Coalition to stick with HRA reform schedule
The coalition government will continue with the planned timetable for changes to the housing revenue account subsidy system set out by the previous administration.
Housing minister Grant Shapps said this morning that the government will carry on with the existing review, which is due to report back in mid-July. He said he could not give any more details on the arrangements for settling debts.
Speaking as he launched new measures to help first-time buyers on to the property ladder, Mr Shapps said the current system was ‘unfair’ and that both parties in the coalition government had called for its reform.
He said: ‘We are going to carry on with the ongoing work that was started by the previous government.’
Until today, the government had only pledged to ‘review’ the current system, which had led to fears it would launch an entirely separate review. In effect that would have meant starting much of the work again from scratch and could have set reform back by years.
The move will be seen as a positive step by the vast majority of councils – although a number have voiced concern about the amount of debt they would take on under any deal.
In a survey carried out by the previous government just two per cent of councils said they would oppose plans to scrap the system under most circumstances.
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Readers' comments (1)
Simon Stokes | 08/06/2010 7:53 am
Lets see what they say before passing judgement. If their ideas about capping housing benefit and paying it direct to social housing tenats are anything to go by, they clearly have no grasp on the real needs of this sector. If they ever want the sector to start building again and provide the number of social housing homes needed, the last thing they should be doing is cutting our incomes with stupid ideological schemes (we would need to double our arrears team if they paid benefit to tenants) and saddling us with massive debts. We will see.
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