Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-102)
14 JUNE 2004
MRS MARGARET
FORD AND
MR DAVID
HIGGINS
Q100 Andrew Bennett: Where are we up
to now with the Housing Gap Funding Scheme?
Mr Higgins: Our draft guidance
package went out in June of 2003; it became live at the end of
last year. We are using it on a number of schemes. There are three
that I know of that are going through appraisal at the moment
from Norwich to Southwark.
Q101 Andrew Bennett: Appraisal, but not
actually building.
Mr Higgins: No, the scheme only
came live at the end of last year.
Q102 Andrew Bennett: Your predecessor,
or maybe several predecessors back, the chair or English Partnerships,
used to measure success by the amount of floor space that was
developed or available for industry. How would you rate your success
in terms of houses that have been built in the last two years?
Mrs Ford: We had our targets changed
by ODPM in the course of this year to reflect the new remit that
I spoke about, and we have a range of output targets which still
contain commercial floor space, housing starts in a year and housing
completions a year and so on. We are in the middle of finalising
those numbers. They will be audited and laid before Parliament
in two or three weeks' time. I do not have the exact figures with
me, but I can say to you that my sense so far is that it is a
much better performance from English Partnerships than the last
two or three years, across all of our targets.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed
for coming along.
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