CIH Cymru supports recommendations from Senedd’s local government and housing committee to increase social housing supply

The Senedd’s local government and housing committee has today published its housing supply inquiry report. The committee inquiry, launched in April 2024, heard evidence from a range of key stakeholders on the barriers and opportunities to increase housing supply in Wales.  

The resulting report – Social Housing Supply - makes a number of significant recommendations to Welsh government, which reflect the evidence provided to the committee by the Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru. 

They include recommendations around calculations of housing need, partnership working, increasing the allocation of the social housing grant, addressing the skills gap and the establishment of an arms-length national development agency to pull together land, planning modern methods of construction into a more pan-Wales strategic approach.  

In the evidence it provided to the inquiry, CIH Cymru outlined how Wales is in the midst of a housing crisis - with 11,339 individuals in temporary accommodation at the end of August 2024 including 2,860 children - and that increasing the supply of social housing at pace is critical to addressing the crisis.

Current demand for social homes is outstripping supply, and there is widespread concern that the current target of 20,000 low carbon social homes will not be met. Whilst the report highlights general support for the levels of capital funding for housing in Wales, the committee highlighted the recent findings of the Audit Wales report which outlined that a further £600 million is needed to deliver the developments currently in the pipeline. As such, the committee has recommended that Welsh government increases the allocation of the social housing grant at the earliest opportunity.  

The report goes on to recommend that: “Welsh government establishes a national development corporation to lead on the delivery of large-scale strategic sites and support alignment of housing and regeneration efforts. This recommendation also asks Welsh government to explore whether Unnos could fulfil the function of a national development corporation and land agency.”   

Responding to the Senedd report, Matt Dicks, national director of CIH Cymru said: “We welcome the significant recommendations made by the committee. It is encouraging to see how this report echoes calls from the sector for more investment into the social housing grant programme, as well as longer-term certainty over funding. Whilst we have seen record levels of investment into the social housing grant programme, these monies are not going as far as they once did due to inflationary pressures. Additional monies will ensure that social housing providers can continue to develop the homes we need, at the pace and scale required to end the housing emergency.” 

“We also welcome the recommendations around creating an arms-length national development agency, making Unnos what it was intended to be - the mechanism to bring together all the component parts required to scale up housing development in Wales. The innovators, the land, the planning capacity, the contractors the social landlord, the supply chains, and more all under one enabling mechanism to ensure that homelessness is truly rare, brief and non-recurring.” 

Read the full Local Government and Housing Committee report 'Social Housing Supply' here: https://senedd.wales/media/xxndldwa/cr-ld16800-e.pdf