How to Abolish Public Housing: Implications and Lessons from Public Management Reform

Abstract The paper examines how public or municipal housing in England and Wales is being abolished and transferred into the housing association sector. A new public management (NPM) analytical framework is adopted which provides seven dimensions, disaggregation, competition, private sector management, economy, hands-on top management, standards of performance and measurement of outputs. Overlying these dimensions it is argued that there are two NPM meta-themes - externalisation (which relates to the first two characteristics) and managerialisation (the latter five). Hypotheses are developed to explain the differential impact of NPM reforms on the municipal housing and housing association sectors. These suggest that housing associations are externalised and highly managerialised organisations whereas local authorities display lower levels of externalisation and limited managerialisation. Analysis of the transfer process indicates that externalisation is driven by political and ideological approaches to public housing in addition to NPM dimensions, but that as local authorities transfer their stock into the housing association sector they are also likely to develop into similarly managerialised organisations. In conclusion the NPM framework is demonstrated to need further development whilst systematic research is required on management reform in social housing provision. The lesson to emerge on how to abolish public housing suggests the following policy formula: starve it of resources, create a hostile environment and wait, in the goodness of time it will abolish itself!