Leading article: A study that must not be shelved

Professor John Hills' report on the future of social housing in England provides an expert analysis of one of this country's most intractable problems: the acute shortage of accommodation for those who, for whatever reason, cannot afford to buy or rent on the open market. In truth, this report probably does not tell anyone much that they did not know, or suspect, already. Its chief virtue is to ask the difficult questions and suggest avenues for future policy.

The overriding conclusion, which is surely correct, is that the social housing sector is here to stay and that more, perhaps much more, of it is needed. From there, the questions, like the answers, become more complicated. Where to build it? The report implicitly criticises the fact that most new social housing is sited in the same localities as older estates, exacerbating the segregation of private and public ownership. This, though, is where land is generally cheaper, allowing more housing to be squeezed out of a limited budget.

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The report echoes the concerns of many local authorities in noting the malign side-effects of allocating social housing exclusively according to need, rather than any other criteria (such as residency or proximity to employment). This principle - laid down by central government - has dictated access to tenancies for the past 25 years and reduced significantly the social and income mix of estates. Again, there is a difficult choice to be made: who among the neediest will be pushed down the waiting list, if it is desirable, as the report suggests, for the trend to be reversed?

Professor Hills states rightly that a much greater variety of low-cost housing is needed, and identifies mobility for council tenants as a real problem that may discourage them from seeking work. The high incidence of unemployment among those in social housing - even though their low-rent payments mean that they lose far less in housing benefit than other benefit recipients who get a job - is something else the report singled out for attention.

All this is well worth saying. Indeed, it could usefully have been said nearer to the beginning than the end of Mr Blair's time as Prime Minister. We fear, too, that the Hills report could become the latest major study commissioned by this government - following the Tomlinson report on secondary school reform and the Turner commission on pensions - to be formally welcomed, but then either rejected or embraced only in part and with a delay.

The best reason for delegating such studies is to have the hardest problems this country faces analysed by the most respected independent experts. But all too often, it seems, they simply serve to postpone sensitive political decisions that only ministers can make.