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Housing Finance

Key Resources
15/03/15

spreadsheet with estimated robbery 2011-12 from Moonlight Robbery Campaign
01/09/10

Moonlight Robbery Briefing Freeze the Tax on Council Tenants Estimates robbery from council tenants through subsidy system 2011-12
01/09/10

19/03/10

31/10/09

Response to Self-Financing Consultation all you need to know about the issues on self-financing
01/10/09

15/06/09

02/03/09

Other useful reports
Labour Party
22/12/17

Keith Taylor Green MEP south east England
19/03/15

Unite the Union
14/10/14

Shelter
23/05/12

Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Smith Institute
23/06/11

Communities and Local Government (CLG)
09/06/11

CLG
01/02/11

Parliament
13/12/10

CLG
22/11/10

Homes and Communities Agency
11/11/10

National Audit Office
25/06/10

CLG
25/03/10

CIH
09/09/09

HQN
01/09/09

CLG
21/07/09

DCH
04/07/09

CIH
30/01/09

APSE
30/01/09

Chartered Institute of Housing
01/09/08

Local Government Association
02/07/08

LGA Labour Group
01/03/08

UK Housing Review
06/12/05

UK Housing Review
06/12/05

Audit Commission
01/06/05

House of Commons Library
22/06/98

Housing Finance made simple...

Politicians and housing professionals make out housing finance is very complicated but the principles for tenants are simple. Stop robbing council housing: all the money from our rents and capital receipts should be ring-fenced to manage, maintain, repair, improve and build new council housing (the 'Fourth Option'). Discrimination against council housing should end. We need a 'level playing field' so that council housing gets the same rights and access to gap funding, debt write-off and borrowing as other types of landlords.
In December 2007 Housing Minister Yvette Cooper announced a review of the current system with the commitment "to ensure that we have a sustainable, long term system for financing council housing".
This review is welcome, but is not reporting until 2009 with spending to be agreed in the next Comprehensive Spending Review.
DCH argues there have to be interim measures to respect tenants' choice. We call for gap funding where tenants have voted for retention to improve their homes and estates, and an increase in Management & Maintenance Allowances (M&M) this year to support a moratorium on further privatisation while the review takes place.
The arguments are explained in more detail in our Dear Gordon 2 pamphlet and the initial submission to the government 'Review of Council Housing Finance'. There are links to supporting documentation with more details on the left, and press articles to the right...
Summary of DCH 'Initial Submission' to government review

"The fundamental problem facing council housing is insufficient resources to manage, maintain, repair and improve existing council homes and estates and to build new council housing.
If all the money that belongs to council housing (rental income and capital receipts) was ring-fenced and reinvested, and there was a level playing field on debt write-off, gap funding, borrowing and Social Housing Grant, council housing could pay its own way.
Successive governments have been taking a profit from council housing each year and then bullying and blackmailing tenants to accept privatisation. This is a disgrace!
The Treasury take from tenants rents and capital receipts far exceeds the allowances they give local authorities for management and maintenance (M&M) and major repairs (MRA) each year.
The recent ‘justification’ for some of this robbery is that tenants should support historic debt. But capital receipts from council housing have been enough to pay off this debt three times over; council tenants don’t have a financial interest in the property; and government doesn’t ‘recover’ money paid to home owners (Mortgage Interest Tax Relief) or Registered Social Landlords (Social Housing Grant) so why fleece council tenants to pay for an asset that remains in public ownership?
Continued discrimination against council housing and the lack of a ‘level playing field’ on debt write-off, gap funding, borrowing and Social Housing Grant cannot be justified.
It is not the principle of a national pooling system that is the problem. Council tenants are angry that government profits from council housing but we can also see how some politicians are using the old tactic of ‘divide and rule’ to try and break up a national council (public) housing sector.
We are suspicious that proposals for councils to ‘opt out’ of the national HRA would leave council housing in a more precarious situation and is a stalking horse for privatisation.
Government has to accept that M&M and MRA allowances must be funded at level of need and council housing put on a ‘level playing field’.
Then local authorities would be able to plan ahead on the same basis as other landlords and council housing would provide first class secure housing, managed by an accountable landlord at rents people can afford for existing tenants and future generations on a sustainable basis and ‘in perpetuity’."
Press Articles
Council Housing Debt Campaign
29/02/20

Inside Housing
12/05/18

Inside Housing
07/02/18

Inside Housing
31/01/18

24dash.co.uk
21/12/17

Daily Telegraph
06/12/17

Inside Housing
06/12/17

Inside Housing
22/11/17

24dash.co.uk
22/11/17

Keep our council homes
27/10/17

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