CIH Cymru responds to Audit Wales report on social housing funding shortages

The Affordable Housing report released today by Audit Wales highlighted the fact that less than half of the 20,000 new low carbon social homes to be built by 2026 have actually been delivered. Significantly more funding is needed to ensure that this target can be met.

CIH Cymru has been highlighting the need for more funding to ensure that we can meet the 20,000 new homes target. In our submission to the Senedd Local Government & Housing Committee’s ongoing inquiry into the supply of social housing we said that at least £407 million per annum is needed, in terms of Social Housing Grant, for the remainder of this Senedd's term, just to keep pace with inflation and the level of investment indicated at the start of the UK spending review period in 2022/24.

But as the Auditor General rightly points out in his report, the actual amount of investment needed to meet the target is likely to be much higher.

Yet the level of capital investment needed is only part of the solution we also need to consider other blockers to delivering social housing in Wales as highlighted in our recent evidence on social housing including:

• Providing more resources to planning departments
• Improving the supply chain
• A shortage of contractors
• Freeing up more public land for development
• Addressing the stigma around social housing which blocks development

Whilst it is imperative that the sector, in partnership with Welsh Government, overcome these challenges in this Senedd term in order to meet the 20,000 target, the task of ending our structural and system housing emergency will take longer than one political cycle.

We need to drive a long term, whole population and whole housing system approach to, which, given the depth and scale of the housing emergency is the only viable approach – recognising that the system is the sum of interdependent parts and that ‘sticking plaster’ solutions don’t work.

We need to hardwire Welsh Government’s  commitment to implementing the principles of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act in an area fundamental to the nation’s wellbeing, beyond this Senedd term, holding this and future governments to the foundation mission of providing everyone in Wales with a safe, affordable and sustainable place to call home.

So that’s why CIH Cymru, along with campaign partners Tai Pawb and Shelter Cymru, continue to argue the case for the full incorporation of the Right to Adequate and Safe Housing (report published 2018 by EHRC) into Welsh law - a right that will ensure that we can use all the levers to increase supply.

In addition, the independent cost benefit analysis from Alama economics found that for every £1 spent in meeting the right we can realise £2.30 in savings that can be invested further into realising the right, ultimately saving £11 billion over a 30-year period.

Matt Dicks, national director of CIH Cymru said:

“The report by Audit Wales highlights the funding gap to ensure we can meet the 20,000 new homes target. Whilst we agree that more investment is needed we also need to provide more resource to planning departments, tackle issues within our supply chains and ensure we have enough contractors to carry out the work.

“We need a whole system approach to meeting the target and now is the time to be ambitious and radical by making housing a foundational mission for Government, by legislating for the incorporation of the right to adequate housing into Welsh laws.

"This right will not only provide a route map to a safe, sustainable, and affordable home for the people of Wales it will act as a catalyst to increasing the pace and scale of development of social homes. Enshrining the right to adequate housing can only benefit Wales and help deliver an equitable Wales. A Wales where everyone can access a safe, affordable, and sustainable home.”