With neat irony, today sees local authorities both get back some of their old council housing role and receive a distinctly underwhelming verdict on their performance of the strategic role that was meant to replace it.
The good news came with a Communities and Local Government announcement of the details of £127m worth of allocations for 47 councils to provide 2,000 new homes.
As housing minister John Healey put it, that means the biggest council housebuilding programme in 20 years will start before the end of the year. More details of the individual allocations are on the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) website here.
The bad news comes in an Audit Commission report on their strategic housing role - exactly what they have been meant to be focussing on in the years when they were told that their job as providers of homes was over.
The commission’s press release highlighted the fact that councils are focussing too much on building new homes and not enough on making the most of existing ones - a message that will chime especially with the almos that lost funding to pay for the new homes programme.
But the report itself has an even starker message. In 85 strategic housing inspections conducted between 2000 and 2006, just one was rated as excellent. Three quarters were rated fair or poor and a third had uncertain or poor prospects for improvement, mainly due to lack of skills and capacity in the strategic housing function.
The commission found few examples of partnership working and few councils with an understanding of local needs or priorities or of their housing market. And ‘effective performance management in the strategic housing function is rare’
The commission argues that councils’ strategic housing role is crucial for improving their areas and their citizens’ lives - even where they no longer have any stock of their own. Some imaginative councils had improved their local housing but most were still struggling to grasp all the opportunities.
One urgent recommendation for the government is that it should ‘rationalise the initiatives that have been introduced in response to the credit crunch, and clarify objectives, eligibility and scope’.
Another is that it should work with local authorities and professional bodies to address ‘the shortage of resources and skills among council housing strategists’.
And the commission says that ‘central government action has yet to catch up with rhetoric’ - as illustrated by the six households helped by the mortgage rescue scheme.
As local authorities prepare for their new/old job of providing homes and struggle with their old/new job of strategic management, it’s a point that the government might want to bear in mind.
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Readers' comments (1)
Joe Halewood | 10/09/2009 5:59 pm
Is the AC report a surprise to anyone? For once i'm not criticising councils either.
One obvious consequence of stock transfer is that the homes and the rental stream go from the councils yet they are expected to retain the legal duties and a strategic overview of housing, but with what income is this to be paid?
Is it any wonder that councils (perhaps) dont pay so much attention to a responsibility they have been left with, but no money to pay for it?
As a result the residual housing departments of councils are understaffed because of this situation that should have been foreseen. Further if you were a senior housing professional at a council where do you go (and want to go) when stock transfer happens? Hence stock transfer is a transfer of expertise as well as leaving a funding vacuum for councils.
Do the AC comment on this in theire reports? No! Wonder why not? Would this create tension with those that fund them and the architects of stock transfer - that is central govt? Yes!
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