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Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week 10, 20 and 30 years ago
30 years ago
A new system for improvement grants would force councils to take legal action against some of the most vulnerable householders in their districts, the government confirmed.
The system outlined in the Local Government and Housing Act was set to provide mandatory improvement grants to anyone whose home was shown to fall below standard.
But at the previous week’s Institute of Environmental Health Officers’ congress, Paul Everall, assistant secretary at the Department of the Environment’s housing renewal policy division, confirmed that should an applicant fail to complete the work, the council would have to take action under the Housing Act 1985.
The act required councils to take action on a home found to be unfit, with the potential for these to result in criminal proceedings if tenants failed to comply with statutory notices.
20 years ago
Strong signals were beginning to emerge that the government was delaying its Housing Green Paper and moving away from an early reform of the housing benefit system.
High-ranking sources in local government and among lenders told Inside Housing that they did not expect the green paper to arrive until the following spring.
It was suggested that housing minister Nick Raynsford’s decision to seek the Labour nomination for London mayor meant he did not expect to face the kind of workload associated with an imminent paper.
Detailed notes of a private meeting at Home Housing Association – now Home Group – the previous week showed that junior housing minister Chris Mullin had said the paper could be delayed until 2000.
In the notes, Mr Mullin also said: “The biggest challenge will be reform of housing benefit. There will shortly be consultation on various options. None of them will be painless, but it will be the second term before any changes are made.”
A government spokesperson denied that Mr Mullin had said the paper would be delayed, saying that his remarks had been misinterpreted.
10 years ago
Prime minister Gordon Brown (above) promised “tough love” interventions for anti-social families and supervised housing for teenagers as he focused on housing issues in his speech to the Labour Party conference.
Mr Brown announced that the UK’s 50,000 “most chaotic families” would be placed in family intervention projects in a bid to tackle anti-social behaviour. He would also encourage more social landlords to get involved in projects.
Family intervention projects (FIPs) were designed to offer intensive one-on-one support, combined with sanctions, to families facing eviction and homelessness because of severe anti-social behaviour.
Under Mr Brown’s plans, funding for FIPs was sent to double, with an extra £26m made available.