New London taskforce to tackle delay in decent homes funding

The London Decent Homes Taskforce will include the HCA, the Communities and Local Government department, London councils, representatives from various local authorities, the National Federation of ALMOs and the Greater London Assembly.

It will review the remaining six London ALMOs to help them gain twostar status from the Audit Commission, which they need in order to access more than £100 million of decent homes funding – the amount that would be provided that year.

The move follows an announcement by housing minister John Healey in July that Lewisham, Sutton, Redbridge, Lambeth, Havering and Tower Hamlets will not receive their funding for decent homes refurbishments until 2011/12. It has been deferred to help pay for Gordon Brown’s £1.5 billion house building pledge.

Michael Clegg, head of markets and renewal at the HCA, said: ‘The taskforce was set up following the decision to defer funding, but we had already been thinking about it.’

The first meeting of the taskforce is expected in mid-September. London mayor Boris Johnson, who chairs the HCA’s London board, has said he will instruct the London HCA to secure funding for ALMOs that get two stars.

The funding delay has affected apprenticeships linked to decent homes work. Gwyneth Taylor, policy director at the National Federation of ALMOs, said: ‘For all of the ALMOs, deferring funding would reduce the number of apprenticeships available to them.’

ALMOs outside London told Inside Housing that they were considering lobbying the HCA for help too.   

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