FOI - Community Led Housing London [Jul 2023]

Your request 

1. How much funding have CLH (London) been awarded by the GLA
2. Please provide a breakdown of how this funding has been spent
3. How long is this funding for, when does the funding period end
4. What date does the current funding period end
5. How many housing units have CLH (London) delivered, please provide completion dates for these units and basic project details such as CLH organisation that delivered them and addresses
6. What size are the delivered units, i.e 1 bed, 2 bed, studio etc
7. What tenure are the housing units, i.e LAR, shared ownership, private sale
8. As a publicly funded organisations, CLH (London) accounts should be available to view, could you let me know where these are available to view
9. As a publicly funded organisations, CLH (London) governance documents such as board details, audit committee details and remuneration committee details should be available to view, could you let me know where these are available to view

Our response

The Hub has received £3,839,394 in funding from the GLA under a grant agreement. The funding was approved under Mayoral Decision 2372, which covers all of the GLA’s Community Housing Fund budget.

The current grant agreement identifies £3,053,241 for direct support to CLH projects with £786,153 covering administration and general events and resources over an 8-year period. The Hub spends and allocates funding in line with objectives agreed with the GLA. The Hub reports to and meets with the GLA against these objectives quarterly and annually. Please find a quarterly breakdown of the Hub’s expenditure by financial year attached.

The funding was originally approved to 2023. In 2022 the grant agreement period was revised and the period extended to April 2025 under delegated authority. In an email seeking approval for extension of the CHF programme – including funding to the Hub -under delegated authority in 2021, the GLA’s Senior Project Officer for Community Led Housing outlined the rationale as relating to numerous COVID-19-related factors which had significantly slowed down delivery, meaning that the programme was not as advanced as it would otherwise have been had the pandemic not happened. These factors included:

• local authority site releases – reprioritisation of borough activities in response to the pandemic led to delays in decision making and in the release of sites for community-led housing. In several cases, the release of sites by local authorities was delayed by more than six months.
• local authority planning decisions – community led housing (CLH) groups were experiencing significant delays regarding pre-application meetings/planning application discussions, affecting project programmes and impacting on their ability to start on site by March 2023.
• the economy – both the GLA, and our delivery partner the Community Led Housing Hub London (Hub), were seeing an increase in community groups requesting more funding and/or revised grant requests due to uncertainty in the economic climate. For example, CLH groups were reporting tender prices coming out higher than expected and difficulty in achieving cost certainty prior to entering into contract.
• Hub support of the community led housing pipeline – the Hub reported a high impact on the ability of CLH groups to develop and nurture ideas. In particular, the Hub noted the impact of supporting CLH groups virtually: in person workshops were historically more effective for discussions needed, groups were unable to form easily, new CLH groups that hadn’t developed a strong bond of trust/ways of working pre-pandemic suffered a loss of momentum and wider community engagement was challenging. – the Hub reported a high impact on the ability of CLH groups to develop and nurture ideas. In particular, the Hub noted the impact of supporting CLH groups virtually: in person workshops were historically more effective for discussions needed, groups were unable to form easily, new CLH groups that hadn’t developed a strong bond of trust/ways of working pre-pandemic suffered a loss of momentum and wider community engagement was challenging.

The current funding period ends March 2025

• When considering delivery under Community Housing Fund, it is useful to note that the GLA makes several types of funding available:
• Revenue funding, which includes early-stage funding to community-led housing groups via Community-Led Housing Hub London to help community groups progress proposals for new developments from inception, and for other pre-development costs.
• Advanced stage revenue funding is provided by the GLA to community organisations for schemes that have secured a site for development.
• Capital grants for affordable housing, which is provided by the GLA to support the delivery of new homes and infrastructure. Decisions about capital funding allocations are made by the GLA.
• Development finance for affordable housing, which is provided by the GLA and is usually available as a commercial loan, repayable on completion of the homes.

GLA monitoring looks at delivery in terms of practical completion of homes and projects starting on site. The Hub provide support services and makes early-stage revenue funding available at the point at which groups are forming and working to identify and assess sites. Projects funded by the Hub are at a much earlier stage than homes would be considered “delivered”. To date, 17 projects that were supported by the Hub have come to the GLA for advanced revenue funding to progress work towards full planning applications, these have the capacity to deliver c.290 homes.

The Community Housing Fund overall has delivered 95 starts on site and 30 completions. Data for the delivery new build homes grant funded by the GLA is published here: Affordable Housing statistics | London City Hall. 19 homes were funded by a loan.

Bedroom mix of units in completed schemes is provided in Table 3. Projects at the point they are supported by the Hub are at a much earlier stage and usually only have an indicative approach to tenure and dwelling size.

CLH London is a project delivered by CDS Co-operatives. CDS accounts are filed at the FCA  Mutuals Public Register: The Co-operative Development Society Limited (fca.org.uk)

CLH London is a project delivered by CDS Co-operatives, which reports to GLA officers. Details of CDS boards and committees are available on their website Board and Governance – CDS Co-operatives

Tenure of completed schemes is provided in Table 4. Projects at the point they are supported by the Hub are at a much earlier stage and usually only have an indicative approach to tenure and dwelling size