Government publishes new five step plan

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On 2nd July, the Government published a new five step plan for social and affordable housing, titled ‘Delivering a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing’.

This high-level strategy sets out how the Government will work with the housing sector to increase the amount of social rent homes and improve quality.

A breakdown of the five steps and their supporting policy initiatives are below:

 

1: Deliver the biggest boost to grant funding in a generation

    1. A ten-year ‘Social and Affordable Homes Programme’ worth £39 billion, which will open for bids this winter, following a prospectus to be published over summer. The plan also confirmed that at least 60% of the next programme will be for social rent, at least 70% will be for outside of London and the programme will be able to support regeneration on sites that deliver a net-addition of units.
    2. This follows the announcement of a new National Housing Bank – a new subsidiary of Homes England which will work with Mayors and local leaders to provide up to £16 billion of financial transactions (loans, equity investment and guarantees) to support the development of 500,000 new homes.

 

2: Rebuild the sector’s capacity to borrow and invest in new and existing homes

    1. A ten year rent settlement of CPI+1% and a consultation on how to implement rent convergence, at either £1 or £2 a week.
    2. Granting social landlords equal access to remediation funding, with an additional £1 billion made available through the Building Safety Fund and Cladding Safety Scheme.
    3. An additional £2.5 billion low-interest loans to support the delivery of new social and affordable housing.

 

3: Establish an effective and stable regulatory regime

    1. The implementation of Awaab’s Law Phase 1 from October 2025, and new electrical testing requirements from November 2025.
    2. Consultations on a new, updated Decent Homes Standard to come into force in 2035, and new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards to be met by social landlords by 2030.
    3. Requirements for senior housing managers and executives to have specific housing qualifications through a new Competence & Conduct Standard from October 2026, following a transition period.
    4. A new Access to Information Scheme, requiring social landlords to proactively publish information about housing management from October 2026, and respond to Freedom of Information style requests from tenants from April 2027.
    5. £1 million of funding for a new Resident Experience Innovation Fund to support social landlords, tenants and tenant organisations to test and scale up new projects looking to deliver better outcomes for tenants.

 

4: Reinvigorate council housebuilding

    1. New reforms to the Right to Buy following the conclusion of a previous consultation, further reducing discounts, granting greater freedom to local authorities over the use of receipts and exempting new build council properties for 35 years.
    2. £12 million for a new Council Housebuilding Skills & Capacity Programme (CHSCP) for local authorities to increase skills and capacity, including in their planning departments and in their engagement with registered providers.
    3. A review of the Public Works Loan Board discounted interest rate for building new affordable housing, which is set to expire in March 2026.
    4. A review of the threshold of homes at which local authorities need to have a Housing Revenue Account.

 

5: Forge a renewed partnership with the sector to build at scale

    1. A ‘call to arms’ to the housing sector to demonstrate that they can deliver at pace.

 

The plan also confirmed that the Government will be publishing its Long Term Housing Strategy in the near future.

Many of these policies were included in the Northern Housing Consortium’s submission to the Spending Review, and we are glad to see the progress made by government on directly addressing the housing crisis.

We will be working with our members to respond to relevant consultations and continuing to work with both our members and government officials to ensure that policy supports housing providers in the North to create better homes and places. If you want to inform our response to the consultations, please attend our Disrepair Network on 24th July, and the next ​Policy Network​ is due to take place on the 6th August.