Written evidence to be reported to the House
Housing and Regeneration Bill
4:15 pm
David Orr: To answer the first point, it is clear that one of the advantages of best consideration is that it is a figure; it is quantifiable, so you can say, “£110,000 is more than £100,000; take the £110,000”. An assessment of public benefit is to some extent a judgment. I believe that the Homes and Communities Agency should be given the power to determine what is the public benefit, although it may need to be approved by the Secretary of State. I cannot give you a one-sentence answer saying, “Instead of best consideration, here is the descriptor for what constitutes the greatest public benefit.” The federation would be happy to work with members of the Committee or civil servants to explore what that descriptor might be, if that would be helpful.
The present arrangements allow local authorities and other public bodies to dispose of land at less than market value if it is in the public interest, but that power is not used very often and there is no compelling guidance that creates a framework. Guidance would be a necessary component.
With regard to the burden of regulation, we have been going through a fairly lengthy process over the last few years. Members of the Committee will know that a review was carried out by Sir Les Elton. I was pleased to be a member of that review group, which looked into reducing the burden of regulation on housing associations. It has been helpful and has made some progress. No housing association in the country would not welcome a further reduction in the burden of regulation. One of the objectives of the Bill is to ensure that the regulatory burden is limited, although those are not the exact words used.
Our concern is with other components of the objectives, particularly the line of decision making that allows the Secretary of State to direct the regulator with regard to standards, and the regulator to require regulatory bodies to act in a particular way—even if there is no misconduct or mismanagement—and to intervene if they have not followed that instruction. We think that that is imposing a regulatory burden too far, not so much in terms of the volume of regulation, but rather because of the decision to relocate decision making away from the committees of independent, not-for-profit social businesses, towards the regulator and potentially the Secretary of State.