Households across the north face an ever-deepening struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Rising rents, particularly in the private sector, play a part, as does the gap between those rents and housing benefit levels. Department for Communities figures (table 1.3) indicate that more NI households (around 129,600) now rent privately than rent socially (around 124,300).

This is not a matter of choice – after all, NISRA data from 2022/23 put social rents at on average £27/week cheaper than private ones, and social tenancies offer greater security of tenure than private ones. It’s necessity: at last count there were over 47,000 households already in the queue for one of those socially rented properties, with relatively very little movement to be seen.

The picture was not always this grim.  Analysis by the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI) shows that in 1981 the percentage of NI households in Housing Executive social homes was over 39%. This dropped markedly over each of the next two decades, falling to just 11.5% in 2011; today just one in ten households are Housing Executive tenants, with an additional 4% in housing association social homes. (Housing associations were recognised in NI law in 1976).

Image caption: In a marked departure from the past, the most current NISRA data indicate that in 2022/23, just 10% of NI households were in Housing Executive social tenancies and 4% in housing association ones.

This begs the question: if two out of every five households here lived in a Housing Executive home four decades ago, why is it only one in ten today?

The answer is, in large part, ‘right to buy’. The name is a marketing gimmick – there is no such right – but the Conservative policy aim of shrinking the public sector through encouraging private ownership of previously social homes was very real.  Rolled out across the UK in 1979 shortly after Conservative Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, the scheme began as voluntary and became law here in 1993.

According to the Housing Executive’s 40-year review (p. 40), a 1974 housing survey here identified  153,500 social homes, nearly all Housing Executive-owned, making up more than a third of all housing stock in the north.

However, the review reported, over the decades the House Sales Scheme saw nearly 120,900 Housing Executive social homes (and, between 2003 and 2020, 3,000 housing association ones) sold to tenants at a discount (pp. 22, 52). In response to a recent Freedom of Information request the Housing Executive reported the figure at the end of May 2024 to be 122,733 Housing Executive social homes sold under the scheme.

And sales continue, albeit at a slower pace; in April 2024 Communities Minister Gordon Lyons said he had ‘no plans’ to close the scheme -  this despite the breathtaking gap in provision for people in housing need.

The main driver of the decline in social housing stock was identified as the House Sales Scheme – alongside, to a lesser extent, a 2001 policy change making housing associations responsible for building all new social homes going forward.

Already in 2020 the Housing Executive review’s authors flagged that NI’s social housing stock “remains lower numerically – and substantially lower proportionately – than in 1974” (p. 91). By 2023 Housing Executive stock would drop still further, to about 83,225 homes. The main driver of the decline in social housing stock was identified as the House Sales Scheme – alongside, to a lesser extent, a 2001 policy change making housing associations responsible for building all new social homes going forward.

Already in 2004, researchers into the impact of the scheme – though noting some positive ‘first wave’ effects – judged the ‘second wave’ to be “more complex and ambiguous”, particularly around “the changing shape of neighbourhoods, and the resources available to those in housing need” (p. 9)

The review makes plain that the impact on the waiting list and on the overall housing system of this loss of social housing stock was not felt immediately, but rather would be delayed until the point when those tenancies would have naturally been coming to an end and the property again would have been becoming available for re-let (p. 19). This is why, twenty or thirty or more years on, there are ever fewer social homes coming free and able to be re-let to new tenants.

In this context, the reported 26,000 homes built by housing associations as of 2018 (p. 12) have not even come close to keeping pace with ever-growing demand.

Image caption: The percentage and number of social homes sold under the scheme by local government district. The scheme’s impact is not uniform: for instance, Newry, Mourne & Down district saw 70% of its social homes sold by 2018, as compared to 48% in Belfast.

The review includes reflections from a 2004 evaluation, about the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the scheme over time. The winners were identified as those social housing tenants who managed to buy their publicly-built homes at a discounted rate, get onto the property ladder and see the value of their investment increase over time. The losers were “the public sector tenants for whom the decline in the size and quality of the residential social rented sector had reduced options and opportunities” (p. 29).

This would presumably include today’s nearly 29,000 NI households recognised as ‘Full Duty Applicant’ homeless and still on the waiting list.

To rub salt into the proverbial wound, according to the review a sizeable proportion of the sold homes have since ended up in the hands of private landlords.  A bespoke survey it carried out found that:

“just over a quarter of the dwellings sold by late 2018 [[equating, by the surveyors’ estimate, to around 31,620 former Housing Executive properties (p. 83)]] were being rented in 2019. We have no evidence on whether the rented properties in the survey sample were purchased for the purpose of letting, or whether original or subsequent owner-occupiers moved on and retained the property for letting.”

In response to the Freedom of Information request the Housing Executive said that number of former Housing Executive homes being rented out in the private sector had not been updated since that 2018 estimate.

So was it all worth it?  Even the authors of the Housing Executive review appeared to have their doubts:

“had the social sector not diminished so drastically as a result of the House Sales Scheme and lack of investment in new social housing provision, it might have been better able to meet the needs of a greater number and wider range of households.”

The 47,000+ families still in the queue could have told housing authorities that for free.