Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215048691
Category : Public housing
Languages : en
Pages : 40
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Book Description
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
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780102977196
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 40
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Book Description
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.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215061768
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 100
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Book Description
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
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Liaison Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215064905
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 24
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Book Description
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
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215053312
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 54
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Book Description
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
Author: Dyna Heng
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513537199
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 31
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Book Description
This paper examines the impact of the new financial services law in Bolivia—including credit quotas and interest rate caps—on financial stability and inclusion. So far, credit to “targeted” sectors is growing as intended by the law but the increase in the average loan size of microfinance institutions and the declining number of borrowers point to potentially adverse effects of the interest rate caps on financial inclusion. Looking ahead, while the new law contains many good provisions, international experience suggests that promoting financial access through credit quota and interet rate caps is very challenging. Indeed, trying to meet the 2018 credit target for the productive sectors and social housing could imply the build up of significant financial stability risks. These will need careful monitoring and possible modifications to the credit quotas and interest rate caps.
Author: Sasha Tsenkova
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000325954
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
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.
Author: Kathleen Scanlon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118412346
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 494
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Book Description
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.
Author: Paul Watt
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1787149102
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
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.
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Communities and Local Government Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215526526
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
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.
