GrumbleSmiles

“Older people at Home in Wales”

This is the fourth of my series of comments on the report entitled “Our Housing Agenda:  Meeting the Aspirations of Older People in Wales”.  (You can see my earlier posts by clicking Welsh Housing in the TAG CLOUD).

As I’ve said in my earlier blogs, this is a very ambitious report with a lot of very good ideas.  If they could all be followed up at a significant scale they would certainly have the power to transform the lives of many older people in later life.

• There are 37 separate threads requiring action which are identified in the report. Not all of these are new ideas, but each one has merit.  They can also be inter-related and have greater potential power in combination, for instance, new housing should be a hub for wider community interaction and a base for outreach work into the community.  However, it is not realistically possible to pursue all these avenues with the same vigour.  The report acknowledges this by proposing that the actions are defined as either short term or medium term.
• The “lead” for most threads is seen as the Welsh Government and whilst it is true that they have to create a platform for new initiatives, it is more likely that innovative projects will be conceived from more entrepreneurial sources. The private sector, voluntary organisations and the charity sector are more familiar with incubating and developing new innovations.
• The overall vision of the report could lead to a substantial transformation of Older People’s housing and related services.   Such change is probably best addressed in small steps, so that a programme of “proving projects” would be a good place to start.
• I would suggest this is best done with a three-pronged approach:-
  • Firstly, Government, Local Authorities and Health Authorities should create a platform for innovation.   They need to seed-fund the start-up of pilot projects and then clear barriers out of the way.   The point of using pilot projects initially is that they don’t challenge the status quo too much and they allow for the fact that not all projects will be successful.
  • Secondly, market research techniques should be used to determine the level of demand for services in local areas and in turn this should provide a database for potential innovation projects.   This could be done based around the issues identified in the report using focus group discussions and wider surveys in potential pilot areas.    Thereafter older people should participate in every stage of a project’s development and management.
  • Thirdly, there should be independent monitoring and evaluation to determine in what way and how many older people have benefitted from the projects.   The key performance criteria for the projects should be agreed at the outset with the sponsoring bodies.

Fulfilling the ambition of the report, would require a different and innovative style of approach.   It would be necessary to harness and test the most innovative ideas, by directly involving older people; linking them to the most positive talents and skills in National and Local Government, the Health Service and the Private and Voluntary Sectors.   Their work would need supporting with public and charitable funds and the results of their efforts would need to be validated by independent research.

Over the past two weekends I have been offering my thoughts on the recently published report ” OUR HOUSING AGENDA: MEETING THE ASPIRATIONS OF OLDER PEOPLE IN WALES “.     It is a comprehensive and ambitious effort to build a vision for housing for older people in Wales.  (You can see my earlier posts by clicking on “Retirement Housing” in the TOPICS LIST).

Like the rest of the UK,  the demographics of the elderly population are changing on a scale not seen before.   In Wales there are particular characteristics which need to be addressed.   Many of  the oldest elderly grew up in the relatively impoverished industrial era of Aneurin Bevan.   The coal mines, the slate quarries, the iron and steel industries, were the life blood of large areas of Wales at the beginning of the 20th century.    That left a legacy of housing not well suited to growing old.

In many cases the oldest generations’ baby boomer children have inherited this legacy.     They form the big wave of baby boomers who are now entering retirement.   We should also not forget that in the hinterlands of the industrial areas there are also many older people isolated in rural communities.

These are my broad conclusions about the report’s proposals:-

The first significant point about older people aspirations is that most of them wish to stay in their own homes.  For the majority of them, the barriers to this option, whilst they may be significant, are not insurmountable.   Indeed the reality is that if nothing is done, that is exactly what will happen anyway, but for many people remaining in their homes will leave them more impoverished as costs rise and in a deteriorating state of health.   As the report states, there is much that can be done to help and support people to stay in their own homes.  This point was covered in my first post and highlighted the benefits of falls programmes, energy conservation measures, welfare benefits checks etc. Many of these services are provided by voluntary / charitable organisations, often supported by Local Authority or Health Authority grants.  Sadly in these austere times these are the very areas that are being cut.

Nonetheless, enabling people to remain in their own homes, not only fulfils their aspirations, but is likely to be cheaper to the public purse than the alternative higher costs of residential care and / or frequent hospital admissions.  Therefore it is essential to develop a much expanded programme of pro-active healthcare in terms of well-being programmes.  This then needs to be complemented with Social Services support for those who also need care in the community.  This is the opposite direction to the way Public Policy has moved in recent years when austerity has forced both Health and Social Services to concentrate only on the very frailest older people.  This is not another vainglorious cry for more public money, welcome as that would be.  Rather we need to find new and innovative ways of supporting these programmes and self-financing much of the care.  Certainly it is the case that many older people are asset-rich and income-poor and if we can find ways of unlocking the assets they have in their homes to provide for their care, it would enable them to live at home for much longer.  However, the existing ways of doing this in the form of equity release, do not represent good value for money and new innovative financial models have to be developed.

The second key area in the report is the proposal to develop 20,000 new retirement homes.    My second post expanded on the proposition with considerable scepticism.  Not because it isn’t a desirable option, but its achievement is unlikely without radical changes in the approach to how new housing can be both financed and planned for. All the current housing finance models for affordable public housing, require substantial capital grants, which are not likely to be available on the scale required.  Models do exist with a cross-subsidised blended mix of public and private ownership.  Shared ownership would unlock the assets of existing homeowners, but not if they need continued grants support for the unpurchased equity.  The second half of this development problem is the planning system and its link to the availability of land.  As discussed in my earlier post, this would need a radical review of Section 106 Affordability Requirements, CIL Payments and probably Greenbelt restrictions.  All of this can only be achieved with strong political support at National and Local Authority levels.  Whilst public funding would help to kick-start this programme, there is no question that a housing programme on this scale will require substantial private investment.

The third key ingredient to delivering the report aspirations, has to be innovation.   Large institutions such as Governments, Local Authorities and Health Authorities are not generally known for their innovative skills.   For such a radical shift in approach, it will be necessary to harness the goodwill of these institutions to trial new ideas in a series of pilot projects.  The best and most successful of these might then show the way to rolling out a bigger and more comprehensive programme in future years.

My final thoughts go beyond the Report’s findings and suggest a possible way in which a large-scale programme to meet the housing aspirations of older people in Wales.  I will write about this in a final blog in the weeks ahead but first I need to consult with my fellow GrumbleSmiles Trust Trustees and also with some of the authors of the Report.

This is the second post on the housing proposals in a report being considered by the Welsh Assembly.    This time it is all about the numbers, which is the acid test of whether aspiration can become reality.  All too often politicians promises fall at this hurdle.

The report starts at the outset, with a bold statement of intent that the aim is to build 20,000 affordable new homes for older people.  Certainly an aspiration worthy of the scale of the  problem.   If delivered, it would make a transformational difference to retirement housing in Wales.  So the key question has to be how realistic is it ?

• The first thing is the date by which it will be achieved.  Dates always  slip back and planning delays go with the territory. Perhaps that is why I can’t find an end date.
• the next key word is ” affordable “.   This makes the target even more challenging, because in total you would then have to build 40,00 new homes if optimistically you assume 50% of them could be affordable and all for older people.
• The current rate of house building in Wales is around 6,000 new homes a year for all tenures and most of these are for family housing.   At that rate it would take 7 years to build 40,000 houses.

In your wildest dreams, let’s imagine for a minute that the 20,000 new homes for older people were to happen.   What would it mean on the ground ?

• To reach the total of 20,000 you would have to build a big public and private programme of retirement housing.  The magnitude is unprecedented —-  20 retirement villages in the larger conurbations around Wales in for example :- 4 in Cardiff, 4 in the Swansea area, say 2 in Newport, a few in some of the valleys and some seaside towns like Llandudno.    ( It is hard to get to 20 ).     20 villages of 250 units each  = 5,000 homes.
• Then you need to add 500 smaller schemes of say 30 units each in almost every remaining urban area.
• Now all you need is the land —- say 6 acres for each village, that’s 120 acres, plus an acre and a half for each small scheme that’s another  750 acres.  In total not far off 1,000 acres !
• Oh!  And the money.   Say at  £200,000 per unit for 20,000 homes that’s a capital cost of £4,000,000,000.    Yep £4 billion !

I am not claiming my fag packet assumptions are correct, but they are as likely to be as accurate as the pie in the sky figure of 20,000 new homes.    I would love for someone from the Welsh Government to explain how they got to that figure.

I want to be positive about these proposals, because they are laudably ambitious, which is essential, faced with the growing numbers of older people and their increasing age and frailty profile.

BUT  the devil is in the detail and  here are some of the barriers you first have to overcome :-

1. Planners would need to accept that financial viability of affordable retirement housing is difficult.   They are expensive to construct if they have substantial communal spaces.  Then additional section 106 requirements for 50% affordability and CIL payments make it almost impossible without substantial housing grants.   That is why so little affordable retirement housing is being built anywhere in the U.K.    These schemes need a fair wind and planning requirements need to be relaxed.
2. Revenue viability is also a challenge, made worse by the current squeeze on housing benefit and supported housing funds.
3. The old financial models depended on high capital grant levels and high service charges supported by housing benefit.   That money is not coming back in these times of austerity, but there is still a huge asset locked up in Older People’s own homes.    The report highlights the high level of home ownership and calls for new ways to use these assets.

Therein lies the key to developing a big housing programme which doesn’t require substantial public funds, but it is an answer that requires a sophisticated understanding of housing finance and very careful marketing to older people themselves.

I will collect all these thoughts into a positive and innovative proposal in my final post on this report next Sunday.