Download or read book Financial viability of the social housing sector written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-07-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Affordable Homes Programme is aimed at delivering below market price housing. The development of the new funding model for affordable rent and home ownership was led by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Homes and Communities Agency. The new Programme will be delivered by housing associations, local authorities and other housing providers, who were able to bid for Programme funding during 2011. The new model means the Department pays less grant per home than under previous schemes (£20,000 compared with £60,000 under the previous programme), while housing providers borrow more and can charge higher rents. The new scheme represents a reduction of 60 per cent in average annual spending on affordable homes over the four years of the Programme from 2011-12 to 2014-15, when compared to the three years up to March 2011. The Programme will increase providers' financial exposure, with the sector facing challenges in securing bank financing for capital investment and over the cost of supporting both future and existing debt. Providers have committed themselves to building some 80,000 homes for the £1.8 billion of government investment, compared to the initial target of 56,000. However, key risks remain. Nearly a fifth of contracts with housing providers remain to be signed; more than half of the planned homes are not currently due to be delivered until the final year of the Programme; and some providers are concerned that they may not be able to charge rents at the levels they originally agreed with the Programme.

Download or read book Financial Viability of the Social Housing Sector written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 2010, the government announced the Affordable Homes Programme, under which there is £1.8 billion capital funding in government grants to social housing providers. The Department for Communities and Local Government has overall responsibility for the Programme, which is delivered by the Homes and Communities Agency. The Department expects the Programme to support the provision of approximately 80,000 homes in the four years from April 2011 to March 2015. Through negotiation the Agency reduced the average grant per home to £20,000; a third of that under the previous programme. The reduction in the grant paid to providers for each home will be funded in part by housing providers being able to charge higher rents to tenants, leading to an estimated £1.4 billion increase in housing benefit payments over 30 years. The Programme therefore shifts cost from one department to another. On the one hand more of the new housing, may be taken up by people on higher incomes so that the programme fails to meet the most pressing housing need. At the same time, the poorest tenants may be unable to afford the higher rents. Those who receive higher benefits may in turn find it even harder to find employment that pays enough and so there will be more people who are more likely to be locked into benefit dependency. Delivery of the new homes is heavily skewed towards the end of the Programme, with many due to be built in the final year on sites which are not yet confirmed. This leaves very little room for slippage

Download or read book Social Housing and Urban Renewal written by Paul Watt and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary urban renewal is the subject of intense academic and policy debate regarding whether it promotes social mixing and spatial justice, or instead enhances neoliberal privatization and state-led gentrification. This book offers a cross-national perspective on contemporary urban renewal in relation to social rental housing.

Download or read book House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee The Work Of The Regulation Committee Of The Homes And Communities Agengy HC 130 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite acknowledging that a 'handful' of providers give him concern, the Regulator is reluctant to give them lower financial viability ratings, fearing that doing so might trigger an upward re-pricing of their debt. Instead, the Regulator uses governance ratings to signal concerns about financial viability. This practice lacks openness and should stop and accurate financial viability ratings should be published. The fear of triggering a re-pricing also prevents the Regulator from using many of his statutory powers, preferring to adopt informal approaches instead. This lacks transparency and risks too close a relationship developing between the Regulator and providers. The devolved administrations' housing regulators, not to mention regulators in other sectors, must encounter similar dilemmas. The Regulator should work with them to see how they have addressed his concern that the use of statutory powers could prove counter-productive. The Committee's concerns are underlined by the case of Cosmopolitan Housing Group, which came close to insolvency in 2012. The Regulator only lowered its financial viability rating for Cosmopolitan in December 2012, despite the fact that he had been monitoring the situation for months and the possibility of insolvency had been raised in the media two months previously. The report also raises concerns about how effectively the Regulator is discharging his remit for consumer regulation. Noting that of 111 complaints related to consumer standards referred to the Regulator no case of serious consumer detriment was found, the Report calls for an annual external check to be carried out to provide assurance that the Regulator is discharging his duties effectively

Download or read book The Future of Public Housing written by Jie Chen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-26 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public housing was once an important strand in western housing policies, but is seldom seen as a mainstream policy instrument for the future. In contrast, in many East Asian countries large public housing programs are underway. Behind these generalizations, there are exceptions, too. By including perspectives of scholars from across the world, this book provides new insights into public housing in its various forms. It contains in-depth chapters on public housing in five East Asian countries and six Western countries, together with three comparative overview chapters.

Download or read book Treasury Minutes on the Fifth the Eleventh to the Thirteenth and the Fifteenth to the Sixteenth Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts Session 2012 13 written by Great Britain. Treasury and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-01-21 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dated January 2013. The reports published as HC 104 (ISBN 9780215047670), HC 288 (ISBN 9780215047632), HC 532 (ISBN 9780215048684), HC 388 (ISBN 9780215048691), HC 103 (ISBN 9780215048653); HC 389 (ISBN 9780215049704)

Download or read book House of Commons Liaison Committee Civil Service Lacking Capacity HC 884 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Liaison Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-12-12 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public service contracts with the private sector need to deliver good quality services and value-for-money for the taxpayer. Select Committees scrutinising the work of departments across Government have found that, on too many occasions, the Civil Service has failed to design effective contracts or to monitor contracts adequately. This report has collated this evidence and demonstrated that there are systemic failings in Civil Service contract management. We have raised specific concerns about the paucity of commercial skills, and officials feeling unable to speak truth to power. The Committee therefore supports the establishment of a Parliamentary Commission on the Civil Service to examine the capacity, skills and operation of Government departments. The contracts issue demonstrates how significantly the role of the Civil Service has changed since the Northcote-Trevelyan Report set out the principles on which it should operate. A coherent analysis of the state of the Civil Service, and the requirements placed upon it, would help to improve governance across Whitehall, and help to eliminate the contract-management failures seen in recent years

Download or read book Department of Health written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The strategic management of health resources across the East of England Strategic Health Authority has failed. Ultimate responsibility for this rests with the Department of Health. For many years to come, the local community as well as the NHS and taxpayers will have to live with the consequences of separate decisions to build a new PFI hospital at Peterborough and to award a franchise to a private company to run the nearby Hinchingbrooke hospital. These decisions were taken separately despite the fact that the two hospitals are only 24 miles apart in an area where the NHS has long acknowledged that healthcare provision is running ahead of local needs. The reality is that there is not enough funding there for both Trusts to thrive as currently configured. Their financial viability will be further eroded if more people are treated outside hospitals, in line with present and past government policy. Circle Healthcare, the franchisee of Hinchingbrooke, has not achieved its expected savings in its first few months and its Chief Executive has already left. The bid was not properly risk-assessed and the successful bidder was encouraged to submit over-optimistic savings projections. The PFI deal for Peterborough and Stamford PFI hospital has proved catastrophic, with the Department now being forced to pay out nearly £1 million a week of taxpayers' money to keep the Trust afloat. Both Trusts will have to make unprecedented levels of savings to become viable. In Peterborough and Stamford's case, this won't be enough

Download or read book Pre appointment hearing for the Government s preferred nominee for the chair of the Homes and Communities Agency Regulation Committee written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-11-24 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 31 October 2011 the Committee held a pre-appointment hearing with the Government's nominee for the post of Chair of the Homes and Communities Agency Regulation Committee, Julian Ashby. On the basis of the evidence provided at that hearing, the Committee concluded that he is a suitable candidate for the post. One matter concerning the need for arrangements to avoid a potential perception of conflicts of interest was brought to the Secretary of State's attention.

Download or read book Funding for Local Transport written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Transport works with local partners to deliver many of its policies. Local authorities play a key role in planning and commissioning transport services, such as bus and light rail, and providing and maintaining roads and other local infrastructure. They spent a total of £8.5 billion on transport in 2010-11. The Department provided around a quarter of this (£2.2 billion), with the rest raised locally from council tax, from the £411 million surplus raised from parking levies, or from the Department for Communities and Local Government formula grant. In 2011-12 the Department provided £1.2 billion to local authorities for highways maintenance and small transport projects in the form of two un-ringfenced formula-based grants. The Department does not monitor how un-ringfenced grants are spent and there is insufficient information to determine the impact of the Department's contribution on local authorities' spending decisions and therefore to achieving the Department's objectives. The Department plans to devolve more control over its funding to the local level (raising the proportion of resources which are not ringfenced portion from 60% to around 80%); and new local transport bodies will take on some decision-making responsibilities previously held centrally. Full details of how the new system will work are still to be determined and there is uncertainty over how the arrangements will work in practice.

Download or read book Housing and the Credit Crunch written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Communities and Local Government Committee says the Government must stick to its long term house building targets, despite the credit crunch, but a greater proportion of the homes built should be social housing. The Committee is concerned that the £975 million borrowed by the Government from its 2010-11 budgets to build social rented housing now is not new money, and that the Government has been unable to say how that borrowing will be replaced. The Committee urges the Department for Communities and Local Government to: put pressure on the Treasury to ensure measures to revive the mortgage markets are implemented immediately; increase construction of new social housing, both to provide for housing need and as a means of maintaining capacity in the homebuilding industry whilst the market recovers; accelerate refurbishment programmes for social housing; acquire further social housing through the purchase of unsold stock and street properties; consider the purchase of unsold family homes which have been on the market for more than a year; encourage public sector bodies to make land available for the development of new homes. The report also urges the Government to do more to help those at risk of repossession by considering sanctions against lenders who repossess too quickly and by doing more to protect tenants and homeowners from unscrupulous landlords. An Office of Fair Trading recommendation for sale-and-rent back schemes should be implemented as a matter of urgency to protect the growing number of households falling behind in mortgage payments. The Committee would like to see more done to support housing associations, including increasing social housing grant where necessary.

Download or read book HC 1141 The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010 15 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015-03-28 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report summarises the key areas of the Committee's work over the past five years. It draws out the areas where progress has been made and where their successors might wish to press in future. The Committee has assiduously followed the taxpayer's pound wherever it was spent. Since 2010 they held 276 evidence sessions and published 244 unanimous reports to hold government to account for its performance. 88% of their recommendations were accepted by departments. In many cases they successfully secured substantial changes, for example with the once secret tax avoidance industry. They secured consensus from government and from industry that private providers of public services do have a duty of care to the taxpayer, and in pushing the protection of whistleblowers further up the agenda of all government departments. By drawing attention to mistakes in the Department for Transport's procurement of the West Coast Mainline, more recent procurements for Crossrail, Thameslink and Intercity Express have all benefited from more expert advice and a more appropriate level of challenge from senior staff. After discovery in 2012-13 that 63% of calls to government call centres were to higher rate telephone numbers, the Government accepted our recommendation that telephone lines serving vulnerable and low income groups never be charged above the geographic rate and that 03 numbers should be available for all government telephone lines. They also secured a commitment to close large mental health hospitals.

Download or read book Transforming Social Housing written by Sasha Tsenkova and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-23 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent global crisis exposed vulnerabilities of housing markets pointing to the need to build resilience through better policy tools and sustainable provision of social housing. In the context of fiscal austerity, social housing is affected by changing politics, privatization and concentration of urban poverty. Transforming Social Housing: International Perspectives explores the differences and similarities in housing policies and practices by focusing on social housing institutions and their ability to influence affordability and quality of housing. The focus is on private and not-for-profit provision in mixed-income developments supported through partnerships and a mix of policy instruments. The book brings together contributions by leading scholars on key debates affecting social housing in cities around the world. The international perspectives provide an interdisciplinary, robust overview of complex processes of change affecting people, places and homes. It is particularly well suited for students, scholars, policymakers and professionals interested in housing, urban planning and public policy. The chapters in this book were originally published in various issues of the Urban Research & Practice journal.

Download or read book Social Housing in Europe written by Kathleen Scanlon and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-09-29 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All countries aim to improve housing conditions for their citizens but many have been forced by the financial crisis to reduce government expenditure. Social housing is at the crux of this tension. Policy-makers, practitioners and academics want to know how other systems work and are looking for something written in clear English, where there is a depth of understanding of the literature in other languages and direct contributions from country experts across the continent. Social Housing in Europe combines a comparative overview of European social housing written by scholars with in-depth chapters written by international housing experts. The countries covered include Austria, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden, with a further chapter devoted to CEE countries other than Hungary. The book provides an up-to-date international comparison of social housing policy and practice. It offers an analysis of how the social housing system currently works in each country, supported by relevant statistics. It identifies European trends in the sector, and opportunities for innovation and improvement. These country-specific chapters are accompanied by topical thematic chapters dealing with subjects such as the role of social housing in urban regeneration, the privatisation of social housing, financing models, and the impact of European Union state aid regulations on the definitions and financing of social housing.

Download or read book Social Housing in Transition Countries written by Jozsef Hegedus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the large-scale social housing programs begun in Eastern and Central Europe after 2000 as an attempt to mitigate the inequality and declining standards of living that took hold in the region after the wave of privatizations that accompanied the political turn of the 1990s. It provides both case studies and theoretical frameworks for evaluating their successes and failures.

Download or read book Economics Planning and Housing written by Michael Oxley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2004-05-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This broad-ranging new text applies economics analysis to the aims, instruments and outcomes of land use planning and housing policies. The core focus is on providing students with a substantive and sophisticated understanding of the relation of the state and market and such key current issues as sustainable development, urban renaissance, affordable housing and the relationships between planning, housebuilding and house prices. Drawing examples from Britain, the rest of Europe and the USA, it emphasizes the role of economics in promoting a theoretically-informed and evidence-based approach to policy formation and implementation.

Download or read book Department for Work and Pensions written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Housing Benefit helps those on a low income in social or private housing to pay all or part of their rent, and supported some five million households in Great Britain in 2011-12 at a cost of £23.4 billion. Reforms aim to reduce annual expenditure by £6.2 billion by the end of 2014-15. The changes are being introduced without comprehensive modelling of the likely outcome on individuals or on housing supply and with limited understanding of the costs local authorities will incur. Those individuals who receive Housing Benefit are by definition on low incomes and even small reductions in entitlement can have a significant impact on their finances. The reforms are expected cut benefits for two million households. The impact of these reforms on claimants' finances may be compounded by other changes to the welfare system. The Department cannot model the impacts of the reforms as they depend on the actions claimants take in response to changes in their individual circumstances. Instead the Department plans to adopt a reactive approach, changing rules as problems arise. Claimants need to understand now how their benefit payments will change and what options they have to minimise the impact on their finances, for example, by taking in a lodger. Strong efforts must be made by the Department, local authorities and Social Housing organisations to inform claimants about the reforms; however, to date the evidence suggests that they have not been effective. Aldo, the Department has failed to take into account the administrative costs of implementing the reforms.