Housing Politics in the United Kingdom: Power, Planning and Protest by Brian Lund

Author:Brian Lund [Lund, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, City Planning & Urban Development, Social Science, Political Science, Poverty & Homelessness
ISBN: 9781447327073
Google: xGcbDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2016-10-12T09:56:30+00:00

Goodbye council housing 2: New Labour

New Labour inherited a local authority housing repairs deficit estimated at £19 billion and its Decent Homes programme was an attempt to reduce this backlog. The Green Paper Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All (DETR, 2000a, p 12) stated: ‘We aim for a step change in the quality of the stock and the performance of social landlords and are committed to ensuring that all social housing is of a decent standard within 10 years’. A Major Repairs Allowance was introduced into Housing Revenue Accounts to help meet the decent home standard but stock transfer was the main mechanism for achieving decent homes. However, in response to opposition to stock transfer organised within the Labour Party by ‘Defend Council Housing’ (see Chapter Seven), a ‘half-way’ house was offered in the form of an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). Local authorities could access additional central resources if they set up a not-for-profit organisation run by an unpaid board of directors, including councillors and tenant representatives but with no faction having a controlling majority. The council continued to own the homes and determine allocation policy but the ALMO was responsible for stock management. By 2010, 70 ALMOs were managing more than a million council homes. Between 2000 and 2010, 770,340 local authority houses were transferred to housing associations in England, enabling the associations, free from public sector borrowing constraints, to upgrade the signed-over stock (see Chapter Seven).

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