Social housing has become a ghetto tenure which is helping perpetuate a growing social apartheid. That was the stark assessment of Iain Duncan Smith in his speech to the Chartered Institute of Housing's annual conference in Harrogate last week.
70% of new social rented households have no-one in work, and the rate of full-time employment among social tenants has fallen from two-thirds to one-third in just 25 years. IDS argued that increasing employment rates among tenants must be the top priority in tackling the poverty and dependency blighting social housing. However this could only be achieved with co-ordinated action to provide intensive welfare-to work programmes (with stronger obligations to access them), benefit reforms to make work pay (HB creates a huge disincentive to work) and reforms to social housing itself. As well as measures to break-up mono-tenure estates, IDS said that needs-based allocations and universal life-long security of tenure should be re-assessed.
Inside Housing, the weekly trade journal for social housing, gave the speech a cautious welcome, acknowledging that is likely to be the Conservatives who 'grasp the nettle' of tackling worklessness and dependency in the sector. The Centre for Social Justice's housing policy group, chaired by Kate Davies of Notting Hill Housing, will put forward its proposals in this area later this year.
