Boris Johnson today set out plans to eradicate homelessness in London by 2012.

The London Mayor is no stranger to ambitious targets. In his election manifesto he pledged an additional 50,000 affordable homes for London by 2011.

Progress on the target has proved somewhat controversial, but this morning Mr Johnson was keen to highlight his record so far.

The Claim

The Mayor’s office issued a press release stating that since he took office 26,000 homes had been built.

Similarly on the Today programme, Mr Johnson said: “"If you look at the number that we've built in that last couple of year it's actually been extraordinary we've got 26,000 affordable homes over the last two years"

So has the Mayor’s social housing record been “extraordinary”?

Analysis

Firstly, Boris’ numbers are right. We spoke to the Mayor’s office who referred us to figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), which at least backed up his numbers.

In 2008/9, there were an additional 13,130 affordable homes, and according to City Hall a further 12,884 in 2009/10, giving a total of 26,014.

His figures may be right, but are some of the claims made by the Mayor about his social record credible?

Unsurprisingly Mr Johnson’s political opponents have not been kind.

Representatives of the London Labour party have argued that the figures are actually lower than for the last two years of Ken Livingstone’s term. They also claim that Boris had failed to deliver on his own social housing targets and that much of the housing included in the Boris’ figures was in the pipeline from his predecessor.

These claims will be addressed in turn.

On the figures on for the final years of Ken Livingstone’s tenure the DCLG figures show that 2007/09 there were 15,390 additional homes and 13,410 in 2006/7, giving a total in excess of Boris’ 26,000.

However the years preceding this saw lower levels of new affordable housing so they were not necessarily the trend for Ken’s entire reign.

It is also worth considering the 26,000 figure in the context of the 50,000 target originally set by the Mayor.

At the end of last year, City Hall acknowledged this target had slipped by a year.

The failure to deliver on the original pledge would appear undermine how “extraordinary” the amount completed so far had been.

However those in the social housing sector are more sympathetic to the Boris’ record.

Dino Patel, London Region manager at the National Housing Federation, told us that the failure to hit the target was largely due to credit crunch.

The lack of private sector activity in the building sector severely hampered progress, and indeed the Government at the time brought forward 2011 allocations of social housing funding, as Jim Vine of the British Social Housing Foundation told us.

But what of the claims that a significant chunk of the 26,000 homes welcomed by the Mayor today, were actually in the pipeline under his predecessor?

It would be difficult to put a number on it, but as Mr Patel explained: “Housing development can take anything from 18 months to 5 or 6 years (for large schemes which are phased) so some developments would have been initiated by the former mayor. Also, the rate of sales affects subsequent development.

“However, mayors do generally look at completions within their years of office. Boris, for example, will have initiated many homes which will count in his successor's housing record.”

With these points in mind what are we to make of the Mayors overall record on social housing?

We spoke to homeless and housing charity Shelter for their assessment.  A spokesperson pointed to research done by the charity suggesting in 28 boroughs, less than half of the social housing need was being met. However she stressed that it was the borough councils, rather than the Mayor who were the focus of the report.

Jim Vine also told us that the way the Homes and Communities Agency allocates funds also limits the extent to which the social housing target would be the mayor’s responsibility alone.

“It’s a national pot of money that effects how much delivery will happen in London. The Mayor can look at ways that can make more or less of that pot of money. But you can only stretch any given piece of money so far, which can limit the extent to which you can heap any credit or indeed any criticism on the Mayor”.

Given such points the level of credit or criticism attributable to the Mayor is hard to establish.

Conclusion

Given the slipping of the Boris’ own social housing target, and the higher figures delivered in the last years of Ken Livingstone’s term, the evidence seems to challenge the presentation of the social housing figures used by the Mayor as “extraordinary”.

However, the mitigating circumstances of the recession need to be kept in mind.

While unwilling to share the Mayor’s definition of the positive note the Shelter spokesperson stressed that the Mayor should still be given credit for his social housing targets.

She said: “We welcome the priority the Mayor has given to building more desperately needed affordable housing for London by setting a target of 50,000 new affordable homes by 2012.

 “With 354,000 households on housing waiting lists, it is vital all boroughs prioritise the delivery of affordable homes, particularly social rented homes for those in greatest need.”

Patrick Casey