| Review of: | Housing policy in the UK by David Mullins, Alan Murie |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Malcolm Harrison |
| Reviewed in: | Public Administration |
| Date accepted online: | 14/01/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 85, Issue 03, Pages 857-883 |
Reviews
This important book will serve both as an essential reference and a very lively stimulant. It is the successor to
Rather than cataloguing the components of the book, this review highlights selected points, before mentioning a few areas on which a subsequent edition might expand a little. Perhaps of especial interest to a public policy and administration readership, Chapter 7 of the book deals with the transformation of the governance, management and regulation of social housing. This shows how ideas on public sector reform, 'new public management', and 'modernization' have been influential, and looks at the changing regulatory framework. The sophistication of the account indicates how far the field of housing studies has come recently, with discussion of the regulatory web, regulatory burden, regulatory capture, and regulated competition, linked to an understanding of the detailed impact of law, institutional change, performance standards and codes. This chapter 's conclusions note that the reform process has played out in differing ways in different parts of Britain, and we learn that Scotland stands out for the continuing significance of community-led models. This chapter can usefully be read alongside one on social housing finance, and another on incorporation of the non-profit sector.
In much of their writing, the authors seem fairly cautious about the ways they comment on ideology or political purpose. Nonetheless, several parts of the book indirectly illuminate what may be an inexorable advance of that combination of managerialization, privatization and economic liberalism that currently often seems to hold centre stage so potently with central government. The chapter on social housing finance, for example, indicates the influence of economistic ideas about incentivization for the disadvantaged and poor, with 'shopping incentives' envisaged as drivers for supposed housing choices for those who are vulnerable and dependent on public funds (pp. 170, 173). The closing commentary in this chapter notes the risk of greater social exclusion and segregation. Despite showing managerialist and marketization trends, however, the book also makes clear the survival of other traditions: as when discussing the independent social purposes of housing associations. One puzzle, where the book might have had more to add, concerns the relatively limited impact of ideas such as the community gateway model, community control and mutuality (p. 294). There seem to be contradictions between ongoing rhetoric on partnership and user engagement on the one hand, and 'top-down' determination to force change on the other. The reader is left uncertain about the real depth of commitment by politicians and governmental organizations to participative mechanisms for collective user empowerment, or to any concept of collective welfare rights. Perhaps it would be worth setting housing change alongside education here, where rhetoric on 'freeing' schools from bureaucracy may squeeze out the theme of user involvement (and localized voting) that served Labour well when opposing some Conservative housing policies in the 1980s. A mischievous commentator might ask how long it will be before New Labour rhetoric officially classifies forms of local collective service user participation, in economic liberal fashion, as wasteful 'transaction costs'. Certainly, it is no surprise to find the book's closing chapter emphasizing the current lack of overt party political disagreement over housing (p. 293). It looked to this reader as if New Labour politicians had 'bought into' right wing housing outlooks almost across the board, from anti-social behaviour strategies to the contract culture.
There is a mass of excellent material in this volume, and a single review cannot do it justice. Nonetheless, perhaps subsequent editions of the book might illustrate at more length the experiences and active agency of diverse households themselves in relation to policy impact, while the topic of disability could be given greater distinct space. By that time we may also know more about the social effects of recent regeneration activities, where the authors' comments on the Housing Market Renewal Areas programme seem apt. As they note, success will be measured not just in terms of 'turning around failing markets but also in securing the inclusion of groups such as asylum seekers, refugees and homeless people' (p. 271). Here, housing scholars may fear not so much that New Labour is following Conservative strategies, but that government might be returning us to housing clearance and dispersal policies that became discredited nearly forty years ago.