Industry news


Huge repairs partnership deal announced


A joint venture between Scotland’s largest social landlord and Glasgow City Council could deliver £3.7bn of repairs and maintenance work over the next 30 years. The Wheatley Group has joined the


council as joint owners of repairs service City Building Glasgow. It will employ 2,000 staff and deliver approximately £99m worth of work each year. Frank McAveety, leader of Glasgow City


Council, described the joint venture as “the biggest deal of its kind in the UK.” The company will provide repairs work to


Wheatley’s housing subsidiaries, including Glasgow Housing Association and other social landlords Cube and Loretto.


‘Groundbreaking partnership’


Bernadette Hewitt, chair of GHA, said this was “an exciting opportunity to take the repairs and maintenance service to the next level”. She added: “Tenant feedback has played a


major part in shaping what will be a modern, more efficient service provided by locally based repairs teams closer to their customers. “The joint process review designing this


new, improved service will ensure it is even better equipped to match and exceed customers’ needs and expectations.” Annemarie O’Donnell, chief executive of


Glasgow City Council, added: “This groundbreaking partnership will build on the significant and positive impact City Building has already had on Glasgow over the past decade – delivering jobs, training and first-rate services for communities and tenants.”


Mitie wins five-


year repairs deal Giant contractor Mitie has won a £21m contract to provide repairs services to a London housing association for a minimum of five years. The deal with Islington & Shoreditch


Housing Association involves doing all responsive repairs and voids works to the landlord’s 2,000-home stock across six London boroughs. Mat Bishop, managing director of Mitie


Property Services, said he was “delighted to be working with ISHA over potentially such a long term”. It has an option to extend for two further five-year peiods. This followed the winning of a six-month


contract, worth an estimated £4m, to deliver all planned maintenance works to Sanctuary Housing’s properties in Rochford, Essex.


Right to Rent ‘failing on all fronts


from ethnic minorities – in the housing market, a new report shows. A report for the Joint Council for the Welfare


A


of Immigrants (JCWI) reveals foreigners and British citizens without passports, particularly those from ethnic minorities, are being discriminated against in private rented housing, as a result of the Right to Rent scheme designed to crack down on irregular immigration. The Right to Rent scheme requires landlords


and agents to check the immigration status of all prospective tenants. If they fail to fully comply with the scheme, they face a fine of up to £3,000 or a prison sentence of up to five years. These penalties, combined with the


complexity of the immigration checks they must undertake, means that in some cases landlords are pushed into choosing tenants who feel like a ‘safer bet’ because they hold a British passport or because they ‘seem British’ or their name sounds British, the JCWI report shows.


Mystery shopping


The report was compiled by surveying private landlords – with 51 per cent of them saying the scheme has made them less likely to consider letting to foreign nationals. It also found that 42 per cent of landlords


stated they were less likely to rent to someone without a British passport. This rose to 48 per cent when explicitly asked to consider the impact of the criminal sanction. The report also found a white British tenant


without a passport was 11 per cent more likely to be ignored or turned down by landlords than a white British applicant with a passport (17 per cent of British citizens do not hold passports). The situation was worse for those from an


ethnic minority, with an enquiry from a British Black Minority Ethnic (BME) tenant without a passport was ignored or turned down by 58 per cent of landlords in a mystery shopping exercise. Where neither the white British tenant nor


the BME British tenant had a passport, the BME tenant was 14 per cent more likely to be turned away or ignored. JCWI’s mystery shopping exercise found no


evidence of ethnicity discrimination where a non-BME and a BME British citizen both held passports.


Unfair


The report claimed the Right to Rent scheme creates structural incentives for landlords to discriminate unlawfully against foreigners and ethnic minorities and JCWI is now calling on


crackdown on illegal immigrants is leading to discrimination against prospective tenants – especially those


the Government to abandon the policy. Saira Grant, chief executive of JCWI, said: “We have been warning for some time that the Right to Rent scheme is failing on all fronts. It treats many groups who need housing unfairly, it is clearly discriminatory, it is putting landlords in an impossible position, and there is no evidence that it is doing anything to tackle irregular immigration.


“Research suggests landlords who have no wish to discriminate are being forced to do so by the scheme”


JCWI’s research suggests landlords who


have no wish to discriminate are being forced to do so by the scheme – with people who have a full right to rent a home in the UK being disadvantaged, along with others who should be able to access housing. Residential Landlords Association chairman,


Alan Ward, said: “The Government’s own figures show the Right to Rent scheme is not working so maybe it is time to scrap it and think again. With the threat of a jail sentence hanging over landlords if they get it wrong, it is hardly surprising that they are being cautious. “There are more than 400 acceptable


documents proving right to rent from within the EU alone, and landlords are making risk- based decisions and only accepting documents that they recognise and have confidence in.”


HMM Stats


There were 23.7 million dwellings in England at 31 March 2016, an increase of 190,000 dwellings (0.81%) on the same point in the previous year and 1.66 million more than in 2006. 14.8 million dwellings (62.4% of all dwellings) were owner occupied, 4.8 million (20.3%) private rented dwellings and 4.0 million (16.9%) social and affordable dwellings (HAs = 2.4m and LAs = 1.6m).


www.housingmmonline.co.uk | HMM May 2017 | 17


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