There's a saying in Northern Ireland: "If I was going there, I wouldn't start from here at all." Welfare reform may have a valid goal, but where we set off from and the path we take to get there are just as important as where we want to end up.

Nobody is arguing against the logic of minimising wasteful spending and directing support to where it is most needed. In fact, some of the overall goals of the government's welfare reform programme are to be welcomed. But policy change rarely takes place in a vacuum; we must also consider the context into which it is being introduced.

Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) research on how the bedroom tax will affect Northern Ireland has revealed some stark statistics. Two-thirds (66%) of existing Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) tenants and just under two-thirds (62%) of all existing working age housing benefit recipients will come into the category of under-occupiers. Indeed, 38% of current NIHE working-age housing benefit recipients will be under-occupying by two rooms or more.

Past housing strategies in Northern Ireland have focused on building large family homes, for good reason – but that reality and the peculiarities of allocation policies in Northern Ireland must be part of the context welfare reform seeks to work with. Successful implementation will need to take decades of historical context and infrastructural reality into account.

I'm sure most people would agree that giving a three-bedroom house to a single person is a less-than-efficient use of resources. The wisdom of building almost exclusively three-bedroom family homes is open to question. The merits of either, however, are not the point of departure for today's debate – they are the challenges left for both the NIHE and Ireland's housing associations to deal with.

Northern Ireland also faces a period of flux due to the huge structural reform planned for the NIHE. Another significant issue is that a lack of funding for housing is challenging providers across all housing tenures. There is a risk that the financial uncertainties created by welfare reform (such as possible increases in debts and arrears) frustrate attempts to find new ways to fund the homes we need.

The Department of Social Development has engaged with the CIH and our members over the reforms, but housing must find a more central position in the mind of government. Ministers must recognise the critical links between housing and other policy areas such as planning, building communities and creating local economic growth.

The first challenge for government is to ensure that welfare reform works with the current housing context in Northern Ireland, and not against it. The second is to ensure that there is a clearly defined future for housing, which welfare reform can fit into.

Ministers say the aim of the welfare reform bill is to get more people working and to encourage more efficient use of the social housing stock. But there's no overall development plan in which that bill should sit.

Although we have a Northern Ireland 2012-17 Housing Strategy, it lacks defined actions with key performance indicators to mark progress. And there's no sense of anything longer term, perhaps a 20-year or generational plan.

Meanwhile, we are calling for an amendment to the welfare reform bill that would mean the bedroom tax would only apply to those under-occupying a property by two bedrooms or more. If a sizeable proportion of the 32,000 people affected request to be rehoused, the smaller properties they will need simply aren't available. Prioritising moves from four to three or three to two bedrooms offers a somewhat better chance of meeting people's needs. Money spent on advice can be more targeted and supportive of tenants, rather than court cases.

Ultimately, the Northern Irish economy will only thrive when reform evolves from co-operation between professionals, tenants, academics and policy makers of different political and departmental backgrounds. If welfare reform actually was part of a real process of transformation, perhaps then we could call it visionary.

Cecilia Keaveney is Northern Ireland director of the Chartered Institute of Housing

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