Members’ and sector news

How social housing landlords can help enhance the employability of their tenants, young and old, is the focus of a new research project being funded by the NFA and its Housing and Employment Taskforce partners.
This will be the first study to look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment and training for social housing tenants, updating earlier research carried out by the Institute for Employment studies.

NFA funds new research on improving tenants’ employability Read More »

The winner of the NFA’s 2022 photography competition captures the lockdown story of three generations in one moving image. Stockport Homes customer Nikki Morgan took a photography course organised by her landlord, and later captured her mother and grandmother during the lockdown Christmas of 2020 in a moving image that radiates happiness, despite the difficulties they were grappling with. “It’s a wonderful picture that also celebrates the ‘more than housing’ work that we and our fellow NFA members try to deliver for our customers,” said Stockport Homes CEO Helen McHale. “We’re very proud of Nikki’s acheivement.”

Lockdown story of three generations wins NFA photography competition Read More »

Listening and acting on tenants’ complaints and views will be a key focus for landlords as recommendations in the Social Housing White Paper come into force over the next two years. This is why the focus for the first NFA Best Practice paper of 2022 is the tenant voice. This report, published today, asks how council-owned housing management companies listen to their customers and deliver good services. It draws on frontline case studies and data from across the NFA membership.

Tenant voice focus for new NFA best practice paper Read More »

Increasing government demands on local authorities – building safety works, net-zero targets and affordable housing provision – are putting council housing managers and Housing Revenue Accounts under unbearable pressure, findings from a survey published today reveal.
While the recent Levelling Up White Paper recognises that more genuinely affordable social housing is part of the solution to regional inequalities, it doesn’t suggest where the funding might come from to achieve this. Without more help from the centre, social housing providers, including councils and their ALMOs, will struggle to deliver the new homes for rent that the market desperately needs.
Data from the annual members’ survey conducted by the National Federation of ALMOs – managers of over 300,000 council-owned social housing homes – show there is no slack left in Housing Revenue Accounts or wider local authority resources.

NFA seeks central government help for retrofit, building safety and affordable housing Read More »

Plans for a new national residents’ panel announced today have been warmly welcomed by the NFA.
The Social Housing Quality Resident Panel will bring together social housing residents from across the country to share with government their knowledge and opinions about how their homes and communities are being managed.
Membership is open to all social housing residents and anyone can apply for a panel place, even if they have no previous experience of this kind of role.

NFA welcomes new national tenants’ panel Read More »

A jargon-free briefing for residents on the changes prompted by the Social Housing White Paper is published today by the NFA. The new summary, sense-checked by the NFA’s Tenant Advisory Panel, is based on the full report published by the NFA and co-authors CWAG last November. It explains how social housing management is changing as a result of the Grenfell Tower Fire, and how tenants can expect to be consulted much more closely by councils who are also landlords.

Tenants’ summary of social housing regulation changes Read More »