Big hitters face off over councils building
The Audit Commission this week slammed councils’ obsession with house building hours before the government unveiled the local authorities it wants to build a new generation of homes.
Forty-seven councils will receive £127 million to build 2,021 homes, housing minister John Healey said on Wednesday.
Just before he made the announcement, however, the Audit Commission, chaired by Michael O’Higgins, stole his thunder. It published a report stating that councils felt pressurised to focus on delivering new housing and, therefore, were not devoting enough attention to tackling problems with existing stock.
In response Mr Healey told Inside Housing that the government was more than 80 per cent of the way through its decent homes programme. ‘Much of the existing council housing has had a huge overhaul in the last decade,’ he said.
The councils will have to match government funding, bringing the investment to more than £250 million. Details of how a second tranche of money - more than £200 million - will be spent will be announced later this year.
East Riding of Yorkshire Council will build the most homes - 275 - after receiving £16.5 million of funding.
Fifty-one councils bid for the £127 million funding pot in the first round of the local authority new build programme.
The Audit Commission’s report, Building better lives, highlighted this enthusiasm for new build properties. It found 94 per cent of local area agreements had prioritised targets for new and affordable housing.
But only a third had given priority to improving existing homes or housing support services, despite the huge savings and social benefits this can produce.
Sir Bob Kerslake, chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency, said: ‘It is pretty hard to argue with the core argument about local authorities having a clear strategic approach. But where I have a question is whether you can conclude they don’t have existing stock as a priority by looking at the targets in local area agreements.
‘Quite a lot of local authorities will have established a very clear cut process to get to decent homes,’ he added.
Richard Simpson, strategic asset manager for East Riding, said: ‘By the end of 2009 East Riding will have attained decent homes standard… While our current housing stock is in order we will be looking to the future on two fronts, developing new builds with funding including this grant, and to carry on improving our current housing stock.’
The announcement represents the first large-scale council house building programme for 20 years, and will provide 5,000 jobs across England.
Ten biggest builders
| COUNCIL | NUMBER OF HOMES | CASH RECEIVED |
|---|---|---|
| East Riding of Yorkshire | 275 | £16.5m |
| Birmingham | 129 | £6.7m |
| Salford | 101 | £8.2m |
| Hillingdon | 93 | £7.7m |
| Leicester | 93 | £4.5m |
| Corby | 70 | £3.6m |
| Ealing | 68 | £5.5m |
| Darlington | 65 | £2.9m |
| Leeds | 63 | £3.5m |
| Gateshead | 61 | £3.6m |
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Readers' comments (3)
Bernard Townroe | 11/09/2009 7:59 am
When I read this I thought of the old quotation, "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination". Using the number of local area agreements that contain newbuild targets over those with decent homes targets to suggest that not enough is being done to refurbish existing stock is, to say the least, highly misleading. But it serves a clear purpose for an organisation seeking to position itself politically in readiness for an expected change of administration; an administration that can be expected to oppose the very thing it has suddenly discovered to be a 'bad thing'. That doesn't mean that there isn't a huge job still to be done to improve existing - private - stock but this line of argument has nothing but politics at its heart.
To suggest that all local authority housing activity is contained within local area agreements is just plain wrong. Councils began their decent homes programmes years before there was any such thing as a local area agreements. Indeed, some had completed their decent homes programmes before LAAs existed and the large majority were well advanced by their advent. Also, since LAAs are negotiated at the upper council tier then it can hardly be a surprise that most do not include a decent homes target when most of the constituent districts/boroughs will have either completed or made significant progress in the improvement of their own stock. In those circumstances, there is no place for a decent homes target across a county, as no added emphasis on decent homes delivery that an LAA can bring will be required.
I wonder why the Audit Commission did not mention the relative absence of homelessness objectives in LAAs across the country compared to newbuild. I'll bet there is a similar 'disparity' and it would be equally facile to suggest that housing authorities were neglecting their responsibilities to the homeless on the basis that there is little within an LAA about meeting their needs. But that might not chime so 'well' with its anticipated new 'masters' mightn't it?
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worried well | 11/09/2009 3:30 pm
The amazing thing however, is that in blasting local authorities, the Audit Commission actually blasts its own thinking.
It was part of the regime that has been in place for decades, enforcing centrally-set targets and conformity against its damaging standards. Damaging how?
Damaging in the sense that it meant that Local Authorities were all focused upon scoring well against the KLOEs and other standards instead of facing the service users.
In damning LAs the Audit Commission damn themselves!
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Neil Stubbings | 14/09/2009 10:14 am
We've met the decent homes standard two years ahead of our target and are one of the biggest spenders on disabled facilities grants in London.
Hillingdon Council also has a pro-active programme for private dwellings and gives residents help such as improving their home’s energy efficiency.
We’ve also ran a first time buyer’s scheme giving grants to people who’ve lived in Hillingdon all their lives who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to keep living here.
Building new homes is just part of our wider strategy. We fully recognise the need to make full use of existing dwellings and keep them in good condition.
Neil Stubbings, Deputy Director of Adult Social Care, Health and Housing, London Borough of Hillingdon.
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