Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
9 DECEMBER 2003
ANNE KIRKHAM,
MR NEIL
MCDONALD
AND MR
JEFF HOLLINGWORTH
Q100 Mr Sanders: That is slightly different.
Are you satisfied that the assistance provided through the Warm
Front scheme is adequate to meet the requirements of thermal comfort?
Mr McDonald: Could I ask Anne
to respond on that.
Ms Kirkham: The Warm Front scheme
only applies in the private sector. They are currently reviewing
how the Warm Front grant is targeted. As I understand it, it has
a range of measures that can be completed within the Warm Front
scheme: it can provide insulation; it can provide heating. Insulation
and heating are the two means of most effectively improving thermal
comfort of property.
Q101 Mr Betts: Essentially, what the
Decent Homes tells us is: Look at how much money we have got and
then we will devise a standard to fit in.
Mr McDonald: Whenever governments
make decisions in spending reviews, they have to look at the cost
of various things that are worthwhile and sort relative priorities.
Q102 Mr Betts: So that is a yes.
Mr McDonald: I am saying that
in SR2000, when the Decent Homes Standard was set, ministers took
a view as to the standard that could be afforded within the likely
level of public expenditure.
Q103 Mr Betts: So, yes. A nod of the
head is a yes, is it?
Mr McDonald: Yes.
Q104 Mr Betts: What progress are we actually
making towards both the 2010 and the 2004 target? It seems as
though we are not really getting there. Are we?
Mr McDonald: Tremendous progress
has been made. Since 1997 about one million homes have been brought
within the Decent Homes Standard. The number of non decent homes
has been reduced by about one million. Between March/April 2001
and April 2004, we expect there to be a reduction of about 500
thousand in the number of non decent homes. The third reduction
that was set as a milestone we expect to be achieved during 2004.
Q105 Mr Betts: But the rate of progress
has not improved, has it? About 500,000 properties have been taken
out of the non decent homes' category between 1997 and 2001, and
for 2001 to 2004 probably a similar number, but a massive injection
of funding since 2001 does not actually seem to have increased
the pace at which homes have been brought up to a decent standard.
Ms Kirkham: From 1997 to 2001
there were 500,000 over four years. The 500,000 between 2001 and
2004 will be over three years, so there has been an increase in
the rate at which is being carried out.
Q106 Chairman: But how does that relate
to the amount of money that has been available or has been spent?
Surely the spend of money has gone up dramatically and the outcomes
have not moved that dramatically.
Ms Kirkham: There are two reasons
behind this. Firstly, in terms of tackling the decent homes problem,
there is some evidence that landlords would have looked for some
of the easier and cheaper areas of work to tackle in the first
instance, moving on later to the more difficult and the more expensive.
At any point in time your mix of work that is being carried out
can be quite different, so the number of homes you would make
decent would depend on the nature of the work that local authorities
are actually tackling.
Q107 Chairman: So it is going to get
more and more expensive as we get nearer to the target date.
Mr McDonald: One would expect
the cost per unit to change over the time, yes.
Q108 Mr Betts: How much was the spending
increased during the two periods, 2001 and then 2001/2004? You
are saying a lot more resources have gone in, so what is the percentage
spending increase during that period?
Mr McDonald: It is not a straightforward
question, because some of the resource went into transfer (and
transfer to date has brought in £12 billion worth of investment);
some of the resource has come in through ordinary local authority
investment funded under the HIP programme; some of the extra resources—
Q109 Mr Betts: Fine. How much? There
must be an amount of money.
Mr McDonald: There is an amount
of money. I cannot give you the numbers now for the two periods.
Unless you have it, Anne?
Ms Kirkham: I do not have the
figures with me. We can provide them to the Committee.
Q110 Mr Betts: And the relevant number
of houses that have actually been improved to the Decent Homes
Standard in those periods as well.
Ms Kirkham: Yes.
Q111 Mr Betts: In terms of the houses
in the most deprived areas, you seem to be indicating that those
have been left until last and almost forgotten about as we get
the easier ones. To what extent are you trying to ensure that
they are being brought up to a standard that is part of a comprehensive
strategy to improve the whole community? The Prime Minister keeps
going on about sustainable communities, quite rightly. How far
are we linking that attempt to build sustainable communities in
with bringing houses up to a decent standard?
Ms Kirkham: Just to pick up on
the point about the more deprived areas being left until last,
I was not talking about difficult necessarily in terms of the
nature of the area, I was just talking about difficult in terms
of the nature of the work to individual property. The target that
we have set does say that we should be doing the majority of the
work in areas that do suffer from multiple deprivation, and the
way the resources are targeted does allow for more resources to
go to those areas. They are not being left until last; the work
is carrying on in parallel with work to less deprived areas.
Q112 Mr Betts: One of the comments made
to us earlier on this point was that the standard itself was slightly
narrower. The Chartered Institute of Housing made the point and
said that it excluded "liveability issues". How can
you be committed to this wider strategy, this comprehensive approach,
when those sorts of issues are actually excluded from the target.
Mr McDonald: We are saying to
local authorities—and I think this comes out quite clearly
in the revised guidance—that we expect a Decent Homes strategy
to be set in the context of a wider strategy to do with neighbourhood
renewal where that is appropriate.
Q113 Mr Betts: Why not include that in
the target itself? If it is important that there is a liveable
community for these homes to be located in, why should it not
be the target? Why separate them?
Mr McDonald: The target basically
draws a line between being all-encompassing and, query, not affordable,
and being reasonably clear and simple and not covering quite as
wide an area.
Q114 Mr Betts: So technically you can
have a decent home in an appalling environment—and you could
tick the box then.
Mr McDonald: No, we are making
it very clear that we regard decent homes and sustainable communities
as being—
Q115 Mr Betts: But you can have a decent
home, according to your standard, in a poor environment.
Mr McDonald: We would not approve—
Q116 Mr Betts: No, but you can have it,
can you not, with those criteria?
Mr McDonald: You could have it,
but, if such a strategy were put forward for approval by the government
office, approval would not be given.
Q117 Mr Betts: But you would still meet
the standard, would you not?
Mr McDonald: You could meet the
standard but the option appraisal would not be approved.
Q118 Christine Russell: Mr Hollingworth,
could I ask you some questions about the standard in the private
sector. Why is the target different for vulnerable households
in the private sector, where it is only 70%, but it is 100% in
the public sector.
Mr Hollingworth: Let me say briefly
that this is a new target that we have introduced for the first
time this year. We do think that the Decent Homes standard is
applicable as a target to aim for in the private sector. The problem
is that the fundamental principle is that owner-occupiers and
private owners should be responsible for maintaining their own
properties and it is only the responsibility of government to
intervene and deal with vulnerable households. That is the way
we have set the target. We have established a baseline, using
the 2001 English House Condition Survey. We think that 57% of
vulnerable households in the private sector now live in decent
homes. The target is to try to gradually expand that, but because
we are targeting on vulnerable households and not stock, not dwellings,
I do not think it is ever feasible to expect that we will reach
100%. The level of non decent homes in the private sector is very
large. A total of five million homes are non decent in the private
sector. We are focusing on a narrow target of the one million
most vulnerable households. Over time we want to make progress,
but we think that vulnerable households will change and they might
appear in non decent homes. It will only be possible to get to
100% decent homes if we deal with the whole five million non decent
homes in the private sector. That is an enormous target and we
have to be realistic about the progress we can make because of
the cost of this.
Q119 Christine Russell: How concerned
are you—indeed have you given it any thought whatsoever—that
there may be a temptation from some private landlords not to let
to vulnerable tenants because they are worried that the environmental
health officers are going to come knocking on the door? Is that
a concern that you have thought through in the Department?
Mr Hollingworth: No, I do not
think so. Well, we have thought of it. We have an enforcement
regime and the enforcement regime is basically the fitness standard.
With the housing bill published yesterday we will be moving to
the rating system, which will focus on hazards and hazards which
are affecting the most vulnerable people.
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