Healey to 'dismantle' housing finance system
Housing minister John Healey has said he will ‘dismantle’ the current council housing finance system, and replace it with a new scheme for councils.
Speaking to Inside Housing last night, Mr Healey said he would remove the current housing revenue account system. ‘It was put in place in the eighties when government didn’t believe in local councils and the type of housing councils could provide,’ he said.
Mr Healey is expected to announce the results of a controversial government review of the housing revenue account at a conference later today.
Under the current system, the money councils generate from the sale and rent of council-owned stock goes back to the Treasury, and is then reallocated to local authorities based on their housing need. Some local authorities claim they lose out through the system, leaving them short of cash to maintain their housing stock.
Prime minister Gordon Brown told Parliament yesterday that one of the proposals being considered is to allow councils to keep all the money they generate through rent and sales.
He was announcing a range of initiatives in a policy document, Building Britain’s Future. These include spending an extra £1.5 billion on building affordable housing over the next two years, with the aim of creating 20,000 homes on top of the current target of 90,000.
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michael barratt council tenant | 30/06/2009 5:51 pm
Mr Healey in common with his predecessors talks of future intentions in respect to the Housing Revenue Account. That is all very well and vague, I am also concerned as to the consequences of past payments of so called assumed surplus rents to Central government that inrespect to my landlord Crawley Borough council represents in excess of £50m over the last five years whereas in over same period CBC has slashed in excess of £20m from the sum that their consultants Savills said was the minimum they would warrant to avoid stock disrepair.
So for how longer will DCLG be ineffect they authors of DHS failures and disrepair by not permitting local authorities sufficient funds from their own rents to permit them to keep their housing stocks in a state of repair.
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