Social housing residents will be empowered to take on rogue landlords under the government’s new strategy, but campaigners have criticised the document which offers no new funding.

The social housing green paper has pledged to offer all tenants a “springboard” into ownership, with new shared ownership schemes that allow residents to buy as little as 1% of their homes each year.

However, the paper will say no social housing tenant should feel a “stigma” about council renting and the department said it would “challenge the stereotypes that exists about residents and their communities.”

Housing campaigners including Shelter and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said the reforms would not be effective without substantial new funding for council house building.

The shadow housing secretary, John Healey, called the proposals “pitiful” and said they failed to tackle the crucial question of a lack of supply, as the number of new social rented homes built last year hit the lowest level since records began.

“The number of new social rented homes is at a record low but there is no new money to increase supply and ministers are still preventing local authorities run by all parties from building the council homes their communities need,” he said.

JRF’s chief executive Campbell Robb said: “The lack of concrete plans to build significantly more truly affordable homes risks failing a generation. Against a backdrop of rising food bank use, families on low incomes will continue to face impossible choices about whether to pay the rent or put food on the table.

“We urge the government to invest in 80,000 genuinely affordable homes a year at the next spending review to put things right.”

Shelter’s chief executive, Polly Neate, said the green paper was “full of warm words but doesn’t commit a single extra penny towards building the social homes needed by the 1.2 million people on the waiting list.”

The Local Government Association said the reforms were “a small step, compared with the huge and immediate need for more genuinely affordable homes”.



LGA’s housing spokeswoman Judith Blake said: “The government must go beyond the limited measures announced so far, scrap the housing borrowing cap, and enable all councils across the country to borrow to build once more. This would trigger the renaissance in council housebuilding which will help people to access genuinely affordable housing.”

The green paper, launched by the communities secretary, James Brokenshire, on Tuesday, will introduce new performance indicators and league tables of housing providers, which the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said would “rebalance the landlord/tenant relationship to hold bad practice to account”.

The government has said it will give new teeth to the housing watchdog to ensure social homes are well-managed, moves inspired by the Grenfell Tower fire in west London.

Brokenshire said reforming social housing was a “core priority” for the government. He said: “[The green paper] is a landmark opportunity for major reform to improve fairness, quality and safety for residents living in social housing across the country. Regardless of whether you own your home or rent, residents deserve security, dignity and the opportunities to build a better life.”

Proposed measures include changes to the shared ownership programme allowing new tenants to purchase as little as 1% of their property each year to build up to ownership. New powers will also be given to the regulator of social housing to intervene to ensure the quality of social homes.



Ed Daffarn, a survivor of last year’s Grenfell Tower fire and member of the Grenfell United campaign group, cautiously welcomed some of the ideas but said residents were cautious about the effectiveness of league tables.



“Social housing is not like choosing a doctor – you can’t just up sticks and move if your housing association gets a low rating,” he said. “Much more is needed to put power in residents’ hands. We need a new regulation system that will be proactive and fight for residents, with real repercussions for housing associations or councils that fail in their duty.”

The green paper will drop plans to force the sale of council homes in areas with high-value properties, the Guardian understands, a proposal from 2015 which had been fiercely opposed by councils.

Blake said it would be a relief for councils. “We have worked hard to demonstrate the need to scrap this policy which would have forced councils to sell off large numbers of the homes desperately needed by low-income families in our communities,” she said.

Under plans unveiled in 2015, local authorities were required to sell millions of pounds worth of council homes to fund discounts for the right-to-buy scheme for housing association tenants. Shelter had estimated it could force the sale of 23,500 council homes in England in just one year.

Social housing regulation is still under review, as is right-to-buy where the government is consulting on reforming the rules governing the use of receipts from the sale of council housing.