Evaluating Social Housing Sustainability Policies in the Context of Local Government: A Public Value Perspective

Abstract

The demand for social housing has grown recently more than its supply, particularly in the United Kingdom (UK). The existing literature addresses the lack of a sustainability policy and its contribution to the lack of political intent to support the achievement of social housing homeownership predominantly under the Right-to-Buy. This research highlights that several government projects have failed in the past to deliver satisfying outcomes for the public; thus, their value to social housing tenants and public value has been largely neglected. The main aim of this research project is to evaluate social housing policies through the lens of public value that drives the decision-making process and to construct a conceptual framework to enhance the accountability and efficiency of social housing tenants in the context of local government. This has been achieved through key research objectives and the key citizens, barriers and recommendations have been explored to enlighten social housing sustainability policy. This conceptual framework was tested in UK local government authorities and with local citizens who had recently started to address diverse sustainability factors in terms of social housing policy. The result was a qualitative case study enquiry based on the use of focus group-interviews, the vignettes approach and documentary evidence to explore the validity of the conceptual framework as a tool for supporting the decision-making process in this field. The findings obtained from the in-depth case study provided an insight into the social housing evaluation criteria and the influences of a sustainability policy from both a practical background and an internal organisational perspective. The findings addressed the poor affordability of a whole-life value of a property, insufficient funding due to austerity, poor legal frameworks, poor governance, a lack of suitable designs for social cohesion, poverty, the well-organized use of resources and environmental protection.