Long wait for council housing

The Government is currently running a consultation on the 'Reform of Council Housing Finance'. In his foreword, the Housing Minister John Healey writes, "these changes will enable councils to become, once again, significant providers of new housing" – if only those words had been written in 1997 . . .

For several years, the Defend Council Housing campaign, supported by every major UK trade union, has been highlighting the daylight robbery by the Government from council housing, and campaigning for the reasonable demand that there should be a level playing field for council housing that is retained in public ownership.

The fact this consultation even exists, and that it explicitly promises "a level playing field between transfer and retention", is therefore a tribute to the DCH campaign.

Currently, councils are only offered funding to meet the Decent Homes Standard if they, in some form, privatise their council housing stock – through full stock transfer, Arms-Length Management Organisation (ALMO) or Private Finance Initiative scheme. DCH has been fighting for the 'fourth option' of direct funding for council housing.

There are over one million people living in council homes which do not meet the Decent Homes Standard (one in three of all council housing tenants). Yet for decades council tenants have paid more in rent to Government than is spent on the upkeep of council homes. It is a robbery from some of the most vulnerable people, undermining one of the most valuable institutions in British society. DCH estimates that over £30 billion has been siphoned out of council housing in the last 15 years.

The Government's commitment "to develop a sustainable, long term system for financing council housing" is therefore long overdue. Also welcome is the promise of capital grants in excess of £6 billion to meet the backlog of outstanding works to those estates and streets where tenants have refused to be blackmailed into transfer or ALMO. However, the promise of a level playing field is not yet a reality.

The government's impact assessment gives further evidence that the proposed settlement falls well short of what is required. Under the present system the Government will be taking more than £22 billion over 30 years – under the new proposals they would still be taking more than £10 billion.

Twelve years after the election of a Labour Government, after numerous conference defeats (which ultimately led to the Labour Party abolishing votes at conference) DCH concludes, "the proposals fall short but the door is opening". Please respond to the consultation and give that door another nudge.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Department for Communities and Local Government website, and the deadline for responses is 27th October 2009.

For a full response from Defend Council Housing see www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk