2010 Annual Report

19 October 2010
Kim McKee delivered a CHR seminar on 'Young People and the Future of Homeownership', 19th October.  The seminar outlined Kim's plans for a future research grant application in this area.

13 October 2010
Sharon Chisholm and John McTernan were the headline speakers at the first International Social Housing Conference held in The Hague.  The duo delivered a provocative opening plenary on the state of social housing worldwide especially in the wake of significant cuts in many countries.

1 October 2010
CHR welcomed new research fellow Beverley Searle. Beverley's research interests focus on the role of housing wealth in sustaining household welfare and well-being. She is also interested in the challenges facing households set within the context of economic fluctuations; from micro concerns of the social and financial consequences of economic prosperity and decline on households housing careers, relationships and budget management, to wider concerns about the sustainability of owner-occupation and the need for more flexible tenure options.

CHR welcomed new research fellow Louise Reid. Louise is a social scientist working in the area of sustainable/pro-environmental behaviours, with a particular interest in the processes through which these influence and are influenced by everyday household life.
 

Information about the Supporting People project including data access procedures is now available on the Administrative Data Liaison Service (ADLS) website. CHR is working with Communities and Local Government (CLG) to set-up procedures for researchers to access raw SP data.

Maarten van Ham and Darja Reuschke have been awarded a Marie Curie EU grant (€87,702) for a 1 year project on labour market behaviour and migration: a cross-national comparison of the relationship between occupational and geographical mobility in late-modern societies.

New PhD student: Mark Boyle started as a PhD student at CHR. Mark will be supervised by Maarten van Ham and Donald Houston and will work on a project investigating the potential of high speed rail in the United States.

New PhD student: Alice Oldfield started as a PhD student at CHR. Alice’s research centres on the value and use of public green space as a part of neighbourhood, questioning its importance as people live increasingly private lives.

 

New PhD student: David Waite started as a PhD student at CHR. David’s research will interrogate whether the application of a global value chains framework allows for a more comprehensive assessment of city-region economic development.

 

 

Kim McKee presented a paper at a conference organised by the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research to mark Christine Whitehead’s retirement. The title of Kim’s paper was: “The End of the Right to Buy and the Future of Social Housing in Scotland”.

Annual strategic summary reports using SCORE 2009/10 data were published today on the SCORE website. These graphical reports summarise key performance and management information for each housing association landlord. The reports include trend and benchmarking information so that users can monitor performance over time and ultimately drive strategy.

The second of three CHR led ESRC seminars “Challenges in neighbourhood effects research: does it really matter where you live and what are the implications for policy?” was held at CCSR, University of Manchester on the 8-9th of September 2010. The focus of the second seminar was on gaining a better understanding of the driving forces behind neighbourhood dynamics and on the implications that these dynamics have on the empirical investigation of neighbourhood effects. The papers presented at the seminar will be published by Springer in an edited volume entitled “Understanding neighbourhood dynamics: new insights for neighbourhood effects research” during 2012. For more information on the book and the presentations see www.neighbourhoodeffects.org). van Ham M., Manley D., Bailey N., Simpson L. & Maclennan D. (eds) (forthcoming) Understanding neighbourhood dynamics: new insights for neighbourhood effects research. Springer: Dordrecht.

9 September 2010
Professor Duncan Maclennan presented a paper on “New Demographics, New Challenges: Housing Scotland's Older People” at a Government of Ontario conference, Toronto.
 

Maarten van Ham and David Manley were invited to attend the Scottish Government - Fresh Thinking, New Ideas Event on housing issues in Scotland. Alex Neil, the Scottish Minister for Housing and Communities gave a presentation, followed by two rounds of discussions between academics and policy makers on issues like housing affordability, the provision of social housing, and neighbourhood regeneration. The main question of the day was how the Scottish Government can deliver an adequate housing policy within severe budget constraints.

Dr Donald Houston (University of St Andrews) and Dr Colin Lindsay (University of York) organised a conference stream, “Fit for Work? The reform of disability benefits in Europe,” at the European Social Policy Analysis Network Conference, Budapest, Hungary, 2-4 September 2010.

 

New publication: John Stillwell (University of Leeds) and Maarten van Ham (CHR) have published a book on ethnicity and integration in the UK with Springer publishers. The book addresses many of the key issues and debates associated with ethnicity and integration in Britain. It provides the reader with an enhanced understanding of ethnic population change and residential concentration, ethnic household dynamics, internal and international migration, the relationship between ethnicity and health, crime, identity and language, as well as ethnic population projections. Collectively, the findings constitute an evidence base for policymakers and practitioners to draw upon when formulating solutions to the range of problems at local, regional and national level that are associated with an increasingly multi-ethnic society. Stillwell J. and van Ham M. (eds) (2010) Ethnicity and Integration. Understanding Population Trends and Processes: volume 3. Springer: Dordrecht. For more information, click HERE

New publication: Bergström L. and van Ham M. (2010) Understanding neighbourhood effects: selection bias and residential mobility. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5193 (www.iza.org). The number of studies investigating neighbourhood effects has increased rapidly over the last two decades. Although many of these studies claim to have found evidence for neighbourhood effects, most 'evidence' is likely the result of reversed causality. The main challenge in modelling neighbourhood effects is the (econometric) identification of causal effects. The most severe problem is selection bias as a result of selective sorting into neighbourhoods. This paper argues that in order to further our understanding of neighbourhood effects we should explicitly incorporate neighbourhood sorting into our models. Neighbourhood effect studies are in the situation where the processes behind one of its key methodological problems (selection bias) are also critical to fully understand the neighbourhood context itself. It is thus remarkable that residential mobility and neighbourhood sorting has been almost completely ignored in the neighbourhood effects literature. To download the full paper go to www.iza.org.

Exam success for CHR staff! Sheena Macdonald, Norman Stewart and Alison Sandeman are now fully qualified PRINCE2 Practitioners. PRINÃE2 is a de facto standard for project management in the UK and Europe.   Mustafa Shairani, Ewan Mackie and Yvonne Walden passed the Information Technology Infrastructure Library Foundation exam. ITIL is a set of concepts and practices for managing Information Technology services, IT development and IT operations. Jamie Macdonald received Adobe accreditation as an Expert in Advanced Coldfusion.

 

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for Police Managers. Continuous Professional Development (CPD) one-day course delivered by Dr Donald Houston (University of St Andrews) and Dr Alistair Geddes (University of Dundee) at the Scottish Police College, Tulliallan Castle.

Maarten van Ham presented a paper at the congress of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA), 19-23 August 2010, Jönköping, Sweden. Presentation title: “Social mobility: Is there a benefit of being English in Scotland?”

 

David Manley presented a paper at the congress of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA), 19-23 August 2010, Jönköping, Sweden. Presentation title: “Living in deprived neighbourhoods in Scotland. Occupational mobility and neighbourhood effects.”

10 August 2010
Professor Duncan Maclennan presented a paper on “Paying for Infrastructure: New Possibilities," at the Australian Housing Industry Conference, Sydney.
 

New publication: van Ham M., Williamson L., Feijten P.M. & Boyle P. (2010) Right to Buy… Time to Move? Investigating the Effect of the Right to Buy on Moving Behaviour in the UK. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5115 (www.iza.org). One of the goals of the Right to Buy (RTB) was to stimulate labour migration by removing the debilitating effect of social housing on geographical mobility. This is the first study to examine rigorously whether the Right to Buy legislation did indeed 'free-up' those in social housing who bought their homes. Using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and panel regression models we show that the probability of a RTB-owner making a long distance move falls between that of social renters and owner occupiers. However, the difference between RTB-owners and neither homeowners nor social renters is significant. Social renters are significantly less likely to move over long distances than traditional owners. The results also suggest that RTB-owners are less likely than traditional owners to move for job related reasons, but more likely than social renters. To download the full paper go to www.iza.org.

New publication: McKee, K. (2010) “Promoting Homeownership at the Margins: the experience of low-cost homeownership purchasers in regeneration areas”, People Place and Policy Online 4 (2): 38-49.

Alison Sandeman has been awarded a grant of £149,347 by the Scottish Government for SCORE (Scottish Continuous Recording of Lettings) 2010/11. Coverage of lettings in the housing association sector in Scotland now exceeds 90% and 2010/11 will see the extension of SCORE to the local authority sector. The SCORE team at CHR for 2010/11 is Norman Stewart (Project Officer), Keith Maynard (Data Officer) and Yvonne Walden (IT Officer).

Kim McKee presented a paper at the Housing Privatisation: 30 years after the RTB conference, held at the University of Leeds. The title of her paper was: “Community Ownership of Social Housing in Glasgow: empowering Glasgow’s tenants?”   The paper was presented in a workshop session Alternatives to the Market co-organised by Kim (with Tom Moore, Sheffield Hallam). For more information, click HERE

 

Press release: Right to Buy 'failed to mobilise workforce'. Thirty years on from Margaret Thatcher's decision to give council tenants the right to buy the house they had been renting, research conducted by the University of St Andrews (funded by the ESRC) suggests the scheme has failed to mobilise the workforce as expected. Dr Maarten Van Ham of the Centre for Housing Research, an expert in the area of neighbourhoods and housing said: "The right to buy has given many households access to home ownership, but not to better places, so what have they gained? It concerns me that many are stuck in the same house and the same neighbourhood". Since its inception in 1980, more than 2.7 million homes have been sold under the scheme, which promised to give those in social housing the right to move to respond to job opportunities in other regions of the country. In the first analysis of its kind, researchers at the University of St Andrews have studied the moving behaviour of social renters in the UK who exercised their right to buy compared with traditional owners and tenants. The research shows that Right to Buy failed to free up labour as hoped, with the mobility of Right to Buy owners falling between that of social renters and traditional owners. The findings also suggest that the Right to Buy has trapped some owners in their neighbourhoods, while neighbourhood problems appear to be the main reasons why Right to Buy owners want to move. Even though some of the best housing stock in the best neighbourhoods was sold under the Right to Buy scheme, it seems many right to buy owners have been left unable to fulfil their dream of moving to better neighbourhoods. For more information, see Press Release.

Maarten van Ham organised 5 sessions of the Migration, Residential Mobility, and Housing Policy working group at the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) conference in Istanbul, Turkey.

 

Maarten van Ham presented a paper at the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) conference, 4-7 July 2010, Istanbul. Presentation title: “Social housing choice, residential mobility and neighbourhood sorting in England.”

 

David Manley presented a paper at the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) conference, 4-7 July 2010, Istanbul. Presentation title: “Neighbourhood deprivation and occupational mobility: A longitudinal investigation of neighbourhood effects.”

 

Lina Bergström presented a paper at the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) conference, 4-7 July 2010, Istanbul. Presentation title: “Neighbourhood choice in two Swedish cities.”

 

Maarten van Ham gave an invited lecture at the IGU conference Dynamics of Economic Space, 1-4 July 2010, University of Groningen. Presentation title: “Complex households, mobility constraints and labour market outcomes.”

 

New publication: Feijten P.M. and van Ham M. (2010) The impact of splitting up and divorce on housing careers in the UK. Housing Studies 25, 483-507. Using 1991-2004 data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) this paper analyses the effect of union dissolution on the occurrence of moves, changes of dwelling type, and the probability of moving out of owner-occupation. The main contributions of this paper are that it takes into account the rise in the occurrence of cohabitation, by analysing the dissolution of cohabiting and marital unions separately, and that it studies the effect of re-partnering on housing careers. Using logistic regression models clear evidence was found that the dissolutions of marriage and cohabitation result in different housing career outcomes. In particular, those who divorce experience a larger drop in housing quality than do those who split up from cohabitation. Starting a new relationship leads to more upward moves in the housing career compared to remaining divorced or split up. For the full paper, click HERE.

Maarten van Ham was part of a team which investigated the effects of neighbourhood characteristics on the creation, stability and success of mixed-ethnic unions. The project was funded by the ESRC and the team was led by Zhiqiang Feng (University of St Andrews) and included Paul Boyle and Gillian Raab. The study used data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Longitudinal Study for England and Wales (LS) and the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS). The full end of reward report can be found HERE

CHR seminar – Dr Donald Houston: “Urban sustainability, environmental justice and climate change.”

A team of researchers from CHR led by Maclennan, Chisholm & McKee delivered a scenario planning event for Fife Housing Partnership in Kirkcaldy.  The work was commissioned to advise key stakeholders in Fife about housing policy options amidst fiscal adversity. It emphasised the importance of strong local partnerships; effective planning; restructuring of social housing provision; and new approaches to asset management.

 

An event on “Implementing a Knowledge Exchange/ Knowledge Mobilisation Practice” was co-convened by CHR and the Social Dimensions of Health Institute. Contributing to the rich exchange at the event were speakers including Mark Batho, Chief Executive, Scottish Funding Council; Chris Hawkesworth, Deputy Principal of St Andrews University; Craig McNaughton, Director, Knowledge Mobilization, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Huw Davies, Professor of Health Care Policy and Management, University of St Andrews; Paul Grice, Clerk/Chief Executive of the Scottish Parliament; Jane Morgan, Co-Director, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Strathclyde; John McTernan, political commentator and former Director of Political Operations for 10 Downing Street; and CHR Director Duncan Maclennan.

 

CHR welcomed Dr Donald Houston as a lecturer in Housing and Urban Studies. Donald was previously at the Department of Geography at the University of Dundee,prior to that Research Fellow at the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow. His research interests are in labour market disadvantage and environmental justice. At CHR he will be developing research on housing and urban sustainability and will manage a Rowntree Foundation funded project examining the social justice implications of flooding in urban areas. Alongside this, he will continue to publish on the labour market implications of welfare reform and on the changing role of the private rented sector in the UK.

 

Visiting researcher Lina Bergström from the Institute for Housing and Urban Research (IBF), Uppsala University in Sweden finished a 4-month research stay at CHR. During her stay Lina worked on two publications with Maarten van Ham and David Manley. Lina investigated neighbourhood choice in Sweden by using a conditional logit model estimating that a household chooses a neighbourhood from a given choice set of neighbourhoods. The study showed that households are very likely to choose neighbourhoods where the population resembles their own characteristics. The findings indicate that neighbourhoods reproduce themselves through selective migration.

New publication: McKee, K. (2010) “The End of the Right to Buy and the Future of Social Housing in Scotland”, Local Economy 25(4): 319-327.

Kim McKee gave an invited lecture at the Human Geography seminar series, University of Exeter. The title of her paper was: “Sceptical, Disorderly and Paradoxical Subjects: problematizing the ‘will to empower’ in social housing governance”.

 

CHR seminar – Lina Bergström: “Neighbourhood Reproduction through Neighbourhood Choice.”

CHR seminar – Prof Duncan Maclennan: “Economic policy and metropolitan planning, missing each other.”

Donald Houston presented on “The Invisible Hazard: Pluvial Flooding in Urban Areas” at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) Climate Change and Poverty programme network, London.

Maarten van Ham led a team which investigated the effects of the Right to Buy on residential mobility and migration in the UK. The project Right to Buy… time to move? was funded by the ESRC (£100,000) and co-investigators were Paul Boyle, Peteke Feijten and Joe Doherty. Using data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) and the National Child Development Study (NCDS) the study showed that the Right to Buy failed to free up labour as hoped, with the mobility of Right to Buy owners falling between that of social renters and traditional owners. The full end of reward report can be found HERE

 

CHR seminar – Dr Kim McKee: “The End of the Right to Buy and the Future of Social Housing in Scotland.”

 

CHR Strategy Day with staff

 

Professor Duncan Maclennan gave a plenary address on “Belief in Change or Change in Beliefs?: New Fundaments for UK Housing Policies," at the Housing Studies Association Conference, University of York.

 

Kim McKee presented a paper at the annual Housing Studies Association conference, held at the University of York. The title of her paper was: “Low Cost Homeownership Schemes in Scotland: promoting sustainable homeownership?”

CHR welcomed Dr Kim McKee as a lecturer in Housing and Urban Studies. Kim was previously an Urban Studies Fellow in the Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow, and prior to that a PhD student in the Department of Urban Studies. Her research interests are in social housing, tenure-mix and low-cost homeownership, community governance, and tenant empowerment. At CHR she will be developing research on social housing, and young people and the future of homeownership.

April 2010

Kim McKee became Reviews Co-Editor (with Prof. John Flint, Sheffield Hallam), for the journal of Housing Studies. For more information about the journal and the editorial board, click HERE

David Manley gave an invited lecture at the migration: the longitudinal perspective in the British Isles workshop , 26 March 2010, Queens University Belfast. Presentation title: “Is being English in Scotland a good thing? Occupational mobility and migration in Scotland.”

 

Professor Duncan Maclennan gave a plenary address on “Contrasting City Policies” at SURF - Policy Into Practice: Learning and Doing - An International Perspective, Edinburgh.

Maarten van Ham gave an invited lecture at the Research Seminar of the Utrecht University School of Economics, Utrecht University, 24 March 2010, The Netherlands. Presentation title: “Housing tenure, neighbourhood sorting and labour market transitions in Scotland: explaining neighbourhood effects.”

Professor Duncan Maclennan gave a talk on “Scottish Housing Policy: What Strategy?” at SFHA’s National Housing Conference, Dunblane.

Professor Duncan Maclennan presented a paper on “A Quarter Century of Scottish Housing Change,” at SHARE - Looking Back, Moving Forward, Peebles.

Alison Sandeman has been awarded a grant of £15,000 by Homeless Link for a 3 year university oversight project which will explore the use of client recording data to inform policy and practice on homelessness issues. CHR will provide advice and guidance on research methodology and outputs. David Manley, Sheena Macdonald and Duncan Maclennan will also work on the project.

New publication: van Ham M., Findlay A., Manley D. & Feijten P.M. (2010) Social mobility: Is there an advantage in being English in Scotland? IZA Discussion Paper No. 4797 (www.iza.org). This paper seeks to unpick the complex effects of migration, country of birth, and place of residence in Scotland on individual success in the labour market. We pay specific attention to the labour force experience of English-born residents in Scotland, whom the cross sectional literature suggests are more likely to achieve high occupational status than the Scottish born residents. Using data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study – linking individual records from the 1991 and 2001 Censuses – and logistic regressions we show that those living in, or moving to Edinburgh, and those born in England and Wales are the most likely to experience upward occupational mobility. To download the full paper go to www.iza.org.

 

Maarten van Ham gave an invited lecture at the Research Seminar of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, 18 February 2010, The Netherlands. Presentation title: “Housing tenure, neighbourhood sorting and labour market transitions in Scotland: explaining neighbourhood effects.”

On 10th February 2010, the Centre for Housing Research held a seminar to celebrate the career of their former Director Professor Joe Doherty. The seminar gathered together experts in homelessness and city governance from Canada, America, Europe and the UK to offer their ideas.

World leading geographer and former student of Joe Doherty, Dr. Neil Smith discussed his much debated theory of the "revanchist city". Does revanchism (zero tolerance policing, intense gentrification, privatised public spaces) make cities less accessible to young people? Is it leading to increased homelessness and fewer housing choices? Dr. Stephen Gaetz of Canada followed with his work on the criminalization of young homeless people in Toronto. Homelessness experts from Europe and the UK addressed the European perspective, closing a stimulating discussion.

 

The first of three CHR led ESRC funded seminars “Challenges in neighbourhood effects research: does it really matter where you live and what are the implications for policy?” was held in St Andrews on the 4th and 5th February 2010. A range of innovative, theoretical and empirical papers were presented to an international audience comprising of speakers and participants from over 10 countries. The papers presented at the seminar will be published by Springer in an edited volume entitled “Neighbourhood Effects Research: New Perspectives” during 2011. For more information on the book and the presentations see www.neighbourhoodeffects.org). van Ham M., Manley D., Bailey N., Simpson L. & Maclennan D. (eds) (forthcoming) Neighbourhood Effects Research: New Perspectives. Springer: Dordrecht.

 

David Manley presented a paper at the ESRC Seminar Series Neighbourhood effects: theory and evidence, 4-5 February 2010, University of St Andrews. Presentation title: “Neighbourhood effects: a longitudinal perspective.”

 

Alison Sandeman was invited to be a member of the Scottish Government’s Built Environment Statistical Advisory Committee (BESAC). BESAC’s remit is to identify the key strategic statistical requirements on housing and planning issues, to develop and implement a strategy for prioritising and meeting these needs while minimising the burden on data suppliers and maintaining quality fit for purpose.

 

New publication: van Ham M. and Manley D. (2010) The effect of neighbourhood housing tenure mix on labour market outcomes: a longitudinal investigation of neighbourhood effects. Journal of Economic Geography 10, 257-282. This article investigates the effect of different levels of neighbourhood housing tenure mix and deprivation on transitions from unemployment to employment and the probability of staying in employment for those with a job. We used multiple regression models and unique individual level data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study. We found that high correlations between the percentage of social renting in a neighbourhood and labour market outcomes disappeared when controlling for neighbourhood deprivation, individual level education and tenure. The results show that living in a deprived neighbourhood is negatively correlated with labour market performance, but predominantly for homeowners and not for social renters. We suggest that selection effects and not causation are behind the neighbourhood effects found. For the full paper, click HERE.

In November 2009 researchers from Heriot Watt and St Andrews universities participated in a seminar on the housing market crashes and their consequences in the USA and the Netherlands. This seminar on 22nd January 2010 took the opportunity of a visit by Michael Lennon (Chief Executive, Housing Choices Australia) to discuss recent shifts in the Australian economy and national housing policies. Michael currently combines his time as Chief Executive of Australia’s fastest growing non-profit housing provider with a part time role advising the radically rejuvenated Housing Ministry in the Federal Government.

 

Why do so many women claim incapacity benefits? Half-day seminar organised by Dr Donald Houston (University of St Andrews), Ms Christina Beatty and Professor Steve Fothergill (both Sheffield Hallam University), Millennium Galleries, Sheffield.

 

Donald Houston appeared on Women’s Hour, Radio 4. He was interviewed on the impact on women of the reform of the Incapacity Benefit.