industry news


List reveals the country’s 10 best HAs to work for


that are currently leading the way in the sector. The table shows the pecking order of the


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leading organisations are according to employee engagement specialists Best Companies, who compile the list for the newspaper. Jonathan Austin, founder and chief


executive of Best Companies, commented: “By featuring in the Best Not for Profit Organisations to Work For List, these housing associations have been identified as the very best places to work this year. If you work in a similar industry, these are the organisations you should be looking to for inspiration; using them as a benchmark to measure yourself


he latest Sunday Times 100 Best Not for Profit Organisations to Work For List includes the 10 Housing Associations


against in the coming years.” According to the list compilers Best


Companies, being placed in the list gives housing associations a range of important benefits. These include “engaged employees – being placed on the list also gives companies invaluable data based on how their employees really feel.” The company says they are able to “use this to make real change in the workplace for the better.” Jonathan Austin added: “Making it on to the


list is about so much more than competing against others in your industry; it’s about celebrating your employee engagement and taking steps to improve further. Making sure your employees love where they work will transform your organisation from the inside, and could translate into higher productivity, and improved customer service.”


HAs in the Sunday Times 100 Best Not for Profit Organisations Housing Association SLH Group


Wales & West Housing B3Living


Dale and Valley Homes Weaver Vale Housing Trust Newydd Housing Association CHS Group Calico


The Havebury Housing Partnership Ongo Partnership Ltd


Position 1 2 3 4 7


13 14 16 19 23


Rating 3 Star 3 Star 3 Star 3 Star 3 Star 2 Star 2 Star 2 Star 2 Star 2 Star


Lewis fails to give clarity on target


Housing 2016 conference in which he reaffirmed previous commitments post-Brexit, but failed to be clear on whether one million homes was an official target. Following a speech designed to offer


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reassurance and galvanise the sector to “keep calm and carry on” following a shock result to vote Leave, Lewis said that he “never set a target” to build 1 million homes. In his speech he reaffirmed the


Government’s committment to build 200,000 Starter Homes by 2020 however, in spite of post-Brexit concerns around the housing market: “Our policy programmes to deliver those commitments carry on,” he told the audience. Lewis said that he would shortly bring forward measures designed to avoid “abuses” of Right to Buy discounts for housing assocation tenants. In a later session regarding the achievability


of the 1 million homes, and whether that ‘target’ was adequate, John Godfrey, corporate affairs director of Legal & General Group told the audience that an efficient off-site approach to housebuilding was the way forward. “We need to move away from our Biblical building approach to a more modular approach,” he told delegates, revealing that L&G Homes has constructed a 650,000 ft2


facility


manufacturing modular cross-laminated timber panels for homes near Leeds, the first of its kind in the UK. He believed it was more important to focus


on Build to Rent than “paper money,” telling the audience: “We are unique in Europe in not having an institutional Build to Rent Market.” Robert Grundy, head of housing at Savills,


told the audience that the UK’s housebuilding performance had been improving, with “nearer to 170,000 per year currently, if you count conversions.” However he warned that “following Brexit it will be a lot tougher.”


Threat of eviction hanging over “hundreds of thousands”


Campaigning group Shelter is claiming that 350,000 people are at risk of eviction as a result of legal action by their landlord. Using figures on possession cases from the


Ministry of Justice, the housing charity found that court action was taken against 148,000 households in the 12 months to April. With average property occupancy rates, this is equivalent to over a third of a million people. A possession claim is the first stage in a court


process that can end with an individual losing their home. It is usually initiated by a breach of the tenancy conditions, such as non-payment of rent, causing damage to the property or being a serious nuisance to neighbours. However, a possession claim can also occur


where there has been no breach and the landlord simply wants the property vacant – either so they can sell the property or re-let it to someone else, usually at a higher rent. People renting in the London Boroughs of


Enfield and Barking & Dagenham faced the greatest risk of eviction, according to Shelter. In these Boroughs, it said that one in 23 tenancies was “under threat” – which worked out as 2,314 households in Enfield, and 1,647 in Barking & Dagenham. In the boroughs of Havering and Croydon it


was one in 27 and in Ealing, one in 28, but Shelter also pointed out this was a problem that “stretches far beyond London”. Areas such as Luton (one in 28 rented homes at risk),


Thurrock in Essex (one in 34) and Peterborough (one in 35) also made it into the top 20 areas most at risk. Shelter calculated the figures by comparing


the total number of possession claims issued in each area in the last 12 months with the total number of renting households in each location. The charity group also reported that the


volume of people facing eviction who were approaching the charity for advice “was getting higher and higher”. A spokesman said “In the past year alone,


over 9,800 people facing eviction have called the Shelter helpline for advice, and 500,000 people have visited the Shelter website’s eviction advice pages.”


www.housingmmonline.co.uk | HMM July 2016 | 7


he Housing Minister Brandon Lewis gave a televised address to the Chartered Institute of Housing’s


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