The London and Sub-Regional Housing Strategy Support Studies
The evidence base available to London Boroughs, the sub regions, the Greater London Authority and the ALG has taken a significant step forward due to the completion of a major study.
Fordham Research was commissioned by the Greater London Authority and the London Boroughs to produce a housing database for the London Boroughs and sub-regions. It is based upon Housing Needs Assessment databases of the individual London Boroughs updated to Autumn 2004. Fordham Research has undertaken most of the Housing Needs Assessments for the London Boroughs and was ideally placed to merge all of the data into a single dataset.
The study differs from other studies based on purely secondary data sources such as the census and has many advantages over them:
- it is searchable
- cross-tabulations are possible
- the size of the pan London sample means representative information not available at the Borough level might be available at the sub regional level or London level. For example the sample size of minority groups may be too small to be representative at the Borough level, but will be more accurate at the sub region or regional level. Examples of minority groups include people from minority ethnic backgrounds and certain groups of people with special needs.
The unique advantage of the database is that those involved in housing strategy policy and priorities in London have, for the first time:
- an evidence base and resource to support their work at the sub-regional and London level
- primary information to understand actual migration patterns within London and the future intentions of households
- primary information to inform local housing assessments that take into account housing markets that overlap London Borough boundaries.
The database carries anonymous information collected from surveys of around 40,000 households originally collected for Borough level housing needs assessments. Among topics covered are income and savings, family composition data, house prices, housing history, future housing needs requirements and aspirations.
Chris Jarvis, senior policy officer at Greater London Authority, says: 'This database means that for the first time, we have an unrivalled source of high-quality high-volume data on London's housing needs and household resources. The more than 40,000 records enable us to look more closely at the needs of specific London communities - by ethnicity, or sub area, or disability, for example - which will help us and partner agencies to target resources more effectively. It will also help us to make the case to Government to increase housing investment in London. We are also recommending this project to Office of the Deputy Prime Minister as an example of cost-effective good practice in joint working across a region.'
Richard Fordham, Managing Director of Fordham Research, says: 'We believe that this is an important development in housing research that is capable of being repeated in other regions'.
Background notes
The Housing Needs assessment can be used to understand and quantify:
- The unmet need for social housing
- The potential for intermediate housing
- The size and other characteristics of households in housing need
- The support needs of households
- The preferred location for future moves
A Borough level Housing Needs Assessment dataset has a number of important characteristics:
- It is fully compliant with the ODPM guidance
- It is based upon a random sample of households and its statistical accuracy is defined and is representative of households at the Borough level
- It records details of households such as size, type, current tenure, ethnicity, economic status income and savings - including equity
- It records details of the health and support needs of households and other characteristics such as whether the household head or partner is a key worker
- It records information the suitability of current housing, past housing history and planned future moves
- It records the expectations and aspirations of households in terms of location and tenure
- It is updatable in terms of income and house prices
For further information please email Mark Aldridge or call 020 7289 3988.