Why housing associations must build strong partnerships with local authorities in a challenging financial landscape

I was appointed as Chair of the Birmingham Social Housing Partnership (BSHP) in September 2023. BSHP is a partnership of 28 social housing providers who work in Birmingham, united by a single purpose - that everyone should be able to live in a quality home they can afford. Our members own and manage over 30,000 homes in the city, providing vital homes to people across Birmingham.

Only weeks after taking on my role as Chair, Birmingham City Council triggered a section 114 notice. While this doesn’t mean that the council is ‘effectively bankrupt’, the city faces a challenging in-year shortfall of £87.4 million for 2023/24, rising to £164.8 million in 2024/25. Alongside this, the council is facing additional costs elsewhere, and central government commissioners have been appointed as decision makers for the next three years at least.

What is the social housing landscape in Birmingham like now?

Housing need

Birmingham currently has more than 23,000 households on the housing register, with over 7,000 people in the highest priority band (Band A). As of April 2024, the city has a shortfall of 30,000 affordable homes, a figure that has risen dramatically over the last 15 years.

Housing associations completed 1,200 new affordable homes last year, a steep decrease of 15% on the previous year. Development has taken a back seat as housing associations invest in existing homes, to ensure our homes are ready for the future.

We have 4,000 households (mainly families) currently stuck in some form of temporary accommodation. We are also acutely aware that the over 65 population is expected to increase by 20% by this time in 10 years in Birmingham.

Exempt accommodation

Birmingham is also the epicentre of the exempt accommodation scandal that has seen the rise of lease based registered providers, with 26,000 bed spaces in the city.

Much of the provision is low quality and high cost, with both the Regulator and the city battling to stem the flow of market forces taking advantage of weak outdated housing benefit regulations, which has finally led to the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act.

Housing support cuts

Given the extreme financial pressures it’s facing, Birmingham has had to make tough decisions about what to fund, which is unfortunately driving cuts to funding for services. We’re particularly concerned about significant cuts to the homes for vulnerable adults budget, which includes ~£2m of cuts and the withdrawal of housing support for 16-18 year olds without a statutory obligation. We need to see decent alternatives for these young people, especially as Birmingham is a young city and experiences very high levels of childhood poverty

We are also concerned about the decommissioning of the prison leavers hub, which has supported and rehoused 859 people leaving prison since January of this year. The majority of these prison leavers require support for mental ill health, substance misuse or disability. Our fear is that service cuts will return us to referrals from probation and prisons into poor quality non-commissioned, unregulated supported accommodation, undoing so much of our work to derisk this complex area of housing and support. 

We need viable alternatives for these vulnerable and high-risk groups, and we support the NHF’s calls for emergency funding for councils in financial crisis to protect these support services.

How have we been navigating this new landscape?

Increased communication

Birmingham City Council (BCC) has had a tumultuous few years, with 9 CEO’s in 10 years (including interims) and high senior leadership turnover. This has meant it’s been hard to build consistent and proactive relationships. However, we have seen change recently with much more consistency in leadership positions and a joint focus on tackling the challenges head on, whilst also preparing for what lies ahead.

In practice, this has led to increased engagement at BSHP meetings and working collaboratively on the best use of homes across the city, with the aim of reducing homelessness collectively. Collaborative work has taken place on neighbourhood management and working with the city on their sales of land and buildings, making sure that some of these are used for social and affordable housing.

It's not always been smooth sailing. There have been huge challenges for BCC when making cuts, and many of us are worried about the long-term impact of this. There are many areas where we’ll need to build on our relationship and keep up clear communication channels with the council to ensure much needed social homes across Birmingham.

Adapting to a new city landscape

With major regeneration planned in Digbeth, Druids Heath and Ladywood over the next few decades, there is a role to play for our members to work in partnership with the city to develop a modern plan that creates the right homes in the right places.

We want to ensure that as housing associations we can be the community anchor that is so important within our estates. The plans have the potential to be the biggest widespread regeneration effort in Birmingham since the postwar period. The city council has worked hard on this and there is a collective will to do more and, importantly, to build more. That is the clear ask from the city to our partnership.

The new Affordable Homes Programme will come directly under the West Midlands Combined Authority control from 2026, and it is essential that we align ourselves in building the right affordable and social homes in our city. This means family homes at social rent must be the top priority.

Importantly, we all align in thinking that high quality, affordable housing is one of the most important pillars of an anti-poverty strategy. More social housing directly tackles child poverty, creates sustainable employment and improves mental and physical health.

Why now is the time to build strong relationships with local authorities

My advice to other housing associations is: now is not the time to batten down the hatches and look after our own, this is a time to build stronger partnerships.

Housing associations play a key role within local communities, and can bring together services, align provision and offer joined up support. This will be vital to maximising our impact, due to the overall reduction in frontline services.

It’s not going to be easy, and we need to remind ourselves why we exist as social purpose organisations. It’s times like these where housing associations can really make a difference to the communities we serve.