DEMOCRACY, ACCOUNTABILITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION

In keeping with the stated aims of the Scottish Executive and Westminster, the HACAS report places a great deal of emphasis on increased tenant involvement. For example, "It is recommended that the Council should use the whole stock transfer process as a mechanism to facilitate greater tenant involvement and empowerment at the Neighbourhood level, building on the existing Tenant Participation Strategy" (p7). This will enhance previous experience gained through involvement in Community Based Housing (CBHA) associations. This process will enable tenants to... "become involved at levels they see fit, ranging from Tenants' Associations to Tenant Management Co-operatives, with the opportunity to become involved in Estate Action Groups and Neighbourhood Forums" (p7).

The main criticisms which we would identify with this approach can be considered in terms of the democratic accountability of the housing trust or CBHAs; the effects on poverty and deprivation, and other effects impacting on the wider community.

Democratic Accountability
It is of great concern that contrary to the expressed social inclusion agenda, neither tenants nor workers are represented on any of the working parties, action groups etc. which have been looking at the stock transfer proposals and the alternative housing strategies.

Local and neighbourhood management structures have been promoted in the past, with honourable intentions and failure in reality (M Taylor, University of Stirling, paper to Glasgow and West of Scotland Housing Associations Forum, 1999). The existing tenants movement, and its information and advisory services, have been undermined by the actions of the Council and others over the years. Hand picked and appointed tenants from neighbourhood forums, focus groups and the like are no substitute for democratically elected tenants' representatives. The classic moves to marginalise and ignore those representing tenants are unworthy of a government which claims to have social inclusion and accountability at the heart of its programme. CBOs, as apparently envisaged, do not seem to promote community ownership, community control or community management in the sense that the tenants and the workforce will have no rights to ownership, management or control. This can be contrasted with the far more progressive proposals for the crofting communities of the Highlands where the right-to-buy is at last to be introduced. Rather, under the Glasgow City Council preferred option, councillors and 'independents' (with finance institutions likely to have a disproportionate influence over their appointment) will have 2/3rds of the board, while experience suggests that full-time managers and funders will effectively determine policy, investment, rents, etc.

The failure to involve, inform or consult with the trades unions likewise does not fit in with best practice as adopted in most other EU states, including other parts of the UK. 'Investors in people' cannot be compatible with the exclusion of the workers from such fundamental discussions over their future employment, treating the labour force with contempt does not augur well for the future.

There are ambiguous references to the involvement of all stakeholders in the new body/ies. Thus, it is "proposed that staff in local Neighbourhood Offices should work with tenants throughout the implementation period to help them to become involved at the level that they, the tenants, wish to participate at." However, it is not demonstrated why the staff are not continually to be involved in the management of the housing stock given the experience which the staff possess. Excluding them and their representatives from the initial discussions, which have lasted over a year to date and involved the expenditure of significant amounts of money, does not suggest a commitment to partnership with all sections of society and all social partners.

Poverty and Deprivation Effects
All tenants will lose their right to secure tenancies, which may lead to higher evictions for tenants who cannot afford higher rents (although there are suggestions that the anticipated Housing Bill next year may extend secured tenancies to all housing association residents). "The housing benefit payments after the stock transfer would probably be lower than with council ownership because the new landlord would be controlling rents in a way that the Council would not be able to do under current financial arrangements" (p7). This could either indicate tacit acknowledgement that evictions will increase, or could ignore or incorporate the potential changes in the housing benefit regime.

Critical to the balance of benefits to the City will be the impact on jobs. The Mackenzie Partnership study of the impact of the stock transfer on the local construction industry questions the suggestion that 'over 4000 jobs' will be created. As well as warning of the 20% increase in costs if there is not central procurement for the capital programme, the study can only identify 1391 jobs directly created in the local construction industry for a ten year period, with a further 900-1245 in the supplier sectors. If, as the proponents of the transfer claim, the investment would be front-loaded then there would be 1915 direct jobs for a six year period and 791 in the following four years. These levels would not be sustainable. The industry could not meet these initial demands as it already faces skill shortages. Proper training schemes could not address this shortfall in the short to medium term. So, even behind the exaggerated claims of 4000 jobs locally, there are strong doubts over the capability of the local construction to meet demand without causing significant disruption to the sector. Beyond these issues, the detail suggests that an immediate transfer to 32 community based housing associations would increase costs by 20% - lengthening the period to achieve refurbishment to approximately 9 years. Coupled with the VAT savings if the DLO were to undertake this work for the Council housing stock as presently owned and managed, the difference becomes two years between the time for the private and the public sectors to complete this work, if the debt burden is removed from the Council's HRA.

The transfer of the stock to "a local housing company" will enable a receiver to be appointed to use the assets to pay creditors in the event of the local company going bankrupt. Current practice where CBHA's fail is that the assets are transferred to another social landlord by Scottish Homes.Both options involve uncertainty for staff and tenants, and undermine any guarantees made at the ballot stage of the transfer process.

The report places the stock transfer in the context of social inclusion and regeneration of the city of Glasgow. Arguing that with the raising of additional finance the backlog of repairs can be tackled, thus creating "4,000 jobs across the City for about ten years" (p8). Yet, the repairs backlog is not dependent on ownership of the housing stock and it is disingenuous for this argument to be raised in favour of stock transfer.

The financial pressures to raise rents, cut investment and source labour from the cheapest supplier will operate against the needs of the residents of the city and of the poorest especially. There will be a net transfer of resources away from the city and to the financial sector and contractors based furth of Glasgow with less progressive training and skill development policies.

The over-recruitment of apprentices and the workforce in general from areas of high unemployment and poverty means that the threat to jobs and incomes in these communities is especially concerning. Not only will this damage the existing fragile economies of these areas but also any moves towards addressing social exclusion will be undermined. As the poor tend to spend a higher proportion of their incomes on locally produced goods and services ('A New Approach to Modelling the Scottish Economy', I McNicoll, 1992), these developments will lead to further adverse multiplier effects on the Glasgow economy and its most deprived areas.

As new tenants will lose their right-to-buy their council houses, there will be the danger of new dump estates being created. Where an area is or becomes unattractive, there will be a high turnover of tenants, the more disadvantaged will be directed to such areas and the problems becomes endemic. The loss of the right-to-buy is necessary to ensure that the financial institutions and the Scottish Executive are not faced by a shrinking housing stock and income stream, and to protect these authorities from increasingly marginal-cost housing. If the better houses are bought by their tenants, or if their mobility is reduced because of uncertainties over succession, then some of the new housing associations would be left with relatively poor stock and a shrinking income base. Addressing the needs of the poorest would become a more critical problem, while the abilities and capacities of the city to accommodate these would have been severely constrained.

The implicit abolition of 14,000 households sits ill with the plans for regeneration of the City, apart from the attempts at crude social engineering as proposed in Ruchill. Planning for decline is a respectable position to adopt given potential economic developments and trends; however, there is a lack of consideration of how the homeless and children in particular will be treated in the context of this shrinking housing stock.

This is exacerbated by the lack of transparency on which housing is to be designated as 'core'. This decision is awaiting the outcome of the survey of the demand for socially-rented housing currently under way in Glasgow, due to be finished at the end of 1999, but will there be public debate over which areas are to be 'comprehensively redeveloped', which are to be gentrified, and which left/encouraged to decline?

Wider Community Effects
In identifying the main reasons for housing abandonment, recent studies (for example Webster 1998), cite the loss of jobs in manufacturing and mining, that is, blue collar jobs. The term abandonment refers to the concentration of voids leading to the demolition of whole neighbourhoods, a term applicable to Glasgow where 20,000 council dwellings or more than one-tenth of its 1981 stock to date have been 'relinquished'. The voids result from the loss of employment and hence migration in search of new employment opportunities.
Since blue-collar workers are more likely to live in council housing, this alone has ensured that abandonment would tend to show up in this tenure. Falls in private house prices in response to out-migration from an area also tend to exacerbate the local fall in demand for social housing leading to further concentration of abandonment. With multiple deprivation setting-in because of the increased unemployment, the circle continues. A further significant factor between employment change and housing demand at a local level according to Webster(1998) is that the employment base of most neighbourhoods is very local. Using Easterhouse as an example 84% of residents work within 6 miles. Within this 'employment field', almost half (45%) of all manufacturing jobs were lost, and approximately 30% of blue collar jobs, between 1981 and 1991. "With job losses on this scale, it is really not surprising that the area's population should have almost halved, and more than one-third of its social housing stock been demolished, since 1981" (Webster 1981 p56).

In a study of the interactions between housing policy and educational problems (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, November 1999), Dyson et al concluded that the housing policies of social landlords can have significant impacts on neighbourhood schools. Catchment area policies and housing families on the basis of need usually means that more children with difficulties enter particular schools. Relatively small changes in the environment of these schools and in their communities can have destabilising effects on such marginal educational establishments. Conversely, managing the lettings policies of the social housing can moderate the rate of change in the community and so have a stabilising effect. The policy implications, they argue, are that community-wide initiatives and strategies are necessary which seek to integrate the housing, educational and other public policy areas. This is most effectively achieved within one agency: the local council.

Coupled with the issue surrounding abandonment is the recent report demonstrating the extent of ill-health in Glasgow compared with the rest of Scotland and the rest of the UK (The Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research 1999). Significantly, policy makers argue for a holistic approach to resolving the problem of ill-health in the city where, "Six of the city's parliamentary constituencies head the list of the UK's 15 unhealthiest constituencies" (The Herald 2/12/99). For example: "We recognise that the NHS can't make the necessary difference on its own. That is why the successful attraction of new employment to Glasgow through the Glasgow Alliance is so important and the determination of the city council and Scottish Homes to improve the quality of education and housing stock is crucial" (Mr Chris Spry, Greater Glasgow Health Board Chief Executive quoted in The Herald 2/12/99).

Ian Davidson MP has argued that: "At the moment with high levels of council tax and rent the poor in Glasgow end up paying more to be poor because the city cannot afford to provide services such as home helps and old people's homes to the same extent as the neighbouring authorities" (The Herald 2/12/99).

Faced with this situation local authorities have two alternatives, either abandon all investment in the affected neighbourhoods or seek to regenerate neighbourhoods by the encouragement of sustainable permanent employment for blue-collar workers. The strategy of whole stock transfer, as we argue elsewhere in this report, will lead to greater unemployment, less training, less job opportunities jointly leading to more estate neighbourhood abandonment. At this time the Scottish Parliament is arguing for 'joined-up thinking' and the links between economic prosperity, good health and poverty reductions, once again demand a holistic approach. The central role of good quality, affordable housing has once again been identified as crucial to this process. How pertinent is it that the one agency that could be key to this whole process is pulling out of one of the centrepieces required to achieve a better standard of living?

As shown in Section 4 above, the actual figures used in the study are highly questionable. The cost of managing a housing association property is given at £550 a year; the figure currently used in stock transfers from Scottish Homes is £380-£430. The comparable figure given for the new Community Housing Trust is £330 per unit. Such assumptions, coming as they do from the management most likely to be involved in administering the new system are indicative of presenting favourable statistics where it suits their case. That these figures may be incorrect-and we have argued in Section 4 that they undoubtedly are-is significant in a number of ways. The underestimation of the true costs of the transfer and of the management costs thereafter threatens both to starve the rest of the housing association sector of Scottish Executive funding and to re-impose the traditional cycle of exaggerated expectations and failed promises that have been visited onto the population of Glasgow so often before.

SUMMARY
1. Tenants and trades unions have been excluded from all discussions on the development of proposals to transfer the housing stock in Glasgow. This conflicts with the social inclusion agenda and does not augur well for the future.

2. The creation of yet more QUANGOs would not improve democratic accountability.

3. There will be negative effects on jobs, incomes and training for many in the most disadvantaged areas of the city through redundancies, higher rents, and dislocations to labour, capital and property markets.

4. There will be wider unfavourable impacts on the rest of the construction industry, housing associations and economic development.

5. Partnerships, networks and 'joined-up' government will be undermined by further disruption of key players in housing, education, health and economic regeneration.

6. The proposed stock transfer will exacerbate and repeat the cycles of exaggerated expectations and unfulfilled promises of the past century.