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London Councils responds to housing finance reform
Published: 2009-08-13 10:33:40
London Councils, representing the capital’s local authorities, has broadly welcomed the government’s reform proposals for council housing finance.
These intend big changes in the way local authorities receive funding and how they manage housing stocks. The aim is for councils to retain all their income from rents and home sales and use it to meet the needs of their tenants.
Many local authorities, especially in the South of England, have long been critical of the existing system whereby a large proportion of councils’ housing income has been taken by the government for redistribution nationally on the basis of assumed local needs. Ending the Housing Revenue Account Subsidy (the old system) in favour of devolution of spending powers is strongly supported by the London boroughs, but they still want the government to provide more detail on how the new system will actually work.
London Councils executive member for housing Steve Reed said last month that “being able to ensure locally-raised rents deliver housing services for local people is an important first step, but just as important is a fair deal on housing debt”.