“Half of houses built last year were social houses, actually, the only way we kept the construction sector going last year was by building half of all the houses.” – Sarah Webb, Chief Executive, Chartered Institute of Housing, Today Programme, 19 October

The Background

If reports are to be believed, tomorrow’s spending announcement will cut funding for social housing by 50 per cent- or possibly even more.

Though the plans will not be set out officially until the review is published, an annual target of 150,000 new homes built each year is reportedly to be set.

However some housing industry experts have argued that, given the fragile state of the private construction industry, publicly financed building for social houses makes up a significant part of overall housing, meaning that any cuts to this budget will severely impinge upon the number of ne homes available.

But does social housing currently account for such a large proportion of total building?

Analysis

At first sight the numbers do not appear to back up the claim.

Taking figures from the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) for the number of completed dwellings in England (where the reported cuts will apply) the official statistics show that of the 113,670 houses completed in 2009-10, 25,040 were built for either local authority or registered social landlord tenure. This comes to about 22 per cent of total completed dwellings.

Given that this is also the highest percentage accounted for by social housing for some years, it would begin to appear as though Ms Webb has overstated her case.

We contacted the Chartered Institute of Housing to try and resolve the discrepancy, and were referred to an announcement made last year by the Homes and Communities Agency, the body which administers grants for the building of affordable homes.

The agency stated that between 2009-11 half of the homes projected to be built would be funded by the HCA.

If we take the 55,625 projection for 2009-10 in the HCA announcement, it can be seen that this is not a million miles away from 50 per cent of the 113,670 homes that were complete that year according to DCLG figures.

However this 55,625 figure also includes both some open market properties as well low-cost home ownership schemes.e

A DCLG spokesperson confirmed to us that the Department’s definition of social housing would only include properties rented from local authorities and bodies such as housing associations, while the term ‘affordable homes’ also encompassed low cost ownership.

Therefore it seems there is a case for saying affordable homes accounted for roughly half of all completions last year, but this is not the case for social housing.

But it would be fair to say that dwellings completed that received HCA funding did comprise a significant prortion of home construction last year, as the second part of Ms Webb's statement claims. The graph opposite shows how sharply completions for private tenure declined during the recession.

Conclusion

Although the statement analysed above is only inaccurate on a technicality, it is one that is worth dwelling on for a moment.

Social and Affordable housing are terms used interchangeably in many sections of the media, but as set out above , mean different things in the eyes of the Government.

Indeed, should the reports prove accurate, the Government plans entail shifting some people from social housing to affordable housing – so mixing the two could prove increasingly problematic.

In this context the use of ‘social’ rather than ‘affordable’ under the questioning  of the Today programme team, is far from the most heinous inaccuracy Full Fact has encountered.

But it is a distinction worth keeping in mind, when the announcement is officially made tomorrow.