From the chapter ‘Local spaces‘
Sir David Bell, University of Sunderland Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, Chair of Karbon Homes and former Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education
From the Dickensian slums of the 19th century through to the contemporary cost-of-living and affordability crisis, housing has frequently been a matter of public and political concern and debate.
I was born and raised in a Glasgow council house (‘social housing’, in modern parlance), where six of us lived together in a three-bedroom flat. While our home was in a relatively green and spacious part of the city, not far away were council estates with houses crammed together, in areas with poor natural light and precious few amenities.
Nowadays, the social housing world is contending with a myriad of issues. Resident satisfaction, building quality and safety, decarbonisation and constructing enough new homes – at the same time as undertaking financial planning over a 30-year timescale – are all weighty matters.
But I am struck by how little the specific needs of children are a subject of debate in housing, whether that be the social housing sector, the private rented sector or the commercial for-sale sector.
The impact on children of living in poor housing has been well documented and all too apparent over the years. According to the Joseph Rowntree Trust, 30 per cent of all families with children living in privately rented houses pay rents they cannot afford.[i] They point out that investment in social housing could lift 600,000 people out of poverty.
Changes to the welfare and benefits system over the past decade have also impacted on children, including, from 2015, a two-child limit for benefits. The abolition of the spare room subsidy cut financial support for those tenants deemed to be under-occupying their homes (a policy quickly abandoned by the devolved government in Scotland).
A cap on benefits disproportionately affects single parents, 90 per cent of whom are women.[ii] Payments of Universal Credit take five weeks to be paid, meaning that many children live precariously for a considerable period. The use of food banks and the rising cost of energy have all added to the stress on children, with the inevitable mental health consequences. There is also the phenomenon called ‘residualisation’ where social housing is increasingly concentrated in the most deprived neighbourhoods. Prior disadvantage, inferior quality housing and homelessness mean that children in social housing are more likely to demonstrate poor educational and health outcomes.
In other words, social housing is not the cause of disadvantage. Rather, it becomes a refuge for those – children included – who have already been on the receiving end of disadvantaged circumstances.
The concept of ‘adverse childhood experiences’ (ACEs)[iii] is increasingly being applied in the housing sector. It includes the identification of new parents who might struggle with family life so that additional health visitor support can be deployed to help. Or it might involve practical ways of dealing with strained financial circumstances and debt. Using the ACEs’ framework demonstrates that staff from a variety of agencies, in partnership with social housing providers, can play a powerful role in intervening positively in the lives of children and families.
Current government policy sees private home ownership, or routes to private home ownership, through policies such as Rent to Buy, as the ‘gold standard’. But private home ownership does not guarantee that the needs of children will be secured. As developers push for higher-density developments, open spaces and gardens have been squeezed. Cars dominate in too many places, creating both a safety hazard and less opportunity for children to play outside.
While welcomed, the UK government’s National Planning Policy Framework,[iv] published in the summer of 2021, does not talk explicitly about children, although, by implication, they are included when talking about education, health and transport.
So what can be done to ensure that housing, in all its many and various forms, can be more focused on the needs of children?
Build more homes that families can afford
As a starting point, there remains an urgent need to build more houses in this country. England alone needs 340,000 new homes – including 145,000 affordable homes (homes with rents set at up to 80 per cent of the average market rate in an area) – per year until 2031, to meet current demand. By way of contrast, around 216,500 homes were created in England between April 2020 and March 2021, with only 6,000 for social rent (rents priced significantly lower than a tenant would pay in the open market).[v]
The social housing sector can play a crucial role here, as it must ensure higher quality under successive governments’ Decent Homes standards.[vi] With better quality and more affordable homes, social housing becomes a better choice than the private rented sector.
The 2021 National Planning Policy Framework lays out a template for local planning authority development plans regarding new homes, and is unlikely to be changed in the immediate short term.
However, under future iterations, there is an opportunity to amend the 2021 framework with specific reference to the needs of children and families when planning to create a child-first planning agenda. Local plans would have to make explicit reference to how its proposals would enhance the lives of children, with views garnered from those most directly affected.
Such plans should also require all homes to be child-friendly and address more explicitly the requirement for the provision of affordable, family-sized homes in both the social rent sector and for private sale.
But the focus cannot just be on new homes, as a range of actions can be taken to improve children’s experience of the homes in which they live.
Three ways to ensure all children can live in housing fit for their needs
First, the government should research and review the impact of all welfare reforms on children such as the benefit cap and the two-child limit. Poverty increases housing vulnerability, with the obvious links to childhood poverty and poor outcomes as children grow up.
Second, all those responsible for building or renting homes should ensure that as well as them being of a decent standard and energy efficient, the external environment must also be child-friendly. This means everything from traffic-calming measures to open play spaces, as well as places that are clean and tidy.
Third, social housing associations could adapt the work on ACEs. In doing so, reviewing their own activities and assessing the extent to which they are trauma-aware, they will be actively preventing harm and promoting positive outcomes.
Many housing associations do brilliant work in areas such as helping residents to access benefits and tackle loneliness. Some also run playschemes and homework clubs. Looking at such activities through the lens of the child would be a low-cost and high-impact way of promoting change for the better.
As William J. Bennett once observed: ‘Home is shelter from storms – all sorts of storms. If that is true for adults, it is even more the case for the young. It is our duty therefore to make that shelter as safe and secure as we can.’[vii]
Notes
[i] Joseph Rowntree Trust (2022) UK Poverty 2022: The Essential Guide to Understanding Poverty in the UK, York, www.jrf.org.uk/report/uk-poverty-2022
[ii] ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2019) ‘Families and households in the UK: 2019’, Table 1, www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2019
[iii] The British Psychological Society (2019) ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)’, BPS Briefing, 18 June, www.bps.org.uk/guideline/adverse-childhood-experiences-aces
[iv] Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (2021) National Planning Policy Framework, www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework–2
[v] Wilson, W. and Barton, C. (2022) ‘Tackling the under-supply of housing in England’, House of Commons Library, 19 May, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7671
[vi] Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (2006) ‘A decent home: Definition and guidance’, www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-decent-home-definition-and-guidance
[vii] Bennett, W.J. (ed) (1993) The Book of Virtues, New York: Simon & Schuster.