Welcome to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Our session today is looking at older people’s housing. I would like my colleagues to introduce themselves please.

I am the MP for Ribble Valley in Lancashire.

I am the Member of Parliament for Gillingham and Rainham.

I am MP for Milton Keynes North.

I am MP for Kensington and Bayswater.

I am MP for Hyndburn.

I am MP for Newbury.

I am the MP for Broxbourne, and I am a leaseholder as well.

Thank you. Can I ask our guests to introduce themselves, please?

I am the founder of the Park Home Owners JUSTICE Campaign. Good morning to you all.

I am the deputy director for homes at the Centre for Ageing Better.

I am professor emerita of nursing and care for older people at City St George’s, University of London, and I chair the Taskforce on Older People’s Housing.

Hello everybody. I am the director of policy and influencing at Independent Age, a national charity supporting older people who are living on low incomes.

Thank you very much for coming before the Committee this morning. This session is going to be looking at the Older People’s Housing Taskforce. Sometimes when we talk about housing, the voices and experiences of older people are forgotten so it is important for us to look at this. I want to start by focusing on the taskforce and to ask you, Professor Meyer, what are the taskforce’s main findings to date?

We focused on people of lower to middle affluence. There is no model that is working for that group, and it is the largest group, so that is something we need to tackle. The private sector has been very much focused on the top 10% of the premium market. We were not looking at social or affordable housing, but the largest group, as I say, does not have a model that is working for them so that was really important. Among the issues that we uncovered, we recognised the need to standardise definitions because everybody is using a different language—the public, professionals and policymakers do not understand each other. We need to incentivise a wide range of options because the ageing population is getting more diverse. Not everyone wants to live in housing with support and care, and therefore we need to have a whole range of options: we need to help people understand how to design housing for later living; we need more people to come into the market, but they do not know what is expected; and we need to think about creating age-friendly communities that are inclusive because we want older people to play an active role in society and be able to move beyond the front door. We have to expand at scale and make sure options are affordable, not just to live in, but to invest, build and operate. A key finding we discovered was around the lack of an even playing field between older people’s housing and general housing, so we need to strengthen planning policy in favour of older people’s housing. Those are issues of supply, and there are issues of demand. We talk in the report about the need for a national information platform and local community hubs, where people can go and find out what is available, but also understand the system better and be able to assess their finances to see what they can afford. A big area is around building consumer confidence so that we can address public concerns about resales, event fees and such like. We need to support the sector in terms of innovation, research and development. Those are the nine core themes, and there is an overarching theme that is the most important one from my perspective: asking the Government to help create collective leadership. Given the demographics, we call on the Government to create a housing strategy for an ageing population. I understand that the taskforce was the first time that housing had worked with health and social care. We should not lose that momentum, so we call for an office for an ageing population. I fear that older people are not necessarily planning for their own future needs, but neither are organisations, policymakers and professionals planning for an ageing population.

Have you met Ministers to discuss the taskforce?

I am incredibly grateful to the Ministers concerned. I handed in the report on the day before the election was announced, which means it could have gone into a black hole and not be seen. I asked the new Government to look at it, and I had a very early meeting with them on 1 August. They have made a commitment to consider the recommendations. We are waiting for the national housing strategy to see what the actual results will be. They have engaged, and they are aware of the issues, but the proof will be in the pudding. I am worried because the national housing strategy needs to address the ageing demographic. In 2030, we will become a super-ageing society and, as the World Economic Forum says, that places us at risk of not having the infrastructure to cope. This is urgent, and it is taking time to deliver the housing strategy. I worry that the housing strategy will be focused on the 1.5 million houses, and that supply will not address the demand issues. I fear it will be a strategy on housing, and we really need to think more broadly about the integration of housing, health and social care.

Ministers have said they will bring forward a strategy, which is something we continually ask them about. In those early meetings, did Ministers commit to accepting the recommendations?

They have not promised to give a detailed response—I would like that, and I think they should. I am waiting to see what is in the national housing strategy, and I have some concerns and worries about that.

Morgan, do you have anything to add on the big issue of supply and demand and what is holding that back?

Julienne is the expert on supply and demand, but I would just add that the people in later life who call our helpline often feel that they have very limited options. Many of them are renters, but we also have homeowners who might want to change where they live, to find somewhere more accessible or more affordable. Many of them feel that there are no options available that they could move into. Making sure that the strategy takes account of things like accessibility, which sounds simple but is really important for people as they age, would be really welcome.

Millie, do you have anything to add?

We mainly focus on the group of people who are homeowners in poverty. Currently 2.1 million homeowners are in poverty, and that leads them to live in non-decent homes. The report said very clearly that, a lot of the time, people focus on specialised and social housing for older people, but over 90% of older people actually live in mainstream non-specialised housing. This Committee needs to focus on that group and how we support them to live independently in their homes for as long as possible, so that they do not add to the pressures on health and social care.

Sonia, do you have anything to add?

Obviously, park homes are a separate entity to what we are talking about, but I had a message from the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership that I work closely with in other areas, asking me to urge the Committee to consider the appalling losses on the resale prices of homes. I cannot say any more than that.

We will come on to that later.

The taskforce recommended that all new homes should adhere to the M4(2) standard of accessibility. Millie, why do you think this is so important to meet the needs of an ageing population?

Just to clarify, M4(2) sets out a standard similar to the lifetime home standard that people may already be aware of. Basically, it makes a home accessible to most people and adaptable towards the changing needs of residents over time. It means that people with mobility issues can live in these homes as they age. The key features are entrance-level rooms, wider doorways, accessible bathrooms, walls strong enough to support grab rails and space for turning a wheelchair in key rooms like the living room. Unsurprisingly, only 13% of homes are currently built to this standard. That is extremely worrying given that we have a rapidly ageing population, as Julienne said. Also, one in five people in the UK today is living with a disability, and those numbers are ever increasing. Finally, healthy life expectancy is falling, so people are going to be ageing worse in these homes if we do not act now. We talk a lot about how raising accessibility standards is future proofing our housing stock. I know we are aiming to build 1.5 million homes, but why are we building 1.5 million homes that will not be suitable for someone in 20 years’ time? Indeed, accessible homes are not just for older people or disabled people, they also allow people with young families to live more easily in their homes. We need to think about accessibility as supporting people throughout their lifetime; it is not just for older people. Of course, these homes will have a massive effect in enabling people to live in their homes for longer.

Do we know the rough extra cost to developers of building a new home that meets that standard?

There has been some discussion about this. The stat that we use is that it costs roughly £1,300 extra per home to meet accessibility standards. There has been some discussion about that with developers; we can talk about that separately, but that is the stat we have used and it is what we submitted to the consultation in 2022.

Why do you think the market is not doing this already? If the point is that we need to regulate, why is it that developers are not already seeing this as an important thing to be doing? Why is it that people buying homes do not see it as important?

Some developers are doing this, but it basically leads to inequality between developers. One partner may not want to do it because it would make them worse off than others. That is why we feel it has to be nationally mandated, otherwise the approach differs by area. It can complicate building and design plans. For example, the London plan mandates that homes should be built to M4(2) and, in the last few years, there has been a 42% increase in homes built to that standard. This shows that if you mandate it, change will happen. There are also considerations to do with land value that come into this. To make sure there is a level playing field, not only for developers building these homes but for people getting access to these homes across England, you have to make sure it is mandated at a national level.

I am always very nervous about putting regulations in place that cover all new properties. If you have too many restrictions on the development of everything, often—as we have seen—it can dramatically decrease house building numbers overall. Is there a middle ground where we can increase that number, which I agree is dramatically too low, potentially through the local plan process, but without applying that really quite restrictive mandate to all properties?

Currently all homes in the UK are built to M4(1), and that is just not sufficient. There is something called M4(3), which goes even further. That is an even higher standard for wheelchair users, so it is less generic and leads to further benefits.

What percentage of homes are built to that standard?

I am not aware of the figures for M4(3) at the moment, but they are incredibly low. M4(2) is the middle standard; it is what we should be doing, as a minimum, for people who are older or living with disabilities. As I said, most people will need a home like that in their lifetime.

We need to recognise that not only does age-friendly housing have benefits for the individual in terms of their physical, mental and social engagement, but it also generates cost savings. We know that 90% of people living in mainstream housing are at risk of slips, trips and falls, being admitted to hospital and not necessarily being able to return to their own home, then going into a care home perhaps too soon. We are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds, if not £1 billion, of annual cost savings for the NHS and local authorities. We are also talking about the housing strategy, and if we encouraged older people to move into age-friendly homes, not only would it be for their benefit but it would release family homes at a time of a general housing crisis, stimulate the market, and ultimately impact first-time buyers.

Millie, you mentioned £1,300 to make all the adaptations to a new build house. What is the cost of retrofitting?

I can tell you that installing an adaptation for falls, for example, is £1,600. That is just one adaptation in the home. As Julienne said, we recently did some research looking at the impact of adapting homes. Adaptations would save £1.4 billion, but if you were to do the work when building a house, you would not incur those costs in the first place. It is all about what you would save: if you build accessible homes, you will save more in the long term through futureproofing.

The recommendation said that the Government should implement M4(2), immediately. Again, just highlighting retrofitting, the previous Government were willing to accept that. Do you feel there is some hesitancy from the new Government in accepting it?

I must admit that we have only recently started to hear more about M4(2) in conversations with civil servants and politicians. It has been relatively quiet, maybe because it was something that was not so well understood. I do not think there is necessarily any opposition to it politically, but maybe the new influx of MPs were not so aware of it because it impacts older people and disabled people the most. People are not that aware of accessibility and its day-to-day benefits, but I would say there is widespread support from the housing sector, as seen in the consultation. The reason the previous Government approved it was because of that widespread support, and the benefits were very clear. We are asking the Government to state their current position and move it forward.

Do you know the development breakdown between private developers and houses developed for either social or affordable rent?

I am not aware, no. It is something we could definitely find out about and provide evidence on afterwards, but I would not want to make an assumption.

My understanding is that it is 30% social housing, with affordable housing.

Of the units that are being built to M4(2) and M4(3), how many of those are developed within social housing?

I am not aware of the situation with social housing.

My understanding is that, within social housing, they are building to the M4(2) standard.

Sonia, can you tell us a little about your campaign and the key issues that you have been trying to raise?

Our campaign started in 2009 to stop sale blocking from the industry and to change RPI to CPI on the increase to park home residents’ pitch fees. With the help of MPs, we were pretty lucky; the laws were changed and we had Royal Assent. After that I heard from many residents across the country who wanted to bring an end or a change to the 10% commission charge, which is why I am here today. We took that forward, and that is what we have been doing for the last 10 years. It has been a very long road: there have been debates, there have been rallies, there has been a university report, and information has been gathered through questionnaires to residents. It has moved on and on. We have had promises, but they have not been maintained. We now have a new Government, and in general people are hoping they will have the courage to take something forward. A lot of residents feel trapped in their home if they want to sell, because they have to give 10% of their equity to the site owner in commission. These homes average at about £300,000; they can go up in value and are selling for £500,000, so that is a £30,000 or £50,000 windfall for basically doing nothing. That takes me to another area in which there is confusion in the park home sector. The commission rate was initially 20%, and that got brought down in the very old days. Then it was reduced by the 1975 Act, which capped it at 15%. The reason it was retained was that it guaranteed tenure for the homeowners, to have them on the land. Well, that was fine and things moved on, but it seems to have been forgotten by all and sundry who have followed ever since. We have the site owners in the university report stating that, without the commission, they would have to cut back on maintenance and would not be able to improve the site. Then the BH&HPA said in their document published in 2015 that the 10% commission allows the initial purchase price and pitch fee to be set lower than it otherwise would be. That seems to override the 1975 Act, so you can understand the confusion of those people who are impacted. They really do not trust some of these people. I am not going to say that they do not trust everyone, as there are good site owners, but there are a significant number of bad ones. Consequently, most of the people who contact me are in fear of harassment and intimidation, which they do not speak about much except to come through to our campaign. Obviously I am trying to articulate that on their behalf today, if that helps. There has been no change in the rules for over 40 years, but there has been a very sharp rise—a 270% increase—in retail sales prices. That has resulted in an increase of the same percentage in commission, while inflation over that same period of time has increased by approximately 100%. So there is a vast difference and I believe the report we have provided covers that quite clearly. The BH&HPA’s explanation of the commission is flawed. Even if it were accepted that the original purchaser is offered a lower than market price for a new home on the understanding that 10% is given to the site owners on resale, that takes no account of the fact that another 10% is payable by the second owner if they resell. Therefore, they have paid the market price for the home and have not received any discount. I will move on from that, as I realise time is short. Park home residents would like to see commission abolished, with nothing added to the pitch fee and no disguised fees put in place. There are other ways that it could be changed: you could consider a stepped commission rate paid by the buyer, as with people who pay stamp duty on bricks and mortar homes. That would mean the site owner still receives a commission, but it would be in line with inflation. By making this payment, the buyer receives security of tenure, as set out in the 1975 Act, and the seller receives 100% of the agreed sale price. This would help to move some of the rogues out of the industry, and they are a very real problem.

You have made some positive suggestions. You mentioned that there are some positive site owners out there. In Ribble Valley we have quite a number of park homes, and I have met residents and site owners. Some owners have put representations to me, saying that certain sites have changed hands a number of times because it is quite hard for a site owner to make them viable. They say that if the 10% commission disappeared, they would not be able to make their site viable and therefore keep it maintained for park home owners. I just wonder, of the positive conversations you have had with site owners, have they had that discussion with you? Where do they sit with those positive suggestions you made at the end? Do they agree with you, or do they feel it does not go far enough to make up for that 10%?

We have not really had any positive conversations with good site owners, to be honest; all we really hear from them is that their business model is based on the 10%. I would argue that it is an unquantifiable figure anyway, because you cannot say how many, if any, homes are going to be sold in any one year. It seems a rather silly business model, in my opinion. They also say that the smaller site owners are going to lose out. Well, it was reduced to 10% in 1983, but we did not see any of them disappearing. What is the difference now? If they make statements—which they do—saying, “We can’t afford this,” then they should show the proof to parliamentarians. Let Parliament have scrutiny of their audited accounts. That is really what should happen. A few days ago, I contacted the many thousands of residents across the country. Over a three-day period, we put together a spreadsheet that I hope you will have copies of today. It shows the pitch fees in each park, the number of homes, and the annual increase that the park owner is getting. There are some pretty hefty figures, if the Committee would like to have a look at them. That is the best we can do for the residents, but I cannot make the industry show its accounts, and that is what needs to happen.

You have cited some poor behaviours and management practices, and obviously there are still issues with the annual fees. There are recommendations from the university report in 2022, so it is fair to say that this issue is still live. Do you feel that the Government are taking these issues seriously enough, or is there more that the Government should be focusing on?

I can only speak for the last Government, because I have not really met this one for very long. The last Government had some very good MPs who helped to take things forward. Unfortunately, there were about 20 Housing Ministers, which in my opinion—

We have told Matthew Pennycook that he is not allowed to resign. I will personally chain him to the chair.

There were helpful people, but they kicked it into the long grass and did not make a decision. The people of this country do not want more reports or more questionnaires; you have had it all, you have a wealth of information, it is all in the archives and it can all be used. We have given you everything that we can, and all we really want from you is a fair decision and to move on from there. That is what we are asking for.

Thank you for your work. You have been campaigning on this for a very long time, Sonia, so we commend you for your efforts.

We have a whole chapter on the need to build consumer confidence. There are issues around ongoing day-to-day costs, event fees, escalating service charges, unresponsive management and resale value, but we have to keep in mind that consumers do not understand financial products. Businesses have to have viable financial products. Consumers do not have easy access to information to compare different models in their decision making. Monthly service charges have not always been clearly disclosed, so in terms of resales, we make a very strong recommendation about the need for independent research. We really need to understand how the market performs in terms of resales and whether there is a nuanced difference between the different types of housing. There is some suggestion that there might be.

We will come on to service charges later. We are just looking at the private rented sector now.

I want to spend a couple of minutes looking at the drivers and the impact on older people in the private rented sector. Morgan, we know that the number of over-65s in the private rented sector has risen by 46% since 2012-13. Why do you think that number is growing?

There are a number of reasons. Working-age poverty is a huge one. Lots of us know the reasons for that. If you have a long-term health condition or disability, if you are a carer or if you have worked in a low-income job all your life, you do not suddenly have the money to buy a house when you reach state pension age, and you did not have it earlier. In case the Committee is unaware, 22% of people aged 60 to 64 are in poverty, and that is the highest for any age group after children. So it is a huge problem. That problem will get worse if people cannot afford to own a property. There are also life shocks such as bereavement, divorce, relationship breakdown or job loss. Obviously those can have a huge impact at any time, but if you have owned a property, are past state pension age and are hit by one of those life events, it is more than likely that you will end up back in the rented sector. If it is helpful for the Committee, we did some nationally representative polling of older renters, and two out of three do not want to be in the private rented sector. It is not a choice; it is a necessity. The final reason why the number is growing is the lack of social homes. Lots of the people we support would rather be in a social home: they do not want to be in the private rented sector, but that is where they have found themselves.

With regard to park home residents, obviously it is not entirely the same but many of those who are ageing have to go into care and have to sell their homes. The 10% commission on the proceeds of the sale seriously curtails the amount of care that can be afforded, and in turn this leaves local authorities to pick up the bill much earlier.

What impact does privately rented accommodation have on older people’s quality of life, especially those in financial hardship?

We did some research through one-to-one interviews with 50 older private renters. We did nationally representative polling, so it was a pretty good sample of the current situation. Private renters are often on a low income, but privately rented accommodation also impacts their financial security—37% of older private renters are in poverty compared with 12% of older homeowners, so it is a very big group. They tell us that they are not eating hot food anymore because they cannot justify using their cooker. They are not using warm water to wash, they are washing less and they are doing less laundry. Often these are people in their 70s and 80s who have long-term health conditions, so doing laundry is really essential. We spoke to someone recently who said that they were washing up throughout the day, and then in order to save water they were using the washing up water to flush the toilet. The people we support are often living only on the state pension and, if they know about them, social security benefits. If they do not know about social security benefits, they are just living on the state pension, and often a reduced state pension at that. Many are on the basics, not the amount we hear in the news of £160 a week. They have very little way of increasing their income. There is no job on the horizon, there is no inheritance coming down the line. They are in their 80s and they are renting, and that is their life. The only way they can afford their rent is to cut back. One of the massive impacts is on their physical health. Many are living with heart conditions or diabetes because they are eating food that is cheap but not nutritious. They are in cold homes, which can obviously kill people, but they can also have other impacts, such as on breathing and heart conditions. Physical health is a massive problem, and mental health is also impacted. A lot of the older renters we speak to say that the last thing they think about at night is whether they could be evicted—and, at the moment, they can be evicted for no reason. If they were evicted, what would they do? How would they pack up their belongings? How would they find somewhere new to live that they can afford? They are waking up thinking the same thing. So the anxiety and the stress of affording their rent and often living in non-decent homes, feeling that they cannot challenge the state of their home, is having a massive impact. There is a real power imbalance at the moment. One woman told us that she had holes in the floor so big her foot went through them. When we said, “Why don’t you speak to the landlord?” She said, “Well, they could just evict us, and I don’t want to be homeless.” The number of homeless older people sleeping on sofas and so on has gone up by 35% in the last five years, so it is having a massive impact.

That is a useful place to finish. The Hidden Renters, a report commissioned by your organisation, made five recommendations. Do you think the Renters’ Rights Bill has gone far enough?

We really welcome the Bill. There are some game-changing things in there for renters of all ages, but specifically for older renters. To give the Committee a flavour, obviously knowing that eviction is limited to certain reasons is really helpful for older renters, but so are things like notice periods. If you are in a wheelchair and you have mobility issues, you need an accessible ground floor flat or a flat with a lift. Finding that in two months is really difficult, so a four-month notice period will have a big impact. Limiting upfront rent payments will also have a massive impact; lots of the people we support can prove they have paid their rent and have not missed a rent payment, but they are asked for six months upfront. They do not have six months’ rent. The Bill is going to make a massive difference, and we thank the Committee for everything it has done to get it to where it is. There are a few things that we think could be improved. At the moment, there is stuff in there on guarantors. If you are in your 80s, who can you ask to be your guarantor? We think it should be a bit more flexible so that if an older renter can prove they have paid their rent, that should be enough for a landlord. The Bill is not going to tackle rent increases, and that is one of the biggest things older people on low incomes are worried about. In the new legislation, falling behind on the rent is also a valid reason to evict someone. Housing benefit and local housing allowance is essential, and it has already fallen behind. We were looking at where our office is based; with local housing allowance where it is now, there would be a shortfall of over £1,000 a month. That is a big thing we need to sort out for renters on low incomes. We also think the minimum energy efficiency standards are going to be really positive, but obviously they need support to enforce them and to make sure that local authorities have the support they need to make them happen. Those are the key things that we think could be done outside of the Bill.

You have described some scenarios that sound horrific, with holes in floors and what have you. Has your organisation done any analysis on what auto-enrolment will do to solve some of the issues around income when people reach pension age? Obviously, that is going to take a while to work through, but have you done any analysis on how much that may alleviate the problems you have just described?

We hope that auto-enrolment will improve things for people in later life, but as you said, that is a long way off. There are already 2 million older people who are living on the basic state pension right now. Auto-enrolment is not going to touch the sides. Although there are some positive interventions that will help, and auto-enrolment is definitely one of them, we are focused on the group who are living through this now and what we can all do to support them as soon as possible.

Obviously, rental prices are different across the country. In Kensington and Chelsea, which is near our office so we were looking at it, there are really high rents. I know one of the Committee members represents that area. Of course, rents across the country differ, and local housing allowance will help some people more than others. In Hammersmith and Fulham, as I said, there is a shortfall of over £1,000, but there are some interesting geographic problems. We looked at the census data 10 years apart, and what we saw was that older people on low incomes had moved from urban cities to deprived coastal and rural communities. They were not retiring to live by the sea; they had been forced out of communities where they had a home, where they had a GP who they knew and where they potentially had family, and they had moved to places where they did not know anyone because they could not afford the rent. In terms of geography, that puts a strain on the health service and local authorities in those communities, but it also means that, for the individual, they are often starting again at the age of 70 or 80. We have spoken to people in that situation. I can share that research with the Committee: it names the geographical areas where this has been happening. There is definitely a disparity across the UK.

I had a constituent who was refused a mortgage because she had a park home for over-50s. I wonder whether, in all the work you have done, there have been issues about older people accessing mortgages, and how that impacts the market or people accessing homes.

With older homeowners there are issues of equity release, but in terms of mortgages, it is near impossible for older people to borrow, basically because of the retirement age. It is a sticky situation. We find that when we work with older homeowners, the only way to resolve it is through social housing. It is not the answer to lend money to older people who might not want it. There is also a big issue with older people who have released equity in their homes, and a similar issue of people not wanting to take on debt and pass it down to their children, when the only wealth they have is in their home. It is that generation. We have worked with some lenders in the past, and I must admit there have been very few solutions. It is something that systematically needs to change in society, in how older people engage with banking. Unfortunately, we do not have a solution to the problem other than that we need to support people not to take out huge sums later in life that will carry on to their children.

Millie, it would be really interesting to understand the difference between disabled facilities grants and local authority adaptations, and the efficiency, or lack of efficiency, within those processes.

The Centre for Ageing Better runs a network of housing practitioners that covers a fifth of local authorities across the country. We have really high engagement. We have evaluated eight home improvement services across England to look at how they were delivering DFG and discretionary grants, which is within the evidence brought to you today. In terms of what is available at the moment, there is a big postcode lottery for grants and support. Unfortunately, that refers to discretionary grants; the current way that DFG is assigned to local authorities is almost archaic. It does not meet the demand in local areas. In general, it is not going as far as it once did, and local authorities are struggling. They will give discretionary grants where they can but, given the impact on local authorities, that is becoming less and less the case. We know that demand is becoming higher with an ageing population. From the evaluation we found that demand has increased in the last three years and services are expecting it to increase even more. We are not expecting funding to match demand and, as a result, some local authorities ran out of DFG funding halfway through the year. With DFG, the Government recommendation is that it should be processed and completed in 11 weeks, or up to 36 weeks for more complex situations. Actually, the average waiting time for DFG is 22 weeks, and in some cases it can take a year or more to complete. Our survey found that 60% of councils admitted to missing the statutory six-month assessment period at times. I must say that I am not blaming local authorities for this; it is a situation where there is overwhelming demand and not enough funding. It is not even just about that, as we have a real lack of skills in this area at the moment. More rural areas, for example, have to bring in contractors from the cities, and you can imagine the cost of people travelling two hours to do something simple like energy efficiency upgrades. The issue is multifaceted. DFG works as a model, and it is important because at the moment it is the only way that home improvements are funded from national Government. We support it, but we cannot continue to put more and more pressure on local authorities to pay for discretionary grants when they do not have the funding. Social care and healthcare need to come together on that. I must say that local authorities bear most of the burden of this, but the NHS and healthcare see most of the benefits. At a local level, ICBs need to do more to work together on this. It is not about radicalising the system when it comes to DFG and the discretionary grant; it is about giving local authorities the support and the funding to do what a lot of them currently do very well.

I absolutely agree that there is problem with the amount that is available and how it is distributed, but I have seen in my casework in Hyndburn that there are also ways in which the processes could definitely be improved. I am interested in the panel’s views on how the use of these grants could be improved to save stress and effort for residents, and save resources for the local authority and the wider system.

The key to that is essentially collaboration. As I said before, in those areas where it works well, there is a strong relationship between health and social care, which includes having specialised occupational therapists and trusted assessors. It lies in having and developing those skills locally. In areas that are perhaps not delivering most successfully, funding is obviously an issue, but if you do not have skilled people able to administer and update or upgrade these homes, you will fall flat. So funding is one thing, but if we want to really improve the DFG system we first need to look at how it is allocated. That is a big thing. Secondly, we need to develop skills locally and encourage that. And finally, as I said, there should be more collaboration across health, social care and local authorities. It should not just be the responsibility of a small housing and home improvement service to retrofit all the homes in their local area. That is where I stand on that.

In addition to affordability issues, we should note that privately rented homes are less likely to be adapted, and landlords are reluctant to allow adaptations. Both my parents died from falls at home due to a lack of adaptations. The private sector has the lowest proportion of adapted homes, while the social rented sector has the highest proportion. We need to do something about this larger group of lower to middle affluence to help them access information about what adaptations can be purchased. For me, this goes back to the need for a national information and advice platform, and local community hubs.

Not only are older people in the private rented sector less likely to access the disabled facilities grant, but they are also more likely to have a disability or long-term condition. Those two things should not be going together. What our advisers tell us is that people have no idea what they are entitled to. They do not know that things exist; they are living on a low income; and they do not want to ask the landlord. We did a project with older landlords and older tenants where we got them together and asked, “Can we find any areas of agreement?” One was that landlords did not know what they could access to help fund the adaptations. They were not aware and the older tenant was not aware. You can end up with a situation where the older tenant is afraid to ask in case they are causing trouble, they worry they might be evicted, and the landlord does not know that there is something available for them. So awareness and proactive promotion is something that could help move this forward.

Obviously we are a niche organisation, but this issue with the local authorities very much affects park home residents. Generally, when they go to the council there is no one other than an environmental officer to answer their questions. What is needed is an independent person, a park homes officer with a designated role, for instance, who residents can go to and talk about their problems in private, particularly if it is about intimidation or harassment. At the moment they have nowhere to go. They get turned away or they go to residential property tribunals where they spend money and it takes a long time. We need local authorities to put something in place for that. We also need them to look at the fact that they are not doing what they say they do. For instance, they give licences to the parks: the park owner comes along and the park is listed for 40 homes or 100 homes. Mr Park Owner decides he has an area of land that he wants to put more homes on, so he will go ahead and put 10 or 20 more homes on that land, which exceeds the licence conditions. What I do not understand—I am sure you will not either—is why the council does not come in straightaway and say, “Sorry, Mr Park Owner, you have exceeded the licence, take this away, take up the bases that you have put down, we are not allowing you to do that”? That does not happen. The bases go down and people buy the homes, then they find themselves in an awful lot of trouble because they are outside the licence conditions. This all goes down to local authorities. We are going to tackle it at PHOJC, but if it takes as long as this, it will be 10 years. That is something that needs some form of regulation.

Thank you for that, Sonia. Lastly, you have all touched on different areas—really important areas—but would you say that maybe there is a need for clearer and more accessible information about the range of advice for older people when it comes to housing? Do you think that is something that is probably missing?

Today we are largely talking about at-risk older people, but we know that improving information and advice will support those who have the monetary means to improve the quality of their homes and make their lives better. It goes to all tenures. At the moment, the Centre for Ageing Better is running a pilot called Good Home Hub in the Lincolnshire area. The central focus of the pilot is on information and advice. In the first four months, 122 clients passed through that service and a few of them paid, which shows that if you allow paid-for services, you can take that money and help those most in need. Central information and advice is not just about how to improve your home; it is about the housing options available to you. It is a range of things, but local authorities are the central source of knowledge. We need to provide them with the resources to be able to work more with people one-on-one. A national database would be brilliant, but the way things change so rapidly in this country, local authorities are truly the only source of information, and we need to support them.

Independent Age has a holistic offer. If somebody rings us and says, “I can’t afford my rent,” we will not only say, “Okay, let’s see if you’re entitled to housing benefit,” we will be looking at pension credit, council tax reduction and attendance allowance. That is part of the problem When somebody tries to do something independently, which obviously a lot of people want to do, they are given only one tiny little nugget that will help one bit of their problem. There needs to be a more holistic approach so that organisations can deliver wider support. I would also say that the private rented sector database, which is mentioned in the Renters’ Rights Bill, has the potential to be quite ambitious and to give both landlords and tenants lots of really good information so that they can find out for themselves. Once we learn the details of that, it could be really positive.

Thank you very much for coming before the Committee this morning. You have given us a lot of areas on which we will be probing Ministers, especially as we see the long-awaited housing strategy. Witnesses: Paul Teverson, Oliver Boundy and Debbie Walker.

Welcome to the second part of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s session on housing for older people. Just before we start, I want to mention that we invited the chief exec of McCarthy Stone to come before the Committee, but we understand there is a board meeting today. We made sure that we gave adequate notice, so we were a little disappointed that the chief exec felt it was not important enough to come to this Committee to answer questions on behalf of the company, but we are grateful that the director of communications is here this morning. Can I ask our guests to introduce themselves, please?

I am the director of communications for McCarthy Stone. John asked me to send his apologies. We spoke to the Clerk, and we tried to move the board meeting. Unfortunately, we were not able to move it in the time we had, but John is very happy to come back to the Committee to answer any questions in person at a time that works for the Committee. He sends his apologies, and we will be happy to write to the Committee with anything that I cannot answer today.

I am the director general of the British Holiday & Home Parks Association. We represent around 3,000 parks across the UK. About 2,000 of those are holiday parks and around 900 are residential parks. We are not a regulatory body, but we support members by sharing best practice and raising standards across the industry.

I am the executive director of development for Anchor. Anchor is the largest not-for-profit provider of housing and care for older people in England. We own and manage around 55,000 properties, of which 121 are residential care homes.

Paul, do you collect data on the resale value of your properties? If so, do you recognise the situation reported in the media in the last couple of months about the number of people who have lost their savings by buying into your property schemes?

Yes, we collect data. If I may, I will come back in the round on resales and answer your question specifically. Our business model is predicated on providing high-quality, beautifully designed retirement communities. We run about 400 retirement housing schemes and about 130 extra care schemes. The value of those schemes is the improved customer life, the satisfaction, improved wellbeing, independence, and the peace of mind that our care and support teams provide. We provide all that amazing service, and generally our customer satisfaction scores show that people living with us have a really great quality of life. The average age is around 80 when they move in with us. What we absolutely have to do is make sure that the resale support, the value and the speed of sale are there when people come to sell. As a sector, we do this first part really well. For the resale part, there are examples in the media where we have not done as well as we should have done.

Land Registry data shows that 59% of your resales lose value. Why does that happen? That should not be to do with the quality of service that you provide, because that has nothing to do with the value of the property.

Absolutely. The quality of life that people have with us is really high. We say that we do not recognise the data that has been in the media; we do not recognise some of those statistics. The data that we have shows that five in 10 of our properties increase in value, which is slightly more than has been reported in the media. I still accept that it is not perfect.

Do they increase in line with national increases in property values?

If I may give the data, and then we can move on: five in 10 of our properties increase in value; nine in 10 hold at least 85% of their value or increase. We accept that probably does not track the wider housing market. Getting older in later life is expensive. There are services that we need to provide, and we are convinced that the quality of life we provide to people is really high. There is a cost saving while people live with us, because people are downsizing and moving to more cost-efficient apartments, and the quality of life is high. The value of our proposition needs to be seen as a package: the quality of life, the cost saving while people are living with us, and the fact that at least nine in 10 of our customers get back 85% of their value. We admit that it does not track HPI, but it is a different form of housing. It is sold to a much tighter demographic of people. Our average customer’s age is 80. In our 130 extra care schemes, the average customer’s age when they move in is 83. We are not selling to the open market as a whole; it is a more targeted, select move. We say that when people move in with us, you can guarantee the quality of life, there is a cost saving while you are with us, and you can get back at least 85% of your value; it is not a bad proposition. It is not perfect, and I am happy to come to what you want to speak to.

As you have offered to come back in writing, it would be good to share this data so we can have a proper analysis of, first, the numbers, because obviously the ones you shared are different from those that can be found in the Land Registry. Secondly, to understand exactly what the factors are in driving down the value of these properties, because people have invested their life savings in them. I do not know if that is on the agenda for the board meeting today. Clearly, escalating service charges are one of the factors that would reduce the value of your investment in the leasehold property itself. For example, do you think it is acceptable to charge someone £13,500 a year, including £8.54 to pick up a remote control?

If I may provide some background on what our service charges cover, then I will come to that exact example, which was also in the media. Our service charges are largely at cost. They pay for the services that we deliver on our developments. We pass through to our customers what it costs us, largely. The services are largely in three different areas. First, the services that are there day to day: our house manager in our retirement housing schemes, or the estate management team of 15 people in our extra care schemes and what it costs to procure. The salary costs go straight through to the service charge, but it brings the community together and is the hub of the development. It pays for the building insurance, the water, the sewerage, the community cleaning, gardening, the community heating and so on. The second area is that it pays for the maintenance of the scheme, both day to day and the long-term maintenance when we need to fit new lifts or repair the roof or windows, so in 10 to 20 years, there is money there for those things through the service charge. The third area is that it pays for the management support around the whole development: the HR teams, procurement teams, health and safety teams and the legal teams. Some 99% of what our residents pay in their service charge is a pass-through cost. We seek to take 1% as revenue for McCarthy Stone, which is at the lower end of what any managing agent will charge, because we believe that we need to keep the affordability of our schemes as low as we can. So, it is a pass-through cost at 99%, and these are the services that improve people’s lives.

It costs £9 for someone to come and pick up a remote control.

If I come to the example that was in the media, that was in one of our extra care schemes in Sussex. As a basic service charge within our extra care schemes, we have 24-hour support. For example, if you fall out of bed at 3 am, there is somebody there to help you as an emergency call, which is captured in the service charge. Within the service charge, there is one hour of domestic support a week, a fully commercial-scale kitchen with a private chef cooking food just for the homeowners in that development, and the service charge covers all the things I mentioned that we cover in the round within our schemes. Where people need additional care packages, they are charged outside the service charge. If you need help with toileting, bathing, medication, medical appointments, going to the hospital, shopping or companionship support—somebody to talk to sometimes—they are extra care packages that are delivered, which is the point of an extra care scheme.

Are you saying those charges relate to full-price owner-occupied properties, and you are not disputing those charges that were outlined in the press?

If you need an additional care package, they are delivered in 15-minute call segments. The figures were not quite right in the media. They were actually lower than that, and it was not a TV remote control; it was actually picking up a wheelchair remote control. The media coverage was not quite right. If you need an additional care package for all the things that I mentioned, that would be charged as an extra on top of the service charge.

Can you see why that is quite unjustifiable? A remote control is still a remote control, whether it is operating a TV or a wheelchair. Do you not feel it is excessive to ask residents to pay that charge?

I see that the charge looks petty, in the way it was communicated in the media. The way it could have been written down on the rota was that we were helping our homeowners with their bathing, their medication, or taking them to a hospital appointment. In that instance, we were picking up something that somebody in a wheelchair could not pick up and doing other things at the same time. If that was an emergency call-out, it would have been captured within the emergency call-out, and there would have been no charge, but I think there were multiple times where that happened.

Paul, what is the average service charge for one of your properties?

We have about 400 retirement housing schemes at about £3,000 to £4,000 a year, which cover all the pass-through costs that I mentioned. It is higher in our extra care schemes. On average, it is broadly about £10,000, slightly less for a one bed and slightly more for a two bed.

What was it in the last financial year?

It rises with inflation. It is typically linked to the cost of the services that we procure, so it would have risen by the rate of CPI on average. But where we have specific labour costs, for example, if the minimum wage increases, energy costs increase or the costs of the food for the restaurant increase, it will rise in line with inflation. We do not take any extra profit from the rise in inflation. We take the 1% income that comes back to McCarthy Stone from our service charges.

When someone wants to purchase one of your properties because they have looked around one of your estates and think it is quite nice, how many years’ service charge do you give them before they sign on the dotted line to buy one?

How many free years’ service charge?

How many years of information do you provide on what the service charge will be in, let us say, five years? Do you give any information to people who want to buy?

We will say that the service charge will typically be linked to inflation, in the same way that the costs of running their own home would have been. If their energy bills will change in their own home, they will change in the same way.

Do you give them a figure?

Yes, absolutely. At the start of every year, we provide a budget pack to say this is what the year is likely to cost.

Hang on, from the beginning, if someone turns up—

We provide that information.

You have misunderstood the question. If someone turns up to buy one of your properties, how much history do you give them about the service charge? You are talking about the budget moving forward.

We provide the audited accounts for the year before. They are available to people. They see the audited accounts and the service charge for what it cost the year before.

You do not provide a simple sheet that says, “Last year the service charge was £3,000. The year before that, it was £2,500”?

We can and do provide access to the audited accounts.

You can, but you do not.

We provide access. You can access the audited accounts for the year before, and then the years before are largely linked to inflation.

There is a difference between accessing and providing up front, which is it?

We provide the audited accounts for the year before.

Just for the year before?

Yes, for the year before.

Not for the previous years?

It is available, and I am happy to take that feedback back if the Committee suggests providing it for longer than the year before.

Do you charge for that access?

No. The information is given to our customers. It is in the homeowner’s lounge. It is given to every customer in the development. There is also a homeowner portal that has the history of the development.

Basically, you are saying that you are not overly helpful. You just give them loads of information and expect them to work it out for themselves. That is what you have basically just said.

We provide the service charge booklet, which has the line-by-line breakdown of every single charge in that development. I met Mr Dillon recently and showed him one of our developments where he saw a line-by-line cost breakdown. We provide the audited accounts for the year before. I can look into it and come back to the Committee on what we do for the years before that. However, it is relatively easily accessible to read; it is the full accounts.

I want to pick up on service charges, but I cannot leave the remote control incident. I do not think I have seen colleagues’ faces so shocked by an answer, to be honest with you, Paul. The telecare systems that you have on site alert someone if you need help or in an emergency. This person’s remote control for their wheelchair was dropped and they needed help to pick it up. They pressed the button and were charged. Is there now a risk that next time they, or another one of your residents in another scheme, will not press that button for fear of being charged, and they will try to lean over and pick it up themselves? That scheme is potentially putting residents more at risk for fear of using it. I have run on-site provision of supported housing with on-site telecare, and I have never known a situation where the warden does not just go and pick that up as a good business person.

Absolutely. As I mentioned in my answer, if it were an emergency call out with the red pull cord, it is captured within the service charge. There is no extra cost. Whether it happens at 3 am or 3 pm, it is captured within the service charge. While I do not want to get too far into the details of people’s personal care packages, it was about the seventh or eighth time this had happened and we had had a conversation with the homeowner to say, “Well, if we keep coming to do this, we will need to be delivering an additional care package for you.”

But they had used the pull-cord system to alert?

They had.

But that is the risk of your business offering that service at a flat rate. It does not matter whether you use it once a year or 365 days a year, that emergency service is there for your customers. I want to move on to service charges. I have a particular scheme, which is why I met Paul recently. The service charge accounts for the residents of that scheme were late. They are painstakingly going through the accounts, and they have already found 10 errors. An example of this is being charged twice for a TV licence. If that is one scheme, how accurate are you across the country? Do you know that your accounts are not strewn with multiple errors that residents do not have the capacity to pick up?

We have had several meetings and have been working with the homeowners at that development.

I cannot talk about it because it is my own casework.

In general at that development, the satisfaction of the homeowners in that scheme is broadly in a reasonable place. There are specific queries and issues regarding the service charges. The service charges that we delivered in the last year or so were all delivered on time. There was a period of time, as we came out of covid, in 2022, 2023 and 2024, where, because of the cost inflation and the pressures on costs generally, some of our accounts were delivered later than we would have liked. We have invested in a new finance system upgrade. It is a multimillion-pound project which is ongoing, and we can now absolutely guarantee, certainly from last year and moving forward, that our accounts are delivered to people on time. It is absolutely essential that they see transparent, reasonably delivered, on-time accounts. In that instance, we probably fell short, and we apologised to the homeowner who raised that query.

On your Older Persons Shared Ownership programme, you received £94 million from Homes England and the Affordable Homes Programme. In the case that the value drops, do the rents come down?

If I may again briefly give some background on our delivery of the Older Persons Shared Ownership scheme, there are 2.3 million older people in the UK who have housing equity of around £150,000 to £250,000. We heard about that from the previous panel. Many of them live in unsuitable housing conditions. They need better accommodation but simply cannot afford to move with the level of equity they have. They are proud homeowners, but they do not have the equity to afford to move to other accommodation. We recognised that and became a registered provider with our shared ownership business and a strategic partner, and we now deliver Homes England’s Older Persons Shared Ownership, OPSO, product. We will deliver around 1,000 properties between 2021 and the start of 2026. Those properties are largely in lower-affluence areas, particularly where Julienne was saying the real need is in the lower to middle market. Without that product, we could not afford to provide homes for those people. I invite the whole Committee to come to our first 100% shared ownership scheme in Oldham in Greater Manchester; it is a brilliant scheme. In February, I was there with the homeowners who said that none of them could have afforded to move without the OPSO scheme. Coming specifically to your question about the OPSO scheme, none of those units has resold yet. Because it is a relatively new product, we would expect the resale performance on those homes to be better than our average. The affordability ratios are so much wider, so we are able to appeal to a much wider group. I know shared ownership does not have the best reputation—I have read the views of the Committee members—but the OPSO product is different because, when you get to 75% ownership, you have no rent to pay. To answer your question, most of our homeowners are buying in at 75% so they have no rent to pay. It is one of the special features of OPSO. They have no mortgage to pay either, because they are largely moving across or slightly down in terms of the property they are in at the moment. They have no mortgage to pay and no rent to pay, and while they live with us, the cost of living is lower. We would expect the resale performance to be more positive than with our mainstream product, which is mixed, as I have hopefully communicated.

There is obviously a lot of detail we could get into. I know we have a broader session, but it feels to me like your business model is based on locking people into these service charges that they cannot escape and keeping ground rents—you have obviously challenged the Government in the past to retain ground rents for doing absolutely nothing. The value of the product is going down and is being footed by both life savings and the taxpayer, so you can understand why people feel like this whole business model is really about fleecing older people. This is such a vital sector that we need to get right, so I hope we can have a bit more detail in the future from the leadership of the company and you so that we can interrogate the data to understand what is going wrong.

We are happy to write to the Committee with all the information that I have provided today. Hopefully, I have made it clear that the service charges are not an income generator for our business because 99% of it is a pass-through cost, with half of the resale values going up in value and nine in 10 retaining 85% of their value. We do not lock people into the service charge. The service charge covers what it costs to deliver the scheme, which are the services that improve people’s lives. Those costs will be payable if you live in your own home. In fact, people will save money while they are living with us because their heating bills are lower, their council tax is lower, the running costs are lower and more importantly the quality of their life is significantly improved. Homes England had an independent study last year that looked at several hundred people living in all forms of retirement housing. It found that life satisfaction, health and happiness were up. That is the value of retirement living, and I would invite the whole Committee to come to visit our first 100% OPSO scheme in Oldham. Let us have that discussion. We can spend a couple of hours with you all going through what our service charges cover, where our resale values are and what the real value of retirement living is. You heard from the first panel about how important it is to get this sector right. It is not perfect at the moment, and there are examples where it is not perfect, and for those we apologis. Nine times out of 10, I believe we get it right. I am happy to work with the Committee to see what more we can do.

Paul, as my colleague Joe has highlighted, we have concerns over the business model of McCarthy Stone. You have asked us to come to your developments and see for ourselves. McCarthy Stone got planning commission for a development in my constituency of Woking in November 2021, and you are not building out. I believe you are not building out because you know it is not economically viable due to the high service charges and poor resale. Are you going to review your business model? Is the agenda of the board meeting today to review service charges and the poor resale so that we can house more older people in properties like yours?

It is a really good question. We seek to buy 30 to 40 sites a year to build new retirement communities. We run over 500 now, and the business model is to keep building to meet the needs of the ageing population as new cohorts of older people come through. There are some examples where we have achieved planning consent but the site viability has changed. We have been through an extreme period of build cost inflation. You said 2021, we all know inflation has risen with the war in Ukraine, and that has impacted and fed through to the build cost of our schemes. What was viable before covid and before those cost inflations is no longer viable. Where we have schemes that we are no longer able to develop, it will be solely down to the site viability because the build costs have just gone so high, and with the total lack of any planning support, which the taskforce highlighted, it is no longer viable to bring that scheme forward. I take the point on the affordability of our schemes once people move in, and that is a real focus for us. I mentioned the average service charges we have. We are committed to making sure they are transparent and fairly communicated to potential buyers and current customers. We are also working on a multifaceted project to see how we can bring those service charges down for new schemes, and looking retrospectively at existing schemes. For example, where we can use our national procurement powers, we have just secured national building insurance cover for our whole estate at 2023 prices, whereas I know that when we secure our own building insurance, it goes up year on year. We can only do that because we have national scale. All those savings are passed through to the service charge; we do not take a penny; there is no commission; they are simply pass-through costs. We are also looking at how we could maybe use the equity in people’s homes more: could we lower the service charge and the running cost but move some of those costs to when people resell their property? It could be a 2%, 3%, or 4% charge, but you have a proportionate reduction in service charges. To be really clear, that is the homeowner’s money paying for the homeowner’s service, but rather than paying for it on a day-to-day, month-by-month basis, because they might be equity-rich but cash-poor, that cost is transferred to the equity. It would really increase the affordability of running our schemes. That is an active project that we are working on at the moment. I can come to what we are doing retrospectively on our schemes, but I appreciate that I have been talking for a while.

Will McCarthy Stone’s for-profit registered provider arm be seeking funding from the new Affordable Homes Programme?

Within the taskforce work, the taskforce report and the members through our trade groups, we made representation that the next Affordable Homes Programme should allocate 10% of its allocation to older people’s housing. It should be for social rented housing through the CASSH fund, the Care and Supported Specialised Housing fund, and the Older Persons Shared Ownership scheme, because without that there is nothing in the AHP to support the 2.3 million older people with low equity. We recognise the Committee’s view that there should be a shift to social rented housing because of the social value it delivers, and we support that, but we think there should be a product that helps the 2.3 million older people with really low levels of housing.

But will McCarthy Stone be submitting a bid?

To answer your question, yes. If there is money allocated for that particular programme, we will, along with others in the sector, be applying for it.

Based on previous experience, do you think McCarthy Stone will be worthy recipients of grant funding?

The OPSO product that we deliver is a high-quality product helping real people in need, and we deliver our schemes at an affordable price with an affordable service charge. The resale challenge is mixed: five in 10 of our properties go up in value. With the OPSO product, we think the resale performance will be even better because you are opening it up to a much wider range of people. We think it is an amazing product for older people in that particular bracket, and we support the sector applying for that money, and if there is something in the prospectus then we will also be applying for it.

Quite a number of people across the sector may have different views on whether or not they would support a McCarthy Stone bid, but that is something that we and Homes England will be scrutinising. Moving on to Park Homes, Maya please.

Debbie, you represent park home site owners. In the previous panel, we heard from Sonia McColl who represents people who own homes on park home sites. One of the interesting things she said was that there has not actually been much positive engagement with site owners. Can you tell me a bit about how you and your members engage with park home owners? You know the asks of those owners and what they are pushing for. What work have you done to try to find a middle ground and work out a positive way forward?

I have meetings with Sonia to find ways forward. There are lots of things we agree on, particularly with regard to some of the rogue operators that Sonia mentioned, and I very much support her on that. There are also points of difference between us. As I say, our role is to support the parks. We give members of the public information via our website, and we go to trade shows. There is a lot of confusion between the different laws for residential caravans and holiday caravans, so we have produced a very short know your rights video explaining the differences, which is now being linked to by the BBC and some local authorities are using it. We very much welcome MPs using it with their constituents. We produce booklets that we take to fairs to explain to people what their rights and responsibilities are when they are looking at buying a park home.

We heard earlier about the relationship between landlords and renters. Within the relationship between site owners and park home owners, what role do those site owners take in terms of supporting home owners with energy improvements and living? How does that tend to work? We have talked about rogue site owners, so do you have any stats on who the good guys are and how many there are?

We like to think that we represent the good guys. The rogue element is quite small, but they have a large impact on the reputation of the industry, and our members are very passionate about weeding out that element because it does not do anybody any good. In terms of stats, the all-party parliamentary group has a local authority, Arun District Council, that is very proactive in weeding out rogue operators. Arun District Council has quite a high proportion of rogue operators in its area, and it say that 80% of its work is caused by 20% of the parks in its area which, although it is anecdotal, gives you an idea. The vast majority of residential parks are run by responsible owners. I go to parks all the time, and people genuinely enjoy living on the parks. It gives them a lot of independence. They are detached, akin to bungalow-style properties. They are six metres or so apart, so they are well spaced out. They have their own individual gardens, and they have neighbours around them that they know and trust, so people really enjoy living in those types of park homes.

What reforms do you think need to be made to mobile home legislation so that there can be a working relationship for both site owners and park home owners?

It is important for the Committee to understand that there is quite a lot of regulation in the industry, which broadly works well most of the time. There are a couple of things that could be tightened up, and I am happy to write to the Committee about this afterwards. Specifically, complex ownership and the fit and proper persons test could be tightened up. The biggest impact could be made if there were better resourcing for local authority planning departments, site licensing departments, and trading standards. It is not that the laws are not there; it is the lack of funding, resources and sometimes specialist legal knowledge to enforce them. Also, greater powers are needed for local authorities. For example, at the moment the only form of redress is prosecution, whereas if there was a slightly lower tier of fixed penalty notices, that would pick up some lower-level infringements much more easily. Coming back to one of the ladies who spoke earlier on the housing crisis, if you really wanted to make a big difference, a small change to the guidance on the NPPF to acknowledge or expand the definition of a home to include residential park homes would really help with the housing crisis. Park homes are much quicker to deliver and install; they can be done in 14 to 16 weeks as opposed to two and a half years for a bricks and mortar development. Their final cost to the purchaser is about 30% cheaper than a bricks and mortar property, and proportionately the pitch fees are much lower. As I said, people genuinely love the freedom it gives them and the sense of community. They really enjoy living in park homes.

Finally, what do you think the impact on the industry would be if that 10% was reduced or removed?

It would be devastating. It would really change the nature of the industry. At the moment, there are a lot of small independent parks in the industry. The Government’s own research showed that they would be put at risk and their viability would decrease. Residential parks are very different from holiday parks because it is a very low-margin business. Without the commission, many would simply not survive. The model is predicated on setting the initial sale price 30% cheaper than other prices. The pitch fees are very low, and they are capped to CPI so they cannot go up anymore. Smaller parks really rely on that income. The average pitch fee income for a small park with, say, 10 park homes is probably about £20,000 a year, and for that they have to do all the maintenance and all the employee costs. It is not a lot of money to maintain a park, and it is in everyone’s interest that parks are well maintained so that people can enjoy their retirement in a lovely setting.

Thank you. We will come on to Anchor now.

Oliver, the chief executive of Anchor resigned last month after the regulator found “Issues of serious regulatory concern,” including failures in health and safety compliance and governance. What is the nature of those failures, how widespread are they, and how is Anchor responding to the regulator?

I will give you a bit of background. In December last year, Anchor self-referred to the Regulator of Social Housing. We discovered that we had a serious backlog in our electrical safety testing and remediation, and an internal audit showed that we had issues with the execution of our damp, mould and condensation policy. We immediately set about putting a plan in place to deal with that backlog and made the referral to the regulator in December. In February, the regulator gave us a C3 grade against the consumer standard, which is a low grade and it put our governance grade under review. The governance grade goes from 1 to 4, with 1 and 2 being compliant and 3 and 4 not being compliant with the governance standards. Last week, the regulator announced that our governance grade has been downgraded to 3. Anchor has done a huge amount of work since December significantly reducing the backlog of electrical testing and remediation. We will be completely over that backlog by the end of this calendar year. We have set up a subcommittee of our main board that meets monthly to hold the executive to account in terms of progress against this. We have been reporting progress to the regulator every single week, and we have been meeting as an executive team every single week to review the progress against this. We have engaged external technical specialists and consultants to help us, and we have invested in additional capacity to deal with the backlog. It is important to say that we are working really closely with the regulator. We take this incredibly seriously and fully accept the regulator’s judgment, which reflects the need for us to improve our customer safety. The safety of our residents in their homes is the single most important thing that we do, so this is the highest priority for us as an organisation, and we are working incredibly hard to rectify it.

Has Anchor fully apologised for letting this get to such a bad state in the first place?

Absolutely, yes. We certainly apologise and fully accept the regulator’s judgment as a result.

How is the catch-up plan being funded? Is it being funded by increases in service charges now or in the future? Obviously, in terms of how things got so bad, are people still in the position that they were when they signed off on a plan that they should have known was not going to meet adequate health and safety standards?

The first part of the remedial works is being funded by Anchor from its operational cash flows, so that cost is not being passed on to our customers. On the second part, there has been a significant change in senior leadership, particularly in the property and assets part of the business—the whole leadership team has changed. There has been a significant amount of external support and third-party scrutiny around that as well. In terms of how the situation arose, it is something that happened over a period of time and is fundamentally a combination of contractors getting behind on their work and not necessarily reporting as effectively as they should have. If you read the judgment, the regulator points to the board not being kept sufficiently up to date with those things as well. It is a combination of those things.

Did Anchor not check up on its contractors?

It had a process of internal validation, but it did not have a third-party process. It now has third-party validation that happens across all its inspections of the remedial works.

So the contractors said they had done the work, you paid them and just believed everything they said?

There is a varied number of issues across the electrical testing piece. One contractor was getting behind and had assured us that it could catch up, but that was not necessarily the case. In other cases, we were told that things were happening that turned out not to be the case. I do not think anybody is claiming or pretending that the process was working well or was perfect, which is why we have worked to completely transform the way we deliver compliance across the business.

Has anyone who left Anchor over all these failures received a payoff to go?

I cannot answer that question; we would have to follow up. I know that Sarah Jones departed of her own accord, and she chose to step down. I am sure we can give you a response after the Committee, but I am afraid I am not party to that information.

What timeframe have the interim chief exec and the new board put on outlining the concerns from RSH?

Sorry, in terms of the recruitment of a new chief executive?

No. What is the timeframe for responding to the damning report?

We are working on a recovery plan with the regulator, and we anticipate that we will be submitting it to them in the coming weeks. It will require the regulator, and obviously our board, to agree to that plan. This is not a fixed date, but we hope that we can get that agreement in September. As I said, we have done a huge amount of work between when we referred and now to accelerate the compliance works, but if the regulator agrees to the plan, we will obviously set about it immediately.

We appreciate your writing to the Committee. Are you able to keep us informed once you have agreed on that timeframe with the regulator?

Absolutely, yes.

Have you offered any compensation to residents who were affected by not having safety checks done at the appropriate time?

Not to my knowledge.

OPSO can provide an affordable route into home ownership for some older people, particularly people with limited equity who are looking for secure long-term housing. The lower entry cost compared with full ownership is certainly a benefit of the product. In our view, the model is not necessarily suited to the specific financial circumstances of lots of older people. Older people tend to be either retired or on a far lower fixed income than younger people, so lots of the mechanisms within the shared ownership lease, such as 1% staircasing, do not really apply. In terms of your question about value for money, there are some really perverse things about the product itself. Earlier, Paul alluded to the fact that if you buy 75% of the home, you pay no rent on the unsold portion that you do not own, but if you buy any less than 75% you pay rent on the proportion up to 100%. So, if you buy 70%, you pay rent on 30%, but if you buy 75%, you pay no rent on 25%, so the product itself could definitely be reformed to make it fairer. We know that when we look at demand across the country, the demand for social rented housing massively outstrips the demand against OPSO, certainly in terms of affordable products. In lower-income areas, there is a far stronger demand for social rented housing, and in slightly higher-income areas, the OPSO product can work very well for some people. So, it is part of a broad package of affordable housing options that need to be provided for, and it is very geographically dependent in terms of where it delivers value for money.

I agree with Ollie’s points. As a sector, we have argued that 10% of the whole AHP should be for older people, regardless of tenure, to make sure there is an allocation in there that is of significant size; that is our starting point. In terms of the value of OPSO, we recognise the need for social rented housing. The people I mentioned, who are the 2.3 million in the £150,000 to £250,000 bracket, will not qualify for social rented housing, so they have nowhere else to move to. Older Persons Shared Ownership is a scheme that can be really supportive for that particular group of people, particularly in areas of the north or the midlands where they have not seen the high price growth that other areas have seen. I do not know the exact figures, but in terms of value, my understanding is that the cost of delivering a social rented home is about £160,000. The grant for an Older Persons Shared Ownership home is about £60,000, so you physically get more units, apartments and homes under shared ownership from the grant funding than you would for the social rented side. It is about a broad package with different allocations. My final point is that, even within the current OPSO programme, it is a tiny proportion of the AHP. I think Homes England is delivering a few hundred OPSO homes a year, which is not in any way a significant proportion, but without that there is nothing catering for the bracket of people with low levels of equity.

Ideally, that would be good. The reforms that could happen to the product would not necessarily need to be enormous. In terms of the point I made earlier about the inequity between those that own 75% and those that own less than 70% in terms of the rent paid, if there were a larger allocation of grants up front that could allow for somebody who buys 70% to pay only 5% rent. We could then keep the 75% cap, for example, across any equity share. However, that would need a higher grant, because if Anchor is building a property, and we do not build as efficiently as the likes of McCarthy Stone because we contract people to build on our behalf, the cost is 100% and we can recover only 75% if we sell it. When we sell 75%, the grant that we received from the Government is either recycled elsewhere to build new affordable homes, or in some cases is repayable, so we are actually spending 100% of the cost, but in lots of cases only getting 75% of the money back. Those reforms to the product would not take a lot but would make it far better and far more equitable for the purchasers and would encourage more providers to deliver it.

There are just a few last questions. Obviously, we have talked a lot about Older Persons Shared Ownership and how prospective buyers are getting up-to-date, accurate information. How do you all feel about the need for raising awareness of the key issues that people thinking about purchasing through Older Persons Shared Ownership should be looking for?

The retirement sector has various codes of conduct, but generally they are at quite a low level. The public awareness of them is quite low. There is one that has statutory approval, as the Association of Retirement Housing Managers has a statutory code that the Secretary of State for Housing approves every few years. It is a really great code, but it has very little profile and awareness. It could do with a lot more profile, more teeth, and be more robust in the round. We would support scaling it up and giving it more profile, because it builds more consumer confidence. On the flip side, the sector and older people generally need better information and advice. Earlier, Julienne spoke about the different terminology around retirement housing and extra care housing. We need to try to simplify it. We would support information and advice services. There is a charity called the Elderly Accommodation Counsel that provides those services. It used to have funding from the Ministry of Housing, but that funding was cut maybe 10 years ago. We would call for that funding to be reinstated, and we would like to see that within the housing strategy so that the charity can provide more services. We would generally like to see more information and advice centres around the country as well.

Do you think that should include information about potential charges that future beneficiaries may inherit as a result of service charges?

Yes. It should cover everything that consumers need to know, such as transparency around the service charges, the point made earlier about historical charges and moving forward, how the properties resell, what the process is and what the values are. The sector will only grow if there is confidence and transparency, and there is more work to do in that regard.

The more transparency the better in all the sectors. Giving people information and making sure there is proper enforcement of the laws will make everything a lot better. There is a great opportunity to provide a lot more homes at a price people can afford, with just some small tweaks to the regulations.

Oliver, do you think the information should include where providers have gone wrong in past inspections, so being honest about the progress and improvement you have made?

Anything that provides information to our customers, either current or future, in terms of our relationship with the regulator and our regulatory regime is a good thing. We are very open and transparent in our governance, and as I said earlier, we fully accept what the regulator has found with us as an organisation. We point all our customers to the regulator and the housing ombudsman in most of our communication. We would certainly point them to the regulator if that would help them make up their minds on whether to come to live with us.

Finally, are there any measures specifically relating to older people’s housing needs that any of you feel should be outlined in the housing strategy? Is there anything missing? Is there something you would like the Government to introduce?

I would certainly push for a national strategy for housing with care across all tenures, particularly social rent but also across affordable home ownership and sale and dedicated funding for it. Really importantly, it should reflect the long-term cost benefit to central Government across health, social care and housing. Paul has already mentioned the 10% allocation of the Homes England and GLA grant funding pot for housing for older people, which is something we would very strongly support.

Expanding the definition of home in the NPPF guidance would be really helpful in allowing more park homes to be built that are within the reach of people who have low or fixed incomes. It would be a massive help.

For us, we mentioned the improved information and advice and the allocation in the AHP. The third area is local and national planning. It was in the taskforce, and we would like every local plan to have a policy on older people’s housing. That is not the case at the moment, which just seems strange. The NPPF mentions older people once, possibly twice, which when you think that they are a quarter or a fifth of our population, is just crazy. There needs to be much stronger referencing to the need to plan for older people’s housing in the NPPF and in every local plan.

I just wanted to clarify that, in an earlier question from my colleague Joe about data, you said you were happy to share it with the Committee.

We will.

Thank you. Thank you to everyone for coming this morning. This is definitely an area we will come back to when we discuss the long-term housing strategy.