The Almshouse Association held the 67^th Annual General Meeting on 13^th June 2018 at The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, Merchant Taylors’ Hall, 30 Threadneedle Street, London. There was an excellent turnout with the Almshouse Association staff greeting over 130 attendees.

Our Chair, Mrs Elizabeth Fathi welcomed representatives of almshouse charities, Associate Members and guests and representatives of the National Association of Almshouses Common Investment Fund (NAACIF). Mrs. Fathi then introduced Mr. Duncan Eggar, the Chairman of the Housing and Care Committee of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, representing the Master, who welcomed everyone to the Hall and spoke of the exciting new almshouse development which will be opened this summer.

Mrs. Fathi thanked Mr. Eggar and the Merchant Taylors for generously hosting the meeting, following which she delivered the Chairman’s Report. The Association’s Assistant Director, Sue Turner followed by giving a résumé of the projects which had been short-listed by the Patron’s Award Committee. Mrs. Fathi then announced that Amersham United Charities, Shrewsbury Draper’s Almshouses and The Davenport Homes, West Midlands would receive 2017 Patron’s Awards and it was hoped these would be presented by HRH The Duke of Gloucester later in the year.

Special Resolution

By way of a special resolution , the draft Articles of Association circulated with the Annual General Meeting Notice dated 10 May 2018 were approved by a large majority and adopted as the new Articles of Association of the Charity in substitution for and to the exclusion of all existing Articles of Association of the Charity.

Election of Board Members (Directors/Trustees)

Following the passing of the above resolution and the adoption of the up-dated Articles of Association, under Articles 33 and 40 it was confirmed that Trustees would remain in office until the third Annual Meeting following their most recent appointment or re-appointment. Accordingly the following Trustees due to retire submitted themselves for re-election and were duly re-appointed:

• Dr. M Aldridge (Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire) proposed by Mr. A Martin (Yardley Great Trust) and seconded by Mrs. D Hoy (King Edward VI & Revd. J. Prime Charity)
• Mr R.C.F. Waite (Cambridgeshire & Norfolk) proposed by Mr. A. Sedgwick (Lady Anne Windsor Charity) and seconded by Miss L. Clayton (Thomas Philipot’s Almshouse Charity

Mr. B. Gulland and Mr. C. Huntley, who were stepping down as members of the Board, were thanked by the Chair for their past service and commitment.

Key Note Address

Mrs Elizabeth Fathi introduced the speaker, Professor C. Phillipson, Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology, Manchester University, who spoke of the positive aspects of ageing and then took questions from the floor. A transcript of his speech is available here

Next Annual General Meeting

The Chairman announced that the next Annual General meeting would take place as part of a conference on Wednesday, 5^th June 2019 at the Haberdashers’ Hall, 18 West Smithfield, London EC1A 9HQ.

Post AGM

After the AGM, everyone got the chance to catch up and enjoy the glorious weather in the beautiful surroundings of the Merchant Taylors’ Hall, which was followed by a delicious afternoon tea.

 

The Almshouse Association would like to take this opportunity to once again thank Mr. Eggar and the Merchant Taylors for generously hosting the meeting, our speakers, trustees, member charities and guests for their continued support and commitment to the almshouse movement. We are greatly looking forward to next year’s AGM which will be incorporated into an Almshouse Conference which we are sure is going to prove to be a popular event on the Almshouse Association members’ calendar.

 

 

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Speech by Prof. Chris Phillipson, Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology, The University of Manchester at the 67^th The Almshouse Association Annual General Meeting on 13^th June 2018 at The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, Merchant Taylors’ Hall, 30 Threadneedle Street, London.

 

 The Future of Ageing Populations: Managing Diversity and Inequality

I very much appreciate this invitation to address the AGM and I would like to pay tribute to the remarkable work undertaken by the members of the Association in supporting older people living in the community. Just to summarise my own background: I have been involved in research on older people since the 1970s, working as a sociologist on different projects relating to family and community care, work and retirement, and more recently how we develop age-friendly cities and communities.

Looking back on this work from the vantage point of 2018 I have a feeling of, yes, much has been achieved in better support for older people but on the other hand there is also a sense of real crisis which is affecting some groups of older people and which I am sure is echoed in some aspects of your own work. Let me just set out some issues and dimensions of current challenges but more positively some responses which I think we can make.

First, population ageing is of course the fundamental context for your work: The number of people aged 65+ is projected to rise by over 40 per cent over the next couple of decades to around 16 million. By 2040, nearly one in four people in the UK (24.2%) will be aged 65 or over. For myself as a sociologist, what is more striking though – and which will be very important for your own work – is that this will be a much more diverse population than has historically been the case:

Diverse in terms of attitudes towards ageing with people searching for more ambitious lifestyles in later life; diverse in terms of the transitions which people experience – no longer education/work/and then retirement – but much greater flexibility and multiple stages across the life course; diversity in income – presently taking couples the poorest fifth have £224 a week compared with the richest at £911 a week: and this gap is of course widening as inequalities increase in our society; and diversity in social characteristics – especially in respect of gender, ethnicity, and social relationships more broadly. So thinking about ageing – and who older people are – is now much more complex, with great differences within groups of older people as much between older people and other generations.

So, we all recognise the importance of this changing population, yet the reality is that as a House of Lords enquiry (Ready for Ageing?) reported in 2013, we are still largely ‘unprepared’, as final report put it, for an ageing population. You will know from your own experience the current crisis in social care, but the figures are striking: whilst the number of older people has been growing local councils have seen a 26 reduction in their budgets since 2009/10. Over the period 09/10 to the past year, the average spend on social care fell by 13 per cent; again over this period, 400,000 fewer older people were receiving social care as the eligibility criteria was tightened in response to fewer resources.

And of course the reality on the ground is: lengthy waits for assessment; disjointed services; huge pressures in carers; and a crisis in the quality of care. The latest report from the Association of Directors of Social Services suggests that three-quarters of councils are proposing further cuts in the services they provide, with one half proposing further increases in charges associated with home and forms of care.

Now my argument is that at present we are completely stuck in terms of responding to this situation: we have moved from the world of the welfare state of the 1960s and 1970s – which for all its imperfections was starting to provide a framework of support; through to the world of privatisation but realising now that this cannot provide the essential and secure support which people at periods of great vulnerability need: the closure of residential homes, and continuing problems in ensuring quality in home care illustrating this point.

So we have to have a debate now about where we move to in respect of care for older people: what kind of future do we want to construct in response to the current situation? This seems to me a debate which the Association needs to have and to influence along with many other groups. Let me in offer just a few thoughts from my own work.

First, I think it continues to remain important to thinking about ageing in more positive way and challenging negative stereotypes. There has been a disturbing development in terms of debates and reports which focus on intergenerational conflict and older people as a burden on younger generations when the reality of course is continued reciprocity – financial and social – across generations. And ageism – systematic discrimination against older people – continues to be a real issue, as a report published last week by the Royal Society of Public Health illustrated: so, there is an important task here for the Association in contributing to the debate about the way older people are both transformed by society but are themselves changing the communities in which they live – in very positive ways given the strengths which they bring.

My second point here is about these communities. Here the government have held up ‘ageing in place’ as the preferred ideal for older people – staying in their own homes or indeed a facility such as that of the members of this Association for as long as possible. This makes sense: around 80% of the time of people aged over 70 is spent at home or the immediate environment. The home and neighbourhood are central to social connections and social support. But as we have seen whilst the community has been emphasised we have reduced formal help going into neighbourhoods. We urgently need a response here which of course is about resources but also about how we organise and develop our work.

Here, it seems to be housing is central to re-thinking policies for later life: housing for too long has been the poor relation to health and social care but in reality if we get housing and all that is associated with it right we go a long way to ensuring support for older people. The task here is:

• first, ensuring integration of housing with the other major services;
• second, getting greater innovation in terms of the types of housing;
• and, third, getting more joined up thinking about housing adaptations and home repairs. The Housing Learning Information Network has produced important reports in these issues and these are I am sure helpful to the work of the Association.

But a final important is that we need to integrate work around housing by strengthening the communities in which people live. Here, I think the initiative of the World Health Organization to develop age-friendly communities has been helpful and we are seeing the expansion in the UK of work around this initiative – co-ordinated by the Centre for Ageing Better. My own work in Manchester has been around working with groups of older people around a range of interventions, including:

• Promoting neighbourhood networks: to combat social isolation and provide support to informal carers;
• Support co-operative enterprises drawing on the skills of older people and
• Environmental interventions: promoting the importance of local parks, age-friendly shops and improving transportation.

The key here is working with a range of groups in communities in promoting change and drawing on the skills which older people bring to social and community action. Just on this point, I would like to finish with this quote from two American researchers in evidence submitted to a US Senate committee on ageing:

‘Population aging will transform the global community. The question is whether such changes will better societies or extract net tolls. Either is possible. If we continue to view the life course as our ancestors did and simply tack added years on the end we face calamity. If instead we begin to modify the life course and build infrastructures that support long life, societies can begin to utilize the strengths of older people and support the real vulnerabilities of advanced old age’

(Carstensen, L. & Fried, L. Submission to US Senate Commission on Aging)

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‘Communities of people living together for their mutual comfort and support. Almshouses speak of hope and optimism’.

It was an honour to have been asked to write an article on The Almshouse Association and almshouse charities for the Trinity House 2018 Fraternity Review and we were delighted to receive our complimentary copy from the editor in the post this week.

The article is a concise and constructive commentary of the almshouse movement – mapping out its honourable roots of yesteryear to the importance and relevance of almshouses today and the role the Association plays in the movement – from providing support and advice to our members, lobbying government departments and our plans for 2018.  You can read the whole article by clicking here.

This article is dedicated to Trinity House which for over 300 years has provided homes for those in need of such accommodation. Trinity’s Grade I Listed almshouses, providing 19 dwellings, continue today to fulfil a wonderful role within the local community and long may they continue.

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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has drafted a revised National Planning Policy Framework which incorporates policy proposals previously consulted on in the Housing White Paper. Full details can be found here (click here).

The Almshouse Association has reviewed the open consultation and submitted four key points in our response to the Government.

The Almshouse Association Consultation Response

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Question 14

Development of housing for older people
The Almshouse Association welcomes the intention to provide clarity that there should be clear policies for addressing the requirements of groups with particular needs, such as older people (Paragraph 62).

The Almshouse Association would ask Government to reflect whether the recommendation of the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee report (9th February 2018, Housing for older people) that the “NPPF should be amended to emphasise the key importance of the provision of housing for older people in both local authority plan making and decision taking” has been adequately reflected in the text.

Rural exception sites
The Almshouse Association agrees that planning authorities should support opportunities to bring forward rural exception sites (p21).

Almshouse charities should be seen as a perfect delivery vehicle (either individually or in partnership with other housing providers) to provide housing on rural exception sites.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) defines rural exception sites as: Small sites used for affordable housing in perpetuity where sites would not normally be used for housing.
Almshouses, by their very nature, guarantee:

• Affordability in perpetuity
• Local Beneficiaries (or whatever is the definition of beneficiary in the charity’s Governing Document) in perpetuity
• Local Trustees, and hence local management, in perpetuity

Indeed the Almshouse Association, as well as individual almshouse charities, are already in discussion with other providers to develop rural exception sites.

Question 19

The Almshouse Association welcomes the additional recognition that planning can play in promoting social interaction and healthy, safe lifestyles.

Almshouse charities have long been recognised as a model that provides social interaction and healthy activity to build successful and safe communities that promote social inclusion.

As the vast majority of Almshouse charities (80%) have fewer than twenty units of accommodation, many submissions to local planning authorities will be of small scale, for example a proposal to install double glazing in a listed building.

The Almshouse Association would ask that consideration is given as to whether paragraph 92 adequately reflects the importance that minor decisions play in promoting social interaction and healthy lifestyles.

Question 43

The Almshouse Association wishes to use this opportunity to reiterate its case that Government should amend the affordable housing definition to clarify that Almshouse Charities are a form of affordable housing.

The Need for Clarification:
Some planning authorities interpret the current National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) definition of ‘affordable housing’ to mean that an almshouse charity which is not a Registered Provider should be treated as if it were not a provider of ‘affordable housing’ for s.106 Town and Country Planning Act 1990 purposes.

Accordingly, the planning authority:

• Requires an almshouse charity to carry out s.106 obligations where the charity itself is developing new almshouse dwellings. For example, the charity might be required to make a financial contribution towards community infrastructure or ‘affordable housing’. This approach is paradoxical, since the dwellings which the charity is developing are themselves within the statutory definition of ‘social housing’ in the Housing and Regeneration Act.
• Maintains that a private developer cannot fulfil a s.106 obligation to provide ‘affordable housing’ by building almshouses for an almshouse charity.

This inconsistent practice leads to fewer almshouses being built than might otherwise be the case and, even when s.106 provision is allowed, typically the planning process can take an extended length of time, and add cost to the project. These factors are counter–productive, and work against the desire of the Government to boost not only housing supply but the speed that housing is delivered.

The Almshouse Association believes that an additional paragraph should be added which defines almshouse charities as a further type of affordable housing and accurately states the legal differences between almshouse charities and other forms of housing provision as this would provide re-assurance to local authorities, and an approved route for including almshouse charities in the benefits available under s.106.

Additional Definition of Affordable Housing.
For the purposes of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), almshouse charities satisfy the current eligibility criteria as defined in the paragraphs on “social rented and affordable rented housing” and “affordable private rent housing” except that they do not charge rent: they are required by charity law to be used as homes for those in financial need, in accordance with Charity Commission schemes. In addition, almshouse accommodation falls within the definition of ‘social housing’ in ss.68-9 Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (HRA).

Although almshouse charities are very similar to the forms of housing covered by the proposed definition of ‘affordable housing’ there remain some important legal differences that need to be recognised. In particular, there should be recognition that the legal status of almshouse charities is unchanged, irrespective of whether they are Registered Providers or unregistered, and express or implied references to rent should be deleted.

It is suggested that an additional category is added to the list of other definitions listed in the glossary as follows:

Almshouse Charities are another form of social housing whereby the institution is a charity and the accommodation is provided for the purposes of relieving of poverty, usually for elderly people. Residents are licensees rather than tenants and pay a weekly maintenance contribution rather than rent, the contribution being fixed at a level which is either no more than target rent for Registered Providers, or the equivalent fair rent as advised by the Valuation Office. In accordance with charity law, almshouse charities exist in perpetuity for the charitable purposes for which they were established.

The Almshouse Association has given an example above of how the glossary could be amended, but would welcome any amendment that would explicitly define almshouses as affordable housing.

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Following extensive dealings with Homes England, the Almshouse Consortium Ltd has managed to secure £5.85 million of grant funding to support 12 almshouse charities undertake remodelling and new build project in the coming years.

Building on previous grant awards totalling £12 million, this latest allocation demonstrates the level of trust and understanding which has been built up with Homes England staff regards the vital role almshouses play as part of the larger housing picture nationally.

Almshouse Consortium Ltd is open to conversations from any other almshouse charities who may have ideas regards remodelling or new build projects. Programme Managers Saffer Cooper Ltd and Kathy Green have vast experience in dealings with Homes England on grant funding issues and will be pleased to give advice.

Kathy Green stated “We are fortunate to have a number of key members of staff at Homes England who understand the vital role that almshouses play in their local community. They are sympathetic and always willing to listen. Our track record of delivering what we promise stands us in good stead. We do all we can to protect and cherish this relationship”.

Sean Stafford from Saffer Cooper added “Quite often it’s a case of nothing ventured nothing gained. Whether almshouses are big or small, Registered or not Registered, if they have ideas regards remodelling or new build then it is worth a conversation”.

Homes England will not cover investment works such as replacement of heating systems, changing windows, reroofing etc., these are the responsibility of the individual almshouse charity, but anything which constitutes remodelling will be looked at favourably. Almshouses are in a unique bracket of those who still receive funding for this purpose.

For further information, please contact Sean@saffercooper.com 0161 804 2222 or kathy.green.projects@gmail.com 01225 865573

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