Government axes housing advice unit
The government is closing the organisation set up to give it advice on how to improve the affordability of housing.
The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit will close as part of the coalition government’s drive to make savings in the Communities and Local Government department.
Last night a CLG spokesperson told Inside Housing: ‘The government has decided to close the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit with immediate effect. This decision has been taken in order to rationalise the number of advisory bodies and to make savings.
‘In the interests of transparency, and in order to maximise value from the unit’s existing research programme, all completed research will be transferred to Communities and Local Government at no extra cost and will be published on the department’s website.’
Under the previous government, the NHPAU had recently expanded its remit to help councils develop local plans. A review of the organisation at the end of 2009 had found it was successfully fulfilling its role, and recommended it should also conduct research into local housing markets on behalf of local authorities.
Jamie Hodge, communications and public affairs manager at the Royal Town Planning Institute, said: ‘The news that the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit is being scrapped is understandable in current economic circumstances and comes as no surprise given its reputation as the source of the previous government’s top-down housing targets.
‘But aside from this, the unit was a reliable source of objective data, helping further understanding of housing supply and affordability.’
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Readers' comments (4)
Anonymous | 29/06/2010 9:00 am
Good. One less bureaucracy but how much cash is saved and how many jobs will be lost ?
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Len White | 29/06/2010 9:58 am
I thought the comment from the RTPI was rather miserable but no surprise from that rather ineffective body. Perhaps when their industry is destroyed and their members can't afford their fees they will be more positive about housebuilding and the need for economic policies that support investment.
I suspect NHPAU is being removed because the government doesn't want to know - or rather, doesn't want the public to know - about housebuilding requirements and needs and doesn't want advice on how to build more homes. NHPAU was a good source of objective information and analysis and cost very little compared to the size of the industry. To dismiss its work as 'bureaucracy' is just daft. This is a retrograde step.
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Sidney Webb | 29/06/2010 10:13 am
Cutting a driver for affordability as a route to savings may in the longer term prove fool hardy, especially as the pressures on Housing Benefit increase due to the cuts to the social house building programme force ever more reliance on the unaffordable private sector.
A progressive coalition?
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Anonymous | 29/06/2010 3:00 pm
Who?
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