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From the archive - majority of lets go to non-homeless people

Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week five, 15 and 25 years ago

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From the archive - majority of lets go to non-homeless people #ukhousing

25 years ago

People on the housing waiting list – who were not homeless – were getting the majority of new lets of both council and housing association homes, government figures revealed.

The story, which undercut myths about allocations in the 1990s, made the front page of Inside Housing.

Only 39% of the roughly 256,000 new lets in the 1992/93 financial year went to tenants who were considered ‘statutory homeless’. The majority went to people who had signed up to the waiting list and weren’t considered homeless or threatened by homelessness. Many of those getting tenancies were also transferring from an existing social tenancy.

“People with children are priorities under both systems, but no additional priority is given to lone parents,” said John Perry, policy director at the Chartered Institute of Housing.

15 years ago

Councils were so enthusiastic about hiving off their housing departments to create arm’s-length management organisations (ALMOs), that the government was running out of money to create more.

Bernard Coleman, head of housing and technical services at Bassetlaw Council, said: “The government hasn’t considered the huge demand which this agenda has started. There is very likely to be some oversubscribing.”

Nineteen local authorities had just submitted bids to the office of the deputy prime minister to fund the creation of ALMOs for their housing stock – bidding for a total of £2.2bn.

The money was being used to fund renovation of homes, environmental improvements and regeneration.

Salford was one of the councils bidding for money, after being rejected three times previously.

Councils had to achieve a high enough star rating from the Audit Commission before funding was released.

Some of the ALMOs that did win funding have since been taken in-house, including Brent and Hackney, as the structure has become less popular in recent years.

Picture: Getty

Five years ago

Government had launched an investigation after cash-strapped councils transferred substantial amounts of money from their rent accounts into their general funds.

Manchester, Oxford and Dover rubber stamped multimillion-pound transfers out of their Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs), before a loophole allowing this was closed.

The councils blamed swingeing cuts in government funding, which threatened statutory services.

However, Inside Housing quoted an anonymous housing lawyer who said: “My view is that the law doesn’t permit the transfer of money out of the HRA to the general fund.”

John Perry, policy director at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “HRA funds should be used for services for tenants.”

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