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| INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
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| C&AG's Report (HC 207 of Session 1996-97), paras 1.1-1.4
| 1. Housing Action Trusts were introduced in the Housing Act 1988 as a way of focusing resources on housing estates with problems that were beyond the capacity of the local authorities to remedy within their existing resources. Waltham Forest Housing Action Trust was the second of the six Housing Action Trusts to be established. The Trust is a limited life non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department of the Environment, and is responsible for the physical, social and environmental regeneration of four geographically dispersed housing estates in North East London.
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| 2. When the estates were transferred to the Trust from the London Borough of Waltham Forest in April 1992, they housed around 6,600 people in 2,422 dwellings in 13 tower, 25 medium rise and 3 low rise blocks. The Trust is expected to complete its work by 2001-02, when the properties will be transferred to new landlords after a ballot of tenants.
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| C&AG's Report
| 3. On the basis of a Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General our predecessors took evidence from the Department and the Trust. They examined the Trust's achievements in regeneration, the Trust's management of their redevelopment and rehousing programme, the Department's monitoring of the Trust's performance, and the extent to which lessons have been learned.
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| 4. Our main conclusions and recommendations are as follows:
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| On achievements in regeneration
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| (i) We note the Trust's considerable progress in regenerating its housing estates, and that the involvement of tenants in the Trust's affairs has resulted in a high level of tenant satisfaction and a sense of community. We welcome in particular the Trust's success in helping tenants into employment. In that Report, we note the Trust's evidence that it has helped 750 tenants into jobs; and the valuable measures that the Trust has taken to reduce crime on their estates and to enable good relationships with the local police (paragraph 9).
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| (ii) We note that there are still problems with drug trafficking, but we consider it a creditable achievement on the part of the Trust that 57 per cent of tenants believed in 1996 that there was less crime on the estate than in the previous 12 months (paragraph 9).
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| On management of the programme
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| (iii) The Trust's achievements have been made at considerable cost to the taxpayer, and we welcome the Trust's assurance that it will keep within the £227 million lifetime grant-in-aid figure the Department have now set. We are concerned that the Department did not set a lifetime budget for this and other Trusts at the outset, and we consider that all projects should start with a clear view of the likely cost to the taxpayer (paragraph 28).
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| (iv) The Trust's properties are built at a higher cost than other social housing. We recognise that much of this difference is accounted for by the higher design standards of the properties and the fact that they had to be built on a site already occupied by the properties they replaced. We note the Department's and the Trust's view that this higher cost has to be balanced against the enhanced sense of ownership which tenants feel for their new homes, and that this higher quality will mean that the properties will be more durable. We look to the Department and the Trust to monitor whether these benefits are achieved in the longer term (paragraph 29).
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| (v) We note that the majority of the Trust's £11.5 million expenditure on repairs was required for "catching-up" repairs due to the poor quality of the housing stock it had inherited. Whilst the Trust's repair costs have been higher than those of other social landlords, the Department expect that repair costs will fall to comparable levels as more tenants move to their new properties (paragraph 30).
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| (vi) We note that the housing management contract was awarded to the Waltham Forest Community Based Housing Association without competition. Whilst the Department and Trust consider that the arrangement with the Association provides sufficient incentive for improved efficiency and service levels, we are concerned that the contract does not include targets for reducing costs and penalties for failure to achieve cost or service targets. We consider that all contracts should include such provisions, especially when they are let without competition (paragraph 31).
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| (vii) We note that when the Trust finishes its task in 2001-02 a considerable asset, built at public expense, will be transferred to a new landlord; and that the arrangements with the Association are weighted in favour of the Association as the tenants' choice to be their future landlord. We recognise that the new landlord may not be able to realise this asset for a considerable time. We nonetheless look to the Department and the Trust to ensure that the taxpayer's interest will be protected upon transfer (paragraph 32).
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| On monitoring the Trust's performance and evaluating the initiative
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| (viii) We are surprised that the Trust reported its performance for only just over half of the core measures required by the Department, and that the Department were prepared to accept reporting by only one of the six Trusts on all the core measures they required. We note the Department's assurance that these weaknesses will be addressed and that the Trusts' annual reports will in future provide a fuller and more consistent basis for measuring performance than to date (paragraph 37).
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| (ix) We are concerned that the Trust maintained inadequate records of those it had helped into employment, and note that the Trust has now improved its recording methods for tracking tenants' employment history (paragraph 38).
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| (x) We are concerned that the Department did not set performance measures for the initiative and the Trusts at the outset, and note that the Department have released, somewhat belatedly, a Performance Monitoring Handbook to improve the Trusts' performance reporting. We look to the Department to ensure that performance measures are established as early as possible for subsequent regeneration projects (paragraph 39).
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| On the lessons learned
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| (xi) We note the lessons which the Department have learned from the experience of the Housing Action Trusts; and we expect that subsequent urban regeneration initiatives involve greater collaboration with local authorities, make greater use of private finance, and have been set lifetime budgets from the outset (paragraph 43).
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