing that they were able to launch their most radical reforms.

Key concerns of Conservative housing policy were to increase the level of home ownership and to reduce the role of local authority housing departments, which were perceived to be inherently inefficient. The desire to increase home ownership was driven by the belief that free markets are more efficient than social planning, providing consumer choice and individual freedom (Monk & Kleinman, 1989, pp. 121–122). Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Heseltine told the Commons in 1980 that “There is in this country a deeply ingrained desire for home ownership. The Government believes that this spirit should be fostered” (quoted in Monk & Kleinman, 1989, p. 122). The 1987 White Paper Housing—The Government’s Proposals presented the critique of local authority housing departments: they were too large, inefficient and paternalistic, with bureaucratic allocation methods resulting in unnecessarily long waiting times for housing (Kemp, 1991, p. 57).

The Government was able to achieve its twin objectives of increasing home ownership and reducing the role of local authorities through the Right to Buy council housing. It had been possible for local authorities to sell homes to tenants since the 1930s (Murie, 2016, pp. 14–15), but the 1980 Housing Act removed local discretion and gave all secure local authority tenants a right to buy the home that they lived in at a discount. By 1997, some 2 million properties had been transferred to owner occupation under the Right to Buy (Malpass & Murie, 1999, p. 79).

The role of local authority housing departments was further reduced by spending cuts. Central government expenditure on council housing construction and maintenance fell by 43% between 1980–1981 and 1990–1991 (Boughton, 2018, p. 175). Public sector housing was downgraded from being a major to a minor capital programme (Malpass & Murie, 1999, p. 105). As a result, the number of council house completions, which had been reducing through the 1970s, fell further from 88,590 new dwellings in 1980 to 3218 in 1995 (Malpass & Murie, 1999, p. 91).

The government hoped to make good the shortfall in new rented property through measures to encourage the growth of the housing association and private rented sectors under the 1988 Housing Act (discussed further below). Housing associations provided only 1.9% of dwellings in 1979 (Boughton, 2018, p. 168) and their stock grew under the Conservatives, but at a very modest rate compared to

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