Welcome message from CIH President Steve Benson
 Making the most of the opportunities
Welcome to Housing Online Harrogate Edition which brings you all the latest news and developments from the world of housing and, in particular, our Annual Conference and Exhibition in June.
While gloom and doom surround us, it is not all
bad news. As housing providers, we are offered
sites and schemes that would never have come our
way before the recession, and we are getting grant
levels from agencies such as the Homes and Communities Agency
we would never have dreamed of six months ago.
It is also an opportunity to embrace innovation, not least in the task of bringing the
existing stock up to a decent energy standard.
It is also worth noting that resident involvement has moved up to another level in England following the creation of the Tenant Services
Authority. This is bound to have an impact across the rest of the UK and will make it even more important to find out what housing products our
customers and future generations of customers
will want.
So, it is up to housing professionals to meet the challenges of the current economic downturn as well as maintaining our drive to present new ideas to the
various UK Governments and agencies. There is no better place to do this than our hugely successful event in Harrogate. We hope you will be able to join us.
Are you missing out?
It's only when you visit Europe's largest housing event that you see the huge potential it provides housing professionals to learn, improve and influence the housing agenda.
If you want to take a look at the huge range of information and ideas debated during the week, visit our Harrogate 2008 highlights page. You'll be able to find samples of videos, speeches, presentations and news stories. We hope it whets your appetite to come and join us.
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Conference review 2008
 Special rates for members
If you are one of the CIH's 7,000 student members, did you know that you could attend Harrogate for as little as £65.00 plus VAT per day? Also, this year there is a special rate, on Thursday only, for some specific categories of housing workers such as Housing Managers, Housing Officers and Assistant Managers. We hope our reduced rate of £100 will make it easier for more housing professionals to experience our flagship housing event. To apply for these special offers download the application form from CIH's website.
Diary date: annual general meeting 
This year's Annual General Meeting will take place on Tuesday 16 June 2009 at 5.30pm. Information about this year's AGM will be issued to members by the end of May and will also be published online. This year's event is being kindly sponsored by Digital UK. |
The importance of Financial Inclusion has grown significantly in recent years, reflected in the establishment of a new dedicated team at CIH headed by Sharon Wheeler. In a CIH commissioned feature, journalist Janis Bright investigates how housing organisations are
developing their financial inclusion work to help tenants gain
greater control of their finances.
Here’s one of those stark facts that still
have the power to stop you in your
tracks. Two children are born in the
same hospital in Walsall. One, from the
leafier suburbs, will go on to live 10
years longer than the other, who comes
from a deprived estate. Needless to say,
their life chances and opportunities are
very different.
It’s a lesson not lost on Walsall
Housing Group and its partners in the
health service. The group, the largest
stock transfer organisation in the West
Midlands, is determined to narrow that
gap – not only via better health services
but by financial inclusion, help into
work and training, and a host of other
initiatives. It also recognises that the
only way is by the intensive, hard, and
detailed work with each person as an
individual. In fact, it began its capacity
building work with just one estate.
Connie Jennings was there from the
start. It was WHG’s follow-up project, a
survey on fuel poverty in the Darlaston
area, that really fired her imagination.
She explains: “We went round knocking
on doors. Not only did we find out
about fuel poverty, it helped us
understand related issues like doorstep
lending, access to bank accounts, and
pre-payment meters.”
The team used
the opportunity of talking to people
to get them involved in local capacity
building, and one went on to become a
community mediator.
Over time, and with help from EU
grant funding, WHG and the NHS have
expanded their work in community and
physical regeneration in Walsall to the
point where they have now landed a
massive capacity building project. Under
the Now project – New Opportunities
for Walsall in Housing and Regeneration
- they will invest £1 million of lottery
and other funding over the next two
years, using a team of ‘community
champions’.
The champions are local people who
will be paid a salary to work with
particular groups of people in the
community. Each will have their own
learning plan, setting out what training
and education they will receive, as
part of their employment package.
They will be encouraged to follow their
individual interests in working with, for
example, older people or those with
disabilities or youngsters.
For Connie
Jennings as programme manager it’s
an exciting time. “These champions will
become regeneration experts. They are
intermediaries between the professionals
and the community. It’s exciting for
me because two of the champions are
people I’ve worked with in Darlaston
and now they are professions
contributing to our decisions.”
Ms Jennings says it makes perfect
sense for local people to take the lead: “People know what’s needed in their
area, they don’t need me to come along
and tell them that. What they do need
is a route to change.” Learning from the
experience of the fuel poverty survey,
she also insists on flexibility: whether
a project is ostensibly about health,
benefits or finance or regeneration, it
must be able to go with what is needed
and wanted in a particular place, and
at the pace the individuals involved
can cope with. She likens her work to
dropping a pebble in a pond. The ripples
will run out in all directions – and
flowing with them, she argues, is the
key to success.
The analogy is especially apt for
dealing with financial exclusion, which
can include a whole array of different
types of issues, all of course linked to
poverty. Take fuel poverty, for example.
National Energy Action estimates that
no fewer than 5.4 million households
in the UK are living in fuel poverty,
meaning that they have to spend more
than 10 per cent of their income on
heating and electricity. As the WHG
team found in their survey, some suffer
a double whammy of having to use
expensive pre-payment meters. In many
cases this is unnecessary, because the
tenant has no history of bad credit but
has simply moved into a home with a
meter already installed.
The benefits system can be another
cause of complications and missed
opportunities.
Citizens’ Advice Bureau
and Age Concern estimate that as much
as £10 billion of benefits that people
are entitled to goes unclaimed. Known
barriers to claiming benefits include:
problems around literacy and numeracy;
lack of awareness of eligibility; a
complicated claims process; difficulty in
obtaining documents to support claims;
failure to reach vulnerable groups; the
unsuitability of telephone based claims
for some vulnerable groups; and stigma
associated with claiming benefit.
Social landlords have made inroads
by employing specialist advisers to help
people claim their full due, bringing
benefits both to the customer and
potentially to the landlord if difficulties
with paying the rent are eased.
A survey of people living in poorest fifth of the UK also showed that households dependent on benefits
or with only part-time or occasional earnings were more likely to use doorstep lenders, mail order catalogues or rental purchase companies as their main source of credit. The interest rates charged, particularly by doorstep lenders, can be phenomenal, dragging the borrower further into debt. Establishing a local credit union can offer a lifeline, offering small loans with a quick service and the chance to begin saving as well. Action at local level is essential, but coordination of these and other financial inclusion measures is being taken increasingly seriously by central government. Saving by people on low incomes will be encouraged with a national roll-out of the Saving Gateway that tops up their own savings with government funding: within this, CIH has proposed a Save with Rent scheme to make it even easier for tenants to save.
A drive to increase financial capability is underway, focused on strategic priorities to improve access to banking, affordable credit, free face-to-face money advice, savings and insurance. Transact, the national strategy for financial capability, defines financial capability as being able to make ends meet, keep track of your finances, plan ahead, choose financial products, and stay informed about financial matters.
Access to bank accounts is taken as a core indicator of progress because it tends to signify the situation on other related issues as well, and because, says the Financial Inclusion Taskforce (FIT), it holds the key to financial inclusion.
The Government set a target of halving the number of adults in households
without a bank account. Last December the FIT reported on progress, and, like
the curate’s egg, it proved good in parts. Using baseline data from 2002/03, when 2.8 million people lived in ‘unbanked households’, it found that by 2006/07 the number had fallen to just under 2.1 million. That is good news, and means we are halfway towards the target. Worryingly though, the initial progress appears not to have been sustained.
The FIT reports: ‘The data strongly suggest that the pace of reduction in the numbers of unbanked has slowed or halted.’ Further measures are clearly needed, and initiatives underway should see the downward trend resume – though the credit crunch and economic downturn Housing / issue 31 / 11 will certainly provide a challenging backdrop. The Scottish Government’s financial inclusion action plan, launched in 2005, initially targeted the 11 local authority areas with the greatest financial exclusion problems. In Glasgow, for example, as many as one in five households had no bank account or savings. From last April, funding was extended to all 32 areas
under the Fairer Scotland Fund. Wales hosted its first national financial capability conference in November, with the FSA.
Minister for social justice and local government Brian Gibbons reported on progress already made, including achieving coverage by credit unions in all parts of Wales and the establishment of an Illegal Money Lending Unit to crack down on sharks. Credit union accounts
in Wales have reached the £16 million mark. Dr Gibbons said the Welsh Assembly Government had already invested £1.75 million to help develop credit unions and promised the same again for further work, which he said was needed more than ever at a time when confidence in mainstream financial service providers is low. Moves by the UK government to bring in a Legislative Reform Order this year should lift burdens on credit unions and allow their further development. Much attention in financial inclusion is focusing on the social housing sector.
As the FIT rightly says, social landlords have pioneered work on
access to benefits and other antipoverty measures. Now they are turning to more comprehensive financial capability and capacity activity, as in Walsall. The sector is well-placed to deliver improvements, partly because of its face-to-face dealings with tenants, and partly because tenants are most likely to suffer financial exclusion. According to National Housing Federation 2007 figures nearly one in six social-rented tenants have no bank account, twice as high a proportion as the rest of the population; 81 per cent have no savings account; and 91 per cent have no insurance cover. |
The Financial Inclusion Taskforce has researched the best means to reduce the number of ‘unbanked households’ with targeted interventions. It found measures specifically to help those on lowest incomes, or women, or those from ethnic groups, would not be particularly effective. In contrast, targeting help to those on housing and council tax benefits, and those in social rented housing, would be most effective.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has appointed CIH to build a team of Financial Inclusion Champions to work within the social housing sector and CIH is taking a leading role in helping to develop whole organisation approaches to financial inclusion and capability. Under the DWP funded initiative, the CIH is hosting two strategic champions to work in housing. Sharon Wheeler, the Financial Inclusion Champion for Housing, was previously the CIH’s Financial Capability Advisor funded by the FSA.
She is being joined
by a second champion,
Holly Reid.
The advisors will
promote financial
inclusion and capability
services to social
housing providers;
provide consultancy
to help them develop
or review their
financial inclusion and
capability activities;
and through policy
work to make the
case for financial
inclusion and
capability activities
in the housing sector.
Sharon Wheeler says: “We will research to
establish a baseline
of common features,
and find where
there are gaps in
particular areas
or services. We’re
looking at the wider
issues nationally
and working with
other partners and
providers.” In a parallel
move, CIH
has signed a memorandum of understanding with the
FSA and Barclays. The organisations are
funding two posts of financial inclusion
advisors for two years: Ken Dow covers
Northern Ireland and Scotland, and Paul
O’Connor is his counterpart for England
and Wales.
Mr Dow says the levels of financial
exclusion in Northern Ireland and
Scotland are “fairly brutal” with, for
example, one in five households in
Scotland living on less than £10,000
a year. Coming from a career in the
building society sector, he is keen to
lobby the financial sector to do more
in promoting basic bank accounts and
seeing people on low incomes not as a
liability but as a potentially profitable
customer for the future.
Financial education for those currently
excluded is also essential, he argues. He
points out that while many tenants have
no house contents insurance, others are
paying for buildings insurance that is of
no use to them. “They think they have
contents insurance, then when they try
to claim they find they haven’t,” he says.
“There is no point in throwing products
at people. They need education.” In some
cases, Mr Dow says, creating inclusion
will also involve a change from believing
that bank accounts, insurance and so
on are ‘not for me’ or ‘not for my kind’,
attitudes that derive from years, and
generations, of being pushed away by the
‘club’ of the financially included.
Chris Pond, director of financial
capability at the FSA, agrees that the
development of financial capability is
essential. “The CIH’s work is a crucial
part of the efforts we and our partners
are making to help people manage their
money better in these difficult times. We
are committed to ensure our partnerships
stretch across all of our work so that we
address the needs of people who might
find themselves sinking into debt and help
them make the most of their money.”
CIH has developed a Level 5 training
programme to help financial inclusion
leaders develop their strategy within
their own organisations, and the popular
scheme is running for a third time
in March. There will also be a level 3
qualification for front-line staff and CIH
is looking for organisations to be part of
a pilot group.
Among the successful students to
date is Graham Brewis from Blyth Valley
Housing. As financial inclusion manager,
he is on a mission to ensure financial
capability becomes embedded in every
aspect of the organisation. He works
with young people in schools, with the
Shontal theatre group, and with other
partners such as CAB, the Action Team
for Jobs, and the local credit union. It’s
vital to try a variety of approaches, he
says, and drama has proved effective:
“People are shy of their ignorance about
financial matters, they don’t want to
admit they need help,” he says. “The
theatre group shows a very realistic
situation where people can relate to the
characters. It’s a good way to engage
with tenants.”
Next up is doorstep lending, where
Mr Brewis believes things are getting
harder in the credit crunch. Lacking an
effective credit union until recently, he
says, local residents were “easy meat” for
unscrupulous lenders. Tenancy sign-up is
also a time when the landlord can inquire
and offer help to tenants, without too
much intrusion. And he is working on
ensuring that repairs people are plugged
into his way of thinking too: tenants
will often mention problems to a visiting
handyman, and the organisation could
follow up with help and advice.
Can financial inclusion measures be
show in performance indicators? Mr
Brewis is cautious as figures can be
misleading. Rent arrears may drop as a
result of financial capability work, but
the current squeeze on finances can
push them up again: careful analysis is
essential. He prefers to consider the more
sophisticated measure of social return
on investment. Here, the organisation
could track the wider effects of a tenant
taking a training course. They could then
get a job, the whole household could
gain confidence, more money would be
spent in the local economy, and so on.
Mr Brewis adds: “We are trying to match
things up so that financial inclusion
is embedded in every decision of the
company.”
That is a sentiment the FSA’s Chris
Pond would agree with. He told the
Wales financial capability conference:
“If the industrialised economies had had
more financially literate populations,
perhaps we might still be where we are
today, but the number of casualties from
the downturn and the extent of their
financial injuries, might not have been
quite as bad. In these circumstances,
stronger capability and an ability to feel
in control of one’s finances could make a
world of difference.”
If you would like to find out more about Financial Inclusion and meet some of CIH's Financial Inclusion Team at Harrogate, please email Sharon Wheeler.
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An emphasis on bringing local authorities, housing associations and ALMOs together
