Uk & International

Two of the UK’s largest housing associations are in the early stages of discussions about the potential to create one of Europe’s largest housing associations. A merger between Circle Housing and Affinity Sutton would be the largest ever for UK housing, creating a landlord which would be home to

A local authority in England is consulting on new rules to make it harder for developers to game the planning system and avoid building affordable homes. Viability assessments are used to work out how much affordable housing developers can afford to build as part of new developments.

Staff at a housing association in Stoke are to undertake industrial action over a dispute over cuts to pay and work conditions. The GMB union said some workers employed by Aspire Housing are losing over £5,000 per year, face cuts to sick pay, removal of paid allowances, and on top of that are being

George Osborne UK ministers are considering forcing all housing benefit recipients to contribute towards their rent as part of efforts to save billions from the welfare bill, according to reports.

Iain Duncan Smith The UK government has announced plans to scrap the target to eliminate child poverty by 2020.

Dame Angela Watkinson Two pieces of legislation that will make it easier for authorities to identify criminal landlords in England were introduced by MPs yesterday.

Gavin Smart The UK government is to press ahead with proposals to introduce a seven-day waiting period before claimants are eligible for Universal Credit.

Rachel Reeves A tribunal in England has ruled that separated parents are being wrongly charged with the ‘bedroom tax’ in a ruling that can open the floodgates for thousands of claimants.

Clare Foges David Cameron’s former speech writer has urged the prime minister to axe the ‘bedroom tax’ after revealing concerns about the policy’s impact.

Hackney Council has amended an order that threatened rough sleepers with court action and fines of up to £1,000 following a campaign by homelessness groups and local people who said it risked criminalising vulnerable people. The local authority’s public space protection order (PSPO) introduced by

Alan Ward Landlords are calling for urgent discussions with ministers following a ruling by the European Court of Justice that will make it more expensive to insulate private rented housing.

Lord Kerslake David Cameron’s pledge to offer a right to buy to all housing-association tenants has been questioned by housing lawyers and a former civil service chief.

A housing association has set up its own estate agency to help raise funds for new affordable homes. Launched by Gloucestershire-based Two Rivers Housing Group yesterday, TwoCan property sales and lettings agency will gift all of its profit to support the work of the local housing charity.

The UK government’s spending watchdog has criticised the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) for its failure to anticipate problems in its implementation of welfare reform. The National Audit Office has called for the DWP to use the hard lessons it learned from implementing its recent program

By Adam van Lohuizen, senior economic analyst at Shelter The impact of the cuts already made by the coalition government has been severe. And the government has pledged to make a further £12 billion reduction in welfare spending by 2017-18. But the task of making these cuts has got a whole lot hard