FOI - GLA & MHCLG discussions on shared ownership [OCT 2024]

Request:  

Please share information about discussions, emails or read-outs of meetings between the GLA and MHCLG where findings and/or recommendations in the House of Commons Committee for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities inquiry report into shared ownership affordability were discussed.

There is no need to include information on future housing schemes or house-building but please include information that is relevant to London's existing shared owners.

Response:

We hold correspondence in relation to discussed at our meeting with DLUHC on 2nd April. Pease find attached below. Please note that some names of members of staff are exempt from disclosure under s.40 (Personal information) of the Freedom of Information Act. This information could potentially identify specific employees and as such constitutes as personal data which is defined by Article 4(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual. It is considered that disclosure of this information would contravene the first data protection principle under Article 5(1) of GDPR which states that Personal data must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject.

Internal email from Senior Policy Officer (Housing) to Head of Housing Strategy and Housing Policy Manager (02/04/24)  

• DLUHC flagged the Committee report published last Thursday 
• I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but the report highlights the main issue for shared owners being ‘uncapped service charges’. 
• DLUHC said they were taken aback by how critical the Committee’s report was, and that they’ll need to provide their final response by end of May. 
• I said we would work with Homes England to understand which proposals from the Committee should be taken forward. 

Internal email from Head of Housing Strategy to Senior Policy Officer (Housing) and Housing Policy Manager (03/04/24) 

Hi,   

Thanks, interesting to see. Did HE mention if they were also taking the select committee’s recent recommendations into account when looking at their affordability guidance? (It has some that directly reference it) The report is already on [Section 40] radar and he thinks that where recommendations have been made for HE, we’ll either have to also accept them or have a good reason why not.   

Can you share the intel on buy backs with [section 40] too please, as she’s looking at what an appropriate grant level may be. And you’ll see when you read the committee report that they also go hard on buy backs. 

Internal email from Senior Policy Officer (Housing) to Head of Housing Strategy and Housing Policy Manager (03/04/24)  

Hi  

No- DLUHC’s steer to Homes England was to not delay the publication of the revised affordability guidance by attempting to address the recommendations in the Committee report.   

Agree it would be difficult for us to not align with whatever Homes England accept. Both [Section 40] and HE were unimpressed by the recommendations but appreciate it’s not necessarily their decision to take.   

I’m looking at the recommendations from the report now. From my conversation yesterday, Homes England seem to be looking to create a ‘budget planner’ as opposed to a calculator as a means of moving responsibility for assessing affordability away from the provider and Homes England, and towards mortgage advisors.   

There was no mention yesterday of the ‘budget planner’ providing a long-term assessment of shared ownership affordability nor an applicant’s ability to staircase, which makes sense given they want to move responsibility onto advisors.    

I’ll flag the feedback and recommendations to [Section 40] now.