Introducing Better Homes for Scotland's Communities: The Executive's Proposal for the Housing Bill

Preface

1. The Scottish Executive intends to introduce a Housing Bill into the Scottish Parliament later this year. To help prepare the Bill, and to give as many people as possible the opportunity to contribute to the Bill, we have recently published a consultation paper, Better Homes for Scotland’s Communities, which contains the details of our proposals.
2. Our legislative proposals will provide a framework for addressing Scotland’s housing needs, especially in the context of developing community ownership of social housing. Our aim is to boost the rights of tenants whilst ensuring that the homes they live in are of a high standard, whilst also addressing the needs of the more vulnerable members of our communities. It is high quality housing provided well that is crucial in supporting the strong and just communities that everyone needs.
3. The Bill will cover the general areas described below. The consultation document sets out those measures which are likely to be brought forward in legislation. Other measures, that are important but do not require to be set out in law, will be taken forward separately.

New Single Tenancy

4. The Bill will create a new single tenancy which will be available to everybody who lives in social sector housing. The new tenancy will be based on an enhanced version of the existing secure tenancy. It will have all the core rights of the secure tenancy but will be enhanced in a number of ways, including better succession rights, and stronger rights to consultation and information on housing matters.
5. The new tenancy also includes a modernised right to buy. Those with a current right to buy will retain it on the same terms; new tenants will in general be entitled to the modernised right which will create a fairer balance between the needs of individuals, landlords and communities.
6. We will also create a new short tenancy which could be used in circumstances where a full tenancy may not be desirable or appropriate, such as rehabilitating tenants who have been previously evicted for anti-social behaviour or in certain types of supported accommodation where full tenancies would not be practical.

Single Regulatory Framework

7. Alongside these changes will come changes to the institutional framework. To match the uniform set of responsibilities and duties created by the new single tenancy, we will create a single regulatory framework with a single regulatory body. The new body will be an Agency of the Scottish Executive. This means it will report to Ministers and be accountable, through them, to Parliament. It will build on the experience and expertise of the staff of Scottish Homes. All social landlords, including local authorities where they act as landlords, will be registered with this new Executive Agency. This Agency will lay down and monitor a single set of performance standards and requirements which all registered social landlords (RSLs) and local authorities will have to meet.
8. We will publish a Code of Practice setting out ways in which we will ensure that that regulation is carried out in an open and accountable way, and we will ensure that there is wide and meaningful consultation on the standards which social landlords will be measured against. We are also considering extending the benefits of regulation to some community based non-housing organisations.

Strategic Role of Local Authorities

9. The Bill will strengthen the strategic role of local authorities. The two key areas are in planning housing development and financing that development. Local authorities will be responsible for producing plans concerned with the housing conditions and needs of their areas.
10. Local authorities will also be expected to take a lead role in meeting the priorities they identify in these plans. To this end, we will create new strategic local housing budgets from what were previously Scottish Homes development programme funds. Local authorities will have more of a say on the allocation of this money in their area. Taking a lead role in the distribution of this funding will in general to be linked to progress with stock transfers to avoid perceived or actual conflicts of interest with their landlord role.

Improvement and Repair Grants

11. The system of financial support by local authorities to homeowners for repairs and improvements will be reformed. The intention is to enable the limited resources available to be focused on those least able to make contributions themselves; to enable the Executive to set strategic priorities; and to widen the scope of the grants to include energy efficiency and security and safety expenditure.

Supporting People

12. We will reform the funding of those services associated with housing which provide for the most vulnerable people in our communities. Support services increasingly follow the needs and preferences of individuals, rather than being tied to the houses in which they live. The Bill will contain provisions that will enable the funding of these new arrangements. At present, the costs of supporting people are met through a number of sources; housing benefit, grants from the Scottish Homes Special Needs Allowance Package and resettlement grants. We will merge all of these funds into one single budget to be managed by local authorities. This will enable local authorities to take up their new responsibility to plan and deliver supporting people services.

Homelessness

13. The Bill brings forward measures which tackle the problem of homelessness. These follow on from the report of the Homelessness Task Force which made detailed recommendations for items to be included in the Bill. There will be an enhanced package of minimum rights for homeless people, including temporary accommodation for all homeless people while they receive pro-active advice and assistance, and a right to be placed on a housing register.
14. Local authorities will be required to produce homelessness strategies that assist all homeless people back into permanent accommodation, and will have new responsibilities to provide advice and assistance to homeless people. Housing associations and other registered social landlords will also be placed under new duties to comply with requests from local authorities to house homeless people. Importantly, these new arrangements for tackling homelessness will be under the scrutiny of the new housing regulator.

Further Information

15. This paper is a very general summary of some very detailed proposals. If you wish to comment on any of these proposals, copies of the consultation paper can be obtained by contacting:

Contact:
Gordon West
Housing Bill Team
Scottish Executive
Area 1F, Victoria Quay
EDINBURGH
EH6 6QQ
Tel: 0131 244 7954
E-mail: HousingBillTeam@scotland.gov.uk
The document can also be read on the web at the Scottish Executive Website: http://www.scotland.gov.uk

16. The closing date for responses to the consultation paper is 29 September 2000. All responses will be made available to the public unless they are marked as confidential.

Prepared by:
Housing Bill Team
Scottish Executive
July 2000