HCA delivers 120,000 homes to hit targets
The Homes and Communities Agency hit all its targets last year, spending £5.2 billion in the process.
The housing and regeneration body’s annual report and financial statements for 2009/10 show it saw 120,000 homes started or completed, increasing spending by 21 per cent.
Housing completions came in at 56,118, 7 per cent above target; total housing starts were 64,811, 21 per cent above target; 354 hectares of brownfield land were reclaimed, 4 per cent above target; and 174,943 square feet of office space was created, 15 per cent above target.
The performance netted HCA chief executive Sir Bob Kerslake a £15,000 bonus, bringing his total pay for the year to £290,000, up from £258,000 in 2008/09.
‘I am pleased to be able to report a steadily improving financial position, which underlies the agency’s strong delivery this year,’ he said.
‘Like the recovery in which the market to which it is linked, our improved position has been achieved gradually and through tight financial control.’
Tough market conditions damaged the HCA’s receipts, with proceeds from land sales falling 34 per cent, and a £26 million liability recorded on low cost homeownership scheme the London Wide Initiative, with a £5.1 million impairment on the same scheme.
Sir Bob said the agency is in a strong position for this financial year and remains ‘well placed to meet government objectives and enable local authorities to achieve their ambitions for their own areas’.
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Readers' comments (10)
Sidney Webb | 30/07/2010 12:23 pm
Good news, but could the HCA do what the HC never did and tell us the bed-size breakdown of the number of units so we know how many of the demanded for family sized homes have been provided.
The Corp loved to get into the just count the units race, but never worried about the meeting of the need. Are the HCA any better?
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worried well | 30/07/2010 1:01 pm
I agree with the previous poster.
The targets are meaningless unless they relate to and meet actual demand.
So yes. Bedrooms and locations please.
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Anonymous | 30/07/2010 2:36 pm
Gin and tonics, all around, not forgetting, bonuses, no doubt.
The HCA spent a lot of money ... money the taxpayer didn't have.
And they want to tell people about it? Only in the government of the gimmics of Gordon Brown and NuLabour is this a good idea.
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Anonymous | 30/07/2010 2:57 pm
His salary is obscene.
HCA are living on a different planet.
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| 31/07/2010 7:21 pm
It's funny how the public sector have targets for spending OPM (other peoples money) yet the private sector have targets for making money. Surely it's a lot easier to spend money than make it? I know I find it extremely easy to spend money but much harder to earn it. Doubtless other regular humans would agree. So on what basis should this civil servant get a whopping great bonus on top of his quarter million per year salary just because his department managed to spend it's money?
The public sector really is Alice in Wonderland isn't it?
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Anonymous | 01/08/2010 4:07 pm
This is socialist planned production Russian-style circa 1950.
Tractor production. Comrades. We built 10m. Comrades. Unfortunately. Not one of them works. Comrades. Rejoice. The end of fat-cat Capitalism is nigh.
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Sidney Webb | 02/08/2010 10:21 am
Funnier still, the vast majority of the money mentioned here was spent on private sector contractors. Isn't it funny how the private sector manages to receive so much public sector money, but nobody wearing the blinkers of the right ever seems to feel that this private sector money generation is as the outcome of spending other people's money. Even funnier is how much of this money was spent building units for private ownership, yet this is never seen as public subsidy by those who's blinkers only see public sector bad private sector good.
To anonymous above - the private sector produce a communications system called Ptarmigan. The company concerned got paid millions for this system, but it did not work when our Army deployed it. This is the reality of your blind faith in capital. The truth is not everything private is good and not everything public is bad.
Yes, the bonus for doing the job employed to do is wrong. So is the £5bn about to be paid to bankers, who have not done the job employed to do and are still sitting in so much of our money.
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john bull | 02/08/2010 1:49 pm
£5.2 billion that can be saved, as we have a massive surplus of houses empty. The state should stop building or paying for houses to be built, until all the empty ones are filled.
how many 'of the DEMANDED family sized homes are being built'
probably too many. Three beds is the maximum that should be built if people 'Demand' more than that they should find it themselves, and pay for it!!
Lets cut this QUANGO's budget to zero and wind it up. time to join the real world, and stop government spend so much OPM (Our precious money) not theirs.
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Chris | 02/08/2010 9:35 pm
Hello John, wish I could say nice to hear from you again.
Does your missive mean that the housing association, that you are responsible for the governance of, will not be building any more family sized homes, only you seemed so proud of having built them previously?
Come to think of it, did you not bid for and accept some of this Quango's budget and therefore spend so much OPM?
Just how many layers of double standards do you have John?
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john bull | 02/08/2010 10:33 pm
hi chris,
one /two and three bed homes are family sized homes. I dont remember ever being proud of wasting the tax payers money.
Yes of course we bid, but some strongly protested all the way, but being voted down by those with vested personal and/or political interests.
Its called accepting labour's democracy(ho ho) not double standards.
We (I am not alone) hope the new government will have the guts to take long overdue action, to end the economic madness, which is destroying our society.
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