Delivering social housing

Social housing was traditionally provided by a local housing authority (LHA) renting accommodation from its own housing stock to those qualified to receive an allocation of social housing. Successive governments have reformed this model considerably by moving housing stock ownership away from LHAs to private registered providers (RPs), such that in recent years provision of accommodation by the private sector has overtaken provision from the social housing sector to the private and, within the social housing sector, from LHA provision to RPs

A number of factors have driven these changes and continue to propel these shifts:

1. •

   the continued appeal of the Right to Buy (see Practice Note: Right to buy)

2. •

   housing stock transfers from councils to private RPs

3. •

   the increasing use of the private rented sector in the provision of homelessness assistance (see Practice Note: Homelessness—assisting the homeless post-3 April 2018)

4. •

   serious lack of availability of housing stock from within the social housing sector to tackle the national shortage of affordable accommodation for those on lower incomes

Despite the relative decline of the LHA as a provider of tenancies, LHAs