Conference Chair's Opening Address
John Mills, Chair CIH in Scotland
Welcome to Conference Chair's Opening Address.
Welcome to the 2007 Annual Conference & Exhibition of the CIH in Scotland.
Colleagues, working in housing brings its stresses and strains and I know it is incredibly busy for you. I am therefore really pleased to see so many of you here. I can promise you a packed Conference.
There are a wide range of informative and stimulating sessions and speakers throughout the week, as well as full social programme, which I'm sure you'll also enjoy. Some of the sessions to look forward to this week include:
- Regeneration
- Strategic housing investment
- Regulation and Inspection
- ASB
- Planning
- The efficiencies agenda
- Community ownership
- Supporting People
- Homelessness
- The Right to Buy
- Rents
- Migrant workers
- Procurement
- Mixed communities
- Sustainable rural communities – and in that particular session, John Perry will be talking about his work in Nicaragua
I am very pleased that Rhona Brankin, the Communities Minister, will be addressing Conference in a few minutes. It is always difficult when there is a changeover of Minister especially in the middle of the Comprehensive Spending Review and just before the May election. However, I'm sure that Rhona will make her mark in the time before the election and I'm looking forward to hearing from her.
I am also very pleased that the Deputy Health Minister, Lewis McDonald, will be addressing Conference this afternoon. This is a significant move towards improving the working relationships between health and housing professionals. It highlights the important role that the housing profession has in delivering the Joint Future agenda. A better understanding of the shared priorities between professions is a sound starting point for successful partnership approaches. Partnerships we need to work if we want to make real improvements to the lives of the most vulnerable in our society.
I'd like to draw your attention to the mini theatre which takes place in the Exhibition arena. Whilst not a new initiative, we've changed the location and we've redesigned it. It's now right in the heart of the arena, so you won't be able to miss it. Importantly though, there are a range of sessions running throughout the week and I'd like to encourage you to attend some of the them.
Could I also encourage you to go round the Exhibition. There are a wide range of excellent services and products on show and available there, so I'm sure you'll find lots to interest you. As an added incentive, we're running an Exhibition treasure hunt which gives you the opportunity to win an I-Pod shuffle.
I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all the exhibitors and sponsors for their continued support – without their support this event would not be the success it is. I'd like to particularly thank Barclays for once again being our overall sponsor. Those of you who are football fanatics will be aware that Barclays sponsor the Premier League in England. Well, they've brought up the Barclays Premiership Trophy with them and on Tuesday and Wednesday on Stand 81 you can get your photograph taken with the trophy for a donation to my charities.
Some of you will already know that each Chair of the CIH in Scotland adopts one or two charities to support in their time in office. My charities this year are Save the Children and Beating Bowel Cancer. There will be a range of opportunities throughout the week to help me raise money for these charities.
Scotland needs more affordable homes for rent – at least 30,000 over the next 3 years to meet the need for housing across Scotland. We also need more homes for home ownership – we need to build on schemes like Homestake and develop new schemes such as mid-rent schemes to allow people who want to, to take that first affordable step into home ownership.
The CIH in Scotland has welcomed the increased resources going into housing. However increased investment in additional housing supply is vital to meet current and future housing needs. This is especially necessary to meet the challenges the 2012 target as well as meeting the needs of the many thousands of people in Scotland who require housing.
But meeting the 10,000 homes a year will take more than direct investment in housing. We all know that infrastructure is critical, and delivering new housing will only happen if water and sewerage treatment is also delivered on. We have to ensure that future water and sewerage investment plans tie in with strategic housing investment plans.
In addition, the planning process has to do more to ensure the supply of much needed housing. Planning guidance on affordable housing has to be strengthened. Affordable housing quotas are an absolute necessity. As is the allocation of sites for affordable housing where local evidence indicates the need.
But it's not just more homes we need – it's decent homes too. Homes which at least meet the quality standard, homes which are energy efficient, homes in which people are proud to bring home visitors, homes in which people feel safe and secure, homes in areas where people want to be, homes which are in mixed communities. Homes where, if rented, people get the best quality service, not a second rate one.
Meeting the requirements of the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) by 2015 should ensure that people in the social rented sector live in decent quality housing. I recognise that meeting the standard is an expensive process and clearly some local authorities – particularly where tenants have voted 'no' to transfer – will struggle to meet the standard. Some RSLs, particularly those who have received stock through stock transfer from Scottish Homes, will also struggle to meet the standard. Whilst I'm sure that such organisations could do a lot to reduce the shortfall through efficiencies, there is absolutely a case for additional financial support from the Scottish Executive.
In addition there is no point in investing in stock that does not have a long-term future. Some local authorities and RSLs will have to demolish properties that will either never reach the standard or are too expensive to improve. These works should be funded by the Scottish Executive. And where there is case to replace these houses due to local demand, the Executive has to provide additional funding to do this.
Where an authority has been unable to transfer its stock and can't meet the SHQS, we need to consider more partial transfers and what role Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) could play – could they take on the management of local authority housing?
We can't just stick our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is going to be alright, we have to provide those who rent from local authorities or RSLs with decent housing and if that means funding housing in another way then lets try to work that out.
Location, location, location – we've heard these words so many times. Isn't it time we all started thinking about the neighbourhood, the environment that people live in. We really should ensure that these new, and improved houses are located in high quality environments. Environments that include community open green spaces and play spaces, that tackle environmental antisocial behaviour and that ensure quality hard and soft landscaping. An environment or neighbourhood that people really want to live in, that they choose to live in – otherwise what are we really doing, what are we really about.
And when we're talking about standards and quality, what are we doing about private housing? How are we really ensuring that private housing comes up to standard? Isn't it time we started thinking about the Quality Standard for the private sector – or is that too political to contemplate?
These are not unreasonable demands – it's only what all of us here would expect. Don't the people of Scotland deserve decent housing in the 21st Century? It does take resources – there's no doubt about that. But it also takes the vision to see where we need to go and to steer and support us in that direction. And it takes commitment – a commitment by all of us to actually deliver.
This is the kind of message we have to get across to politicians in the run up to, and after the May election. We have to get across the importance of housing in being a key building block enabling Scotland's people build successful lives. A home – and a decent home – helps people access work, helps them improve their health and their children's education. It helps deliver Fresh Talent, safer neighbourhoods and a thriving economy.
The other targets for our message are the current Ministers and officials because of the ongoing Comprehensive Spending Review. This will be announced later in the year following Westminster's deliberations. It may well be tight though for Scotland – and tight for housing. All the more reason for us all to get across the importance of housing for social and economic policy, to get across the importance of housing investment if we're going to deliver on the 2012 homelessness target – one of the most far reaching and visionary pieces of legislation in Europe; and if we're going to deliver on fuel poverty and the Quality Standard.
Influencing the thinking and policy of the political Parties and the Executive in respect of the CSR and the election has been one of the key areas of activity for the CIH in Scotland over the last 8 months or so. You should have seen our programme for action – Building a sustainable housing future for Scotland, which we launched late last year. You may also have seen Housing Scotland: Planning for a better future which has been produced by CoSLA, SCSH, SFHA, Shelter and the CIH in Scotland to influence politicians and officials and was recently launched at the Parliament when all five organisations met with Rhona Brankin the Communities Minister and Des McNulty, the Deputy Minister.
Colleagues, this Conference will give you the opportunity to listen to and question politicians not only about their commitment to housing but their plans and vision for the future. The Communities Minister will be addressing you in a few minutes and we also have a political panel session on Thursday. But you will also have the chance on Wednesday to question representatives from CoSLA, SCSH, SFHA, Shelter and the CIH about their joint manifesto and what they want for housing.
Of course May the 3rd is not just the election for Scotland's Parliament. It is also the election day for Scotland's local government. Elections which, because of boundary changes and the introduction of PR, will bring in a raft of new elected members. This present us all with real challenges but also real opportunities. Change of political control, hung councils, coalitions, new councillors possibly with little knowledge of housing are all possible. We have to raise the importance and profile of housing with them which is especially crucial if we are to hit the 2012 target, raise the quality of housing and improve service delivery. Challenges and opportunities indeed.
There is no doubt in my mind that much has been done for housing by the Scottish Executive over the years. There has been a considerable amount of legislation, guidance and initiatives – much of which the housing sector wanted and supported. But more needs to be done. The Scottish Executive, local authorities, housing associations and the private sector have to work together far more effectively to deliver for the people of Scotland.
I've already mentioned the importance of bringing housing in Scotland up to the quality standard. I don't know if you saw the TV programme Colin and Justin on the estate – or what you thought of it. Whichever way you look at it, there were a number of key questions we have to be asking ourselves: what kind of housing are we providing, what kind of areas do we expect people in live in, what kind of life do many of our tenants actually have – and is it all really good enough? The session on Wednesday is going to use Colin and Justin's work in Arden to examine these questions and more.
And of course this all relates to what kind of housing sector do we want, who are we housing, how is it funded, how we meet needs and at the same time build sustainable, mixed communities?
The CIH in Scotland started off this discussion when we launched The future for social renting in Scotland, produced for us by Newhaven Research. That report has been followed by the interim report on Affordable Housing in Northern Ireland, the Hills report in England and we also know that the Executive is conducting their own review on housing which will be finalised by June and could result in a Green or White Paper.
The profile of people living in the social rented sector is changing. We will increasingly house a disproportionate amount of elderly people, young single people and single parents with health, social care and support needs. A debate is needed to determine what the future of social housing should be and how local authorities and RSLs can meet a wide range of housing needs.
Colleagues, we really do seem to be at a crossroads where we need to come to a view on what direction housing, and in particular social rented housing, is going to go in. We can't just leave it to the politicians and officials to decide for us – we need to determine the future of the sector in which we work and ensure in the process that we are geared up and skilled up for the future. The Conference gives you the opportunity to examine this fundamental issue in detail as there are two sessions focusing on this over the next three days.
In conclusion, I'd like to thank:
- All the speakers in advance for their presentations
- All the other sponsors and exhibitors and for all their support
- All the Institute Board members and staff for all their hard work in lead up to the Conference and for their support throughout the year
- And of course I'd like to thank you for attending this year's Conference and Exhibition and for helping make the difference.
Please enjoy the Conference.