The Changing Structures of Housing Organisations

Abstract

Across the social housing sector, many organisational structures have had to change to meet the new expectations of the public sector of the 1990s. Central government policy has been geared towards extending choice in rented housing through competition. This has involved introducing CCT for local authorities (see Chapter 7) and promoting a range of alternative landlords, thus breaking up a perceived local authority monopoly in the process. As a result, observers of the housing scene in the 1990s have become familiar with new types of social housing organisations which would not have existed a decade earlier. Housing companies, and Large Scale Voluntary Transfer housing associations (LSVTs) are poised to become the mainstream social landlords of the future, changing the traditional face which has centred on local authorities and housing associations. For existing landlord organisations, the immediate future promises considerable organisational and structural reappraisal as they realign themselves to meet the challenges of performance and competition.

‘Social housing at below market rents does not have to be publicly owned. There is a long tradition of private trusts and charities providing housing in this country … We want to take this principle further, breaking away from the tradition of large monopoly local authority landlords by transferring existing council housing to new landlords.’

(DoE, 1995b, p. 28)