Transcript – Local housing strategies: the what, the why and the how

Transcript for ‘Local housing strategies: the what, the why and the how’.

Zina Smith

In this episode, Campbell Tickell Director Maggie Rafalowicz and Senior Consultant James McHugh discuss local authority housing strategies. While they are no longer statutory documents, Campbell Tickell is seeing a resurgence in housing strategies among local authorities. We have worked throughout the UK to design and deliver these for councils of all sizes and environments, from small cities to rural counties, as well as large Metropolitan councils. With this experience, Maggie and James discussed the following questions, what is a What’s a local housing strategy? Why have one in the first place? What do you need to consider when designing a housing strategy? And how do you carry one out? We hope you enjoy listening. Let us know what you think.

Maggie Rafalowicz

I’ve been working on housing strategies for quite a while now, since the ’90s, actually. And ultimately, they cover the same elements. Have you got the right supply in the right place for the right people, the right size, etc. So the supply issue is obviously a crucial one, and that goes across the different tenures as The quality is the second thing which is really important. The quality of the homes, we know there’s a really big issue now in terms of fire safety and damp and mould and all those things like that.

But there’s always been a very important issue. Again, the quality of the home, which is absolutely crucial and where a lot of investment is going at the moment. The third thing is affordability. Now, when I first started working on housing strategies in the ’90s, a lot of the focus actually was on the social rent because most people could actually afford to find their own housing solution. Nowadays, affordability actually impacts on a huge amount of population. So affordability is really crucial. And the fourth thing is partnership because a local authority cannot actually do everything on their own. They don’t think they can. They really can’t. So the partnership working, be it with developers and housing associations, being it with health authorities, being it with police, being with a whole range of the voluntary community is really important. Anyway, we talked about the four main things that actually cover a housing strategy, but why have one? They used to be statutory documents. The local authorities had to produce them. I remember there was a time when I used to work for the precursor of Homes England, the housing corporation, that I used to have meetings. Every year, you would meet with local authority.

There’d be the government offices up and down the country, and you’d meet with the local authorities, and you’d quiz them on the housing strategies and things like It was a statutory requirement. It stopped being so, and then a lot of local authorities stopped producing them. But I think there’s a real shift that we’ve seen at Campbell to Kael. There’s a real shift for local authorities wanting to actually produce housing strategies. Why do they do it? First of all, I think it signals a long-term vision for housing in a particular area. When we talk, especially to leaders of the councils and things like that, and directors and chief execs, that becomes very important because housing also is related It’s everything else that are local authority services they provide, be it social care, be it regeneration, and the list goes on and on. It’s its role in actually the long-term vision of a local area. It’s also a tool to actually communicate that vision with residents, with communities, with stakeholders, with employers, with employees, and potential investors. So it is a tool of communication. It also actually, when you do a housing strategy, and it’s usually pretty high-level document, it can become a platform for further work, development of new ideas, etc, or initiatives.

Maybe we’ll touch upon those a bit later. And again, when I talk to about how housing is often the glue that actually links up different departments with the local authority. From my experience, that’s really good. I think what we work with done when we talk to people throughout the council, when we’re doing housing strategies, is really quite important. I think the other thing on the strategy is actually it’s like a navigation tool. You want to see, but it gives us a bit of structure to how you’re going to do it, a roadmap for the future. That’s what we’re finding now when we’re working on why to have a housing strategy. James, I wanted to ask you. You and I have been working on quite a few housing strategies in the last year, up and down the country, from the south to the north, and the Midlands in the middle, et cetera. What do you think are the main things you need to consider when you’re actually doing working on a strategy?

James McHugh

Yeah, thanks, Maggie. I suppose Well, so it’s probably four things that I’d recommend considering irrespective of where the location is. Firstly, think about the precedence for the strategy. So is it an existing housing strategy? If so, when did it run out? How successful was it? What precedent does that set in terms of developing a new strategy? Equally, what other complementary strategies or plans are in place already? So it may well be that the borough has got a range of existing sub-strategies in relation to things like resident engagement or maybe the private sector. There may well be a whole suite of other strategies in related service areas, so things like public health strategies or transport strategies, for example. I think it’s really important to consider the precedence and what ecosystem of other strategies this goes into. The second thing is about evidence. What intelligence can we draw upon about an area, about its housing, its population, and its needs, and how can feed into the housing strategy. And in terms of evidence, I think it’s important to think quite broadly as well. It’s not just about the public official data sets. It’s also looking at more localised insights and inputs that can inform the foundations of the strategy/

Another key consideration is about stakeholders. So I think it’s really worth putting a bit of time up front in developing a housing strategy, really thinking about who do you need to involve. And this can range from different levels. So through local community groups, through to housing associations, councillors, developers, and another body. It’s really worth thinking about mapping out your stakeholders and really thinking about your approach to involving them in developing the housing strategy. Then lastly as well, I think it’s crucial to think about time scales as well. When does this strategy need to be ready by? Also, what else is perhaps happening at the same time? Really considering where this fits into the local electoral cycle, thinking through of committee timescales, and also trying to ensure it’s not overlapping, perhaps, with other important consultations at the same time, really. Just trying to make sure it’s sequenced in a way that’s going to really help it being developed, really.

Maggie Rafalowicz

Okay. All right, James. As I said, we’ve been working on quite a few strategies through the last year. How do we go about doing it? Can we share that with the audience about what it is that we need to do in order to complete a strategy strategy that’s meaningful, not just something that you file away in an electronic folder.

James McHugh

Yeah. I suppose it does depend to an extent on the time scales and the budget available. But I think it’s really important to initially think about engagement, particularly that upfront engagement, who you can speak to and how that informs a initial draft of the strategy. So trying to come up with a bit of an engagement plan to really shape your initial thinking. Obviously, a critical aspect of the drafting itself. I think we always try to aim to produce something which is reflective of the tone and style of the Council and the identity of the local area. And it can be really important to look at other key documents out there notably things like the local plan or the corporate strategy, and make sure we’re using the language that reflects the Council and its other ambitions. I think also when it comes to that drafting aspect of it as well, it’s really thinking about the external environment and just some of the strategies over the last year, trying to reflect some of those immediate pressures that places faced. So I think notably what we’ve seen recently, and these are trends that are likely to exist and perpetuate in the coming years as well, is stuff around homelessness and temporary accommodation.

That’s really risen up the agenda and how drastic the situation is in terms of numbers and cost and the impact on household. So I think temporary accommodation has been a big thing to consider. In terms of social housing, obviously the new consumer regulations are coming in, and that’s a key thing to reflect in some of those housing strategies. I feel like the importance of the sustainability agenda has certainly risen up in terms of importance. I’m very much thinking about issues around retrofit and climate resilience and adaptation. I think that’s certainly played into the drafting of housing strategies. The critical aspect as well is just trying to think about how structure it. Typically, we’ll have a housing strategy which will be clustered around a series of strategic priorities or themes or missions. And it’s around that that you build the wider document and try to illustrate the sum of the local context and how those priorities are going to address the main challenges in an area. Then I suppose following the drafting is actually using that as a basis to go out and consult. You’ve often got the initial engagement aspect, which is helping to inform that draft.

Then when you’ve got a draft, actually going out there and trying to gather a bit of evidence and feedback on that. It’s really critical to come up with an effective plan for consultation on that, which you’ve got the typical means in terms of advertising on a council website and designing perhaps a survey and sharing the draft of feedback with professional stakeholders. But it’s also really important to think through how you can go beyond that and engage with some of the harder to reach groups. Some of the housing strategies that we, as Campbell Tickell, have been involved with in the past year or so, we’ve had clients that really wanted to go above and beyond in terms of involving more marginalised communities. So one example of that was we were working with a borough in London, and they were very keen to recruit members of the local community to do a bit of engagement and consultation. And so that involved recruiting and training a bunch of community researchers who are typically young people going through college, interested in getting a bit of experience. And they went out and actually interviewed people in their local community.

So that was really effective. And then there was another client in the north of England who were incredibly keen that we go out and engage with, particularly harder to reach groups. And we worked a plan up with them to run a series of focus groups and really going out and gathering views of people perhaps not particularly well represented in typical consultations. So care leavers, people with physical or mental disabilities, people from different minority communities. So that was really effective as well. It feeds into a much more robust document that’s more reflective of a wider range of views, really.

Maggie Rafalowicz

It’s interesting that actually the way that listening. Actually, it can be a real basis for continuing engagement and continuing listening. I think one of the important elements is actually that we feed back to people that we’ve listened, that the strategy that’s been updated actually does reflects some of their concerns, some of the issues that are important in the context of what’s achievable and what isn’t. I think that’s been a really great thing that we’ve done this year. I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done on that.

James McHugh

Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes Sometimes it’s very much a learning exercise for the client as well in terms of building those networks, those relationships. It can be used as a foundation for further engagement. It’s also really critical to think about the resourcing of that as well. So thinking how you can recompense people for their time and efforts, really. So I think that’s very important as well. I suppose once you’ve got that draft, you’ve got the consultation, it actually comes to trying to finalise the document and trying to arbitrate between different viewpoints as well, because you’re not going to go out and have unanimous agreements on every aspect of a housing strategy. Being able to demonstrate that you’ve heard from a wide range of viewpoints, you’ve been clear, you’ve been upfront, you’ve sought feedback on the proposals, and then it’s about trying to pull that together into a final document which reflects the council’s ambitions, which is well considered. Visually, it’s got all the right aspects to it. Once you’ve got that thinking through, actually, what is the process for sign off and approval. Local authorities typically is quite a long lead in time to get something in front of a cabinet or a committee.

Very much that final document, you need to be thinking about that well in advance rather than at the end of the consultation, really. Then I guess, lastly, Maggie, is actually having it as a living document that you’re able to hand back to the client that can be implemented as well. We very much don’t want something that just ticks a box, it’s just going to sit on the shelf, but something that’s actually actionable that the client can pick up and take for with its partners, with its communities, and form the basis of ongoing efforts.

Maggie Rafalowicz

Yeah, I think I’m really hot on having action plans and strategies because I think We need to be able to be deliverable. And I think that what we do is actually do the framework for the action plan, but it’s really up to then the council to actually to flush it out, to get buy-in from different people, to make sure that they’ve got sponsors, to make sure that it’s actually monitored and delivered. I think our role is up to giving the local authority the framework within which to actually make sure you’ve got the right action plan, but it really does belong to the local authority the members, the officers, and the community to actually implement those. I think that’s really important. I think if I’m thinking about stuff that we’ve learned during the year, and we’re coming back to this resident consultation as the need to build trust with the people because people are typically very cynical. They don’t feel that they’re being listened to. Also, I think from my past work, I did a lot of estate regeneration. We look about the big picture, but in actual fact, as an individual person who lives in the borough, in a local authority, they’re thinking about, How does it affect me? What’s the difference it’s going to make to my life? They’re actually bridging that gap between the vision and actually how it’s delivered is really important. What other things have we learned, actually, from the work that we’ve done?

James McHugh

Yeah. I think definitely that point on trust is really important. And it can be a fine balance with housing strategies because people often do share a lot of, sometimes quite, intimate details about their own circumstances. It can be difficult because the housing strategy is a bigger picture document. It’s not necessarily going to speak to the details of someone’s individual case. We’re always very sensitive when people share stuff like that with us and try to escalate any issues back to the counter if they need to be addressed. But I think the strategy needs to be relatable and give people a sense of what their future in an area might look like and what efforts are going in to address challenges they face, whether about affordability or the quality of their home or maybe looking for a new home. I think something which is very topical at the minute is housing growth. It’s very much a feature of all the strategies that we’ve produced in different respects. We’ve got a new government which is being very ambitious in terms of housing I guess. Now, what I found certainly in the various places we’ve worked is I don’t think it’s a binary split in terms of NIMBI versus YIMBI.

So there’s a lot of talk in the media about not in my backyard as a new category of yes in my backyard. And what I find is a lot more nuanced in reality than that. I’ve come across very few people in terms of our consultation activities who say outright that they’re opposed to new housing in their local area. I think across the board, people are accepting of the need for new housing, particularly people with families and where they’ve got younger generations or even younger friends or colleagues who are struggling to get on the housing ladder or somewhere affordable to rent. But I think what really comes across very strongly, whether it’s a rural district or a inner city borough, is people feeling that often new housing doesn’t offer anything to them. People being concerned about their access to that housing, and in particular, the impact in terms of local infrastructure. People often come with concerns and sometimes experiences of, well, there’s been new housing development, but it’s added pressure to local schools or surgeries or so forth. I think that whole growth argument is more nuanced than sometimes it’s given credit for, really. I don’t know, Maggie, if you have any reflections on that and whether we’re looking for housing to provide too much sometimes, whether you look at the housing figures, but it’s also looking to address transport jobs.

Maggie Rafalowicz

I think the tension that the local authority often has is because it needs to look like a housing association. It It has to deal with the issues and the concerns and demand of the existing populations. But a local authority has to think about the future. I think that’s that balance between how do you look after the current stock, the current people that you’ve got, but who are the people in the future that you’re going to have to… That you have responsibility to house and to care for. I think that’s the tension with the growth. I think you’re absolutely right. Nobody really likes any new development near them. Let’s face it, but we need it. I think the story needs to be told. I think if people feel that they have got a stake in what’s being done there is good. It’s always been a tricky thing. I think what a housing strategy can do is it actually tells that story, tells the story of what you’re doing, the narrative of why you’re doing things. When we speak to loads of members as part of the engagement, don’t we? We speak to members from different parties within the local authority, or we live in different make cabinet members or even backbenches and ward councillors.

Everybody wants the place to be better. That’s what they see the role of the strategy is. They do want it to be better. They want to have people to have a pride in the local authority. That story that you’re telling, that we need to tell as part of it is really important. There’s a rationale behind things, and people don’t feel that they own what’s happening rather than actually being done to them.

James McHugh

Absolutely. I think sometimes it’s also about striking the right balance as well in terms of the tone and how you tell that story. Often these documents would draw quite heavily on the challenges, and sometimes you got quite stark figures about the scale of affordability or maybe issues in terms of the quality of stock. But it’s about using some of that evidence and some of the challenges, but also aligning that to more of a positive, optimistic future tone as well. And also trying to accentuate the assets of places as well. So as part of that story, bring in some of the positive factors that they can build on as well. And trying to give nods and references to partners as well. As you said earlier, Maggie, It’s not going to be the council delivering these strategies in isolation. So as part of that story. You need to have other characters involved in there and really give that impression to people reading it that it is a collective effort and it’s a collectively owned document.

Maggie Rafalowicz

But ultimately, you have to make decisions and you have to make priorities and you can’t keep everybody happy. I think if you can share that you’ve listened to people and the reason why you’ve got to something, then it actually helps. But we’re also living in a world where resources are incredibly tight, so priorities have to be done. And it’s partly your statutory requirements, and it’s partly actually what you want to achieve on a broader sense. But I think that it is that story of the place. I think we Coming back to that, actually. I think you’re right, because we have been working in small authorities and large authorities and urban areas and rural areas. And it always comes back to the story of the place and how the housing offer can be better for most residents.

James McHugh

Absolutely. I think just on the point of resource as well, it’s very well rehearsed some of the financial challenges that council have. I think what we find is incredible amount of commitment from people working at councils, but often because of those constrained resources, people often are almost forced into silos of service areas where they’re sometimes trying to address such immediate pressures in their own service area, that there’s little room to put your head above the parapet and connect the different services. Sometimes it’s about bringing that additional capacity and support and trying to come up with something a bit more systemic that looks across all of these different services services and joins them up a little bit, really. I’m always struck by actual some of the quality of employees in some of the councils we work with, but also their commitments, the day-to-day services that they deliver. It’s about building upon that and trying to join things into a collective, meaningful structure and a narrative that makes sense and benefits them.

Maggie Rafalowicz

Okay. Well, I think we’ve talked our way through a lot of the issues and challenges, and I hope this has been enlightening for people who are listening to this about the importance of housing strategies and a wider role that it plays. It’s not just about housing, it’s about the entire community.

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To discuss the issues raised in this episode, contact Maggie Rafalowicz at Maggie.Rafalowicz@campbelltickell.com or James McHugh at James.McHugh@campbelltickell.com