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Natasha Day still smiles when she recalls a proud moment of her career as a public servant. She had just helped deliver the First Step programme, an assisted purchase scheme that enables Islanders who couldn’t afford it on their own to buy a home with Government support.
“There was nothing better than standing at the steps of the Royal Court, seeing Islanders coming out,” says Natasha. “The very first transactions, the people who thought they would never have the ability to own a home.”
Natasha works at the heart of the Government of Jersey as Head of Strategic Housing and Regeneration.
“The Council of Ministers are the decision makers,” she says. “They set the priorities, and the civil service assembles around them, to make it happen.”
In the case of housing, the Council of Ministers’ Common Strategic Policy includes commitments to provide more affordable homes, and deliver a new Residential Tenancy Law to improve arrangements for both tenants and landlords.
So how does a public servant like Natasha go about delivering them?
“We have a variety of tools available to us to shape and influence our Island,” she says. “On the softer side, it’s government guidance. And then it steps up into policy and then it steps up again into legislation. And we don’t want to legislate for things that we don’t need to legislate for.”
Complicating matters is the fact that the housing market is not an entirely Government-controlled service.
“Housing is both a market and a service. And the tools that we have available to us, do have some natural limits,” says Natasha.
“A direct lever is the provision of homes – making sure there is the supply in place. The Government has quite accessible tools available to it to do that, with Andium Homes and the States of Jersey Development Company. It also has the Bridging Island Plan where it has designated land for housing. Then we have demand-side measures that are direct levers, like the First Step scheme.
“And when you look at the indirect levers, these are things we implement that can affect people’s choices. Many people will be familiar with the 3 per cent stamp duty surcharge the States Assembly decided to levy upon second-home ownership a couple of years ago. That was a lever to reduce the competition created by investors in the housing market, alongside reducing stamp duty for First Time Buyers to help them get on the ladder.
“I think we need to recognise that housing is a systemic issue and there isn’t a singular problem that you can put your finger on and say that’s the thing that we need to solve. There’s lots of different things that act on a housing market, and on how people are able to access that housing market. Some things are directly in our control and some things simply aren’t.”
She cites as an example the effect of the Bank of England base rate on mortgages. “In 2022, when the Bank of England base rates suddenly began to rise, that had quite a drastic impact on our housing market and affordability. Now the Bank of England base rate is starting to come back down again, we are hopefully going to see transactions starting to normalise. House prices have come down and earnings have risen, and that means that the housing market is becoming more affordable and accessible.”
For individual Islanders, most interaction with the Government on housing is through the Housing Advice Service, which Natasha describes as “the housing front door to Government”, and which provides guidance and assistance to those with housing challenges – including access to social housing, housing costs, and assisting people at risk of homelessness.
The Housing Advice Service manages the Affordable Housing Gateway, which gives Islanders access to social housing. “It’s a good time to put your name down for social housing, because we’ve got all of this new, wonderful supply coming forward,” says Natasha.
Indeed, social housing is an area where she says Jersey compares favourably with other parts of the world.
“When I’ve welcomed counterparts from other jurisdictions, they’re always astounded when we take them out and show them what we’ve got,” she says. “I think we are the envy of many places, and I think as an Island we should be proud of what we have, and what Andium Homes have achieved.”
Andium Homes was originally set up to improve the standard of social housing in the Island, Natasha says, but achieved that far ahead of its target which has enabled it to now focus on building more homes and allowing the Government to turn its attention to widening access to social housing.
“It’s not just about the needy. It’s about providing affordable, stable housing for Islanders, particularly those who want or need to rent,” she says.
The Affordable Housing Gateway works on prioritisation, with those who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness at the top of the list, alongside lowest-income Islanders, and families facing severe overcrowding.
Recent changes have meant widening the age eligibility for access to social housing. “People with children can access it from the age of 18,” says Natasha. “For people without children it historically leant towards older ages, those 50 and upwards. We’ve been progressively lowering that age, and we’ve now reached the point of access from age 25.”
Beyond social housing, one of the Council of Ministers’ priorities is to improve confidence in the rental sector. “When the Housing Minister first took office, the first thing he came to us with was that he wanted to deliver expedited changes to the Residential Tenancy Law,” says Natasha. “This is legislation that governs the contractual relationship between a landlord and tenant. We’ve been looking at this for quite some time. The current minister narrowed our focus towards the issue of security of tenure and rent stabilisation, and to introduce a rent tribunal that can deal with appeals on rent cases.
“What the Minister is driving towards is a soft form of rent control. He’s seeking to introduce a cap on the maximum amount that rent can increase in a tenancy and limit the number of rent increases to once a year. But for the landlord, we’re looking at making sure that they can still raise their rent when it’s fair to do so – when improvements have been made to the property, or there’s a considerable divergence from the market. But the tenant will still be able to challenge that.”
Natasha also points to the rented dwellings licensing scheme that was introduced last year. “This gives us the right tools that we need to ensure that rented homes are up to decent health and safety standards,” she says. “The standards have existed for a very long time, but what we didn’t have was the mechanism to ensure that they were being implemented.
“Most properties in Jersey are of a good standard. This is really about how we protect people when things go wrong. It’s very sad when you see people in some quite desperate situations and then you don’t have the tools to help them. And I think that’s what drives the Housing Minister in particular.”
Also launched last year was the First Step programme, which gave Natasha that memorable day on the steps of the Royal Court with Islanders who had bought their own home for the first time.
The scheme provided £10 million of Government funding and offers up to 40% of the price of a property to help lower-income Islanders take their first step onto the housing ladder.
A further £2 million of funding has been allocated for a new round of applicants, which will open in late Spring.
Natasha says she still enjoys the challenge. “I really do get up every day with a spring in my step,” she says. “Things do take a little while sometimes. You know, areas like developing new legislation is a very complex thing that is painstaking, and it can take a while to get there. But ultimately, nothing beats that moment when you see all of that work come to be delivered.”
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