Building policy that resonates

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned the looming possibility of a rental bonds scheme for new public housing tenancies. We now know that FACS Housing have been feverishly working away on this, putting in a great deal of time and energy to build the policy's operational framework.

You see, the Social Housing Minister's office decided to go with a rental bonds scheme somewhere after the 2015 NSW State election, and although this was never formally announced they stuck a quick mention of it in the 2016 document Future Directions for Social Housing. Thus, the policy was born.

But here's the problem: the Future Directions strategy is a reflection of a 2014 discussion paper concerning Social Housing in NSW that was subject to very broad consultation. It was initiated by Gabrielle Upton when she was the Minister for Housing. The discussion paper asked no questions about rental bonds for public housing tenancies, so of course none of the participants raised any issues or concerns about such a scheme. This is significant, because the idea had been raised before - way back in 2012, when Greg Pearce was the responsible Minister.

It was not until late April 2015 - some 3 months after the close of the Upton-lead discussion paper's consultation period (a period during which New South Wales not only went to the polls but also saw a Cabinet reshuffle that brought in a new Social Housing Minister) - that the idea of bonds for public housing tenancies came up again. This was in a Daily Telegraph "exclusive". Now, that can hardly be seen as an invitation to comment, if indeed it was intended as a serious policy announcement.

Then the initiative was slipped into the Future Directions document and became part of the ten-year Social Housing strategy, that was supposed to have been informed by the 2014 discussion paper.

The upshot of all of this is that FACS Housing have embarked upon a significant shift in policy that will have implications for their own work, the lives and livelihoods of their future tenants, and the State of NSW's budget (yes, this is likely to come at a cost to Government). They have taken this bold step without asking anyone these two simple questions: is this a good idea? ... and ... how would it work alongside our existing tenancy management and debt recovery frameworks?

The answers to such questions could surprise them, and perhaps that's why they've not been asked. Then again, perhaps they're just taking their lead from the tabloids and the shock-jocks rather than the people this policy would affect. It wouldn't be the first time a Government and its agencies did that.

For our part, we can see a couple of significant problems meandering along behind this proposed scheme. Notwithstanding our principled objection to the idea in the first place - rental bonds are about cash-flow for small time landlords with mortgages to worry about, not public housing departments with budgets in the hundreds-of-millions - there is a great deal of work to be done to ensure the public housing landlord's approach to tenant liabilities and debt recovery processes is properly suited to a rental bonds scheme.

Built on incorrect assumptions, this scheme could well go the way of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.