Professor Michelle Norris:

Such a strong case does not exist in the context of the current housing shortage. I agree with the Deputy that the provision of social housing and council housing is fundamentally much more efficient than relying on HAP and the subsidisation of private rents. The use of mechanisms like HAP and rent supplement creates many risks for the State. As rents are unpredictable, the subsidy that will be required in the future is also unpredictable. These mechanisms create lots of other knock-on problems. They contribute to rent inflation, which creates problems for other people in the private rental market. My position is that more social housing is inherently more efficient. The issue is whether the way in which the social housing sector is funded can be reformed in a way that makes social housing easier to provide and to manage more efficiently. There is evidence that income-related rents for the current cohort of households in council housing do not even cover the management costs, let alone the costs of provision.

The Deputy is correct when he says that the characteristics of people in the council housing sector have changed radically since the 1970s. There are now many more low-income people and people on benefits in the sector, which has a depressive impact on rent receipts. There is a strong argument for letting to a wider range of income groups. Even within the current income limits, many of the local authorities we have studied have moved towards time-on-the-list methods for allocating social housing, rather than allocating based solely on need. This has led to a wider range of income groups going into council housing. That would be a mechanism for addressing the concerns of policymakers about large concentrations of lower-income households. It would also increase the revenue to the sector. I agree with the Deputy, but not on income-related rents. I think income-related rents are the problem.