Examination of Witnesses (Questions 70-79)
MS ANNE
KIRKHAM AND
MR SIMON
LLEWELLYN
5 MARCH 2007
Q70 Chair: It has been alleged by various
organisations and indeed councils that leaseholder bills are going
to rise above £10,000 as a result of the Decent Homes Programme,
and the Department's own research suggests that average bills
will be well below that, but the quality of the information on
both sides seems to be somewhat lacking.
Ms Kirkham: I think that is a
fair conclusion, that there is relatively little high-quality
information about leaseholders and their bills, which is one of
the reasons why we did the piece of research that we did when
it emerged that there were some issues around the size of leaseholder
bills from people renting from local authorities. The evidence
that we have managed to pull together since we did that research
has been with the help of local authorities themselves. We do
not have any regular statistical returns specifically around leaseholders
and the nature of their bills, largely because we are reasonably
selective about what information we do ask local authorities to
provide, and there is a limit to what we can ask them to provide
us with.
Q71 David Wright: It is quite astonishing.
If you look at the scale of the housing investment programme submission
forms over the last twenty to thirty years—and I know, because
I used to fill them in—I would have thought there was some
capacity within that structure to put some questions in about
leasehold costs. I am absolutely stunned by that as an answer.
Ms Kirkham: We have been going
through a programme of reducing the information that we have been
collecting from local authorities, so a number of areas have been—
Q72 David Wright: Right, well clearly
that was a bad idea, even in this context, was it not?
Ms Kirkham: If indeed we collected
in the pat a lot of information about leaseholders, we have had
to make choices about reducing burdens on local authorities.
Q73 Chair: It is extremely difficult
to discuss whether changes are required to reduce the burden on
leaseholders if nobody seems to have comprehensive information
on what the burden on leaseholders is, neither the organisations
apparently trying to represent leaseholders nor the DCLG in the
opposite direction. We do not know the scale of the problem. We
do not know if it is a small number of people, in which case it
might be relatively cheap to devise a solution; or whether it
is very widespread.
Ms Kirkham: We have information
on the total number of leaseholders. We have obtained information
from London boroughs on the number of leaseholder bills over 10,000,
so we do have that information. We do not have systematically
collected information across the country but we have that specific
information on the position in London.
Q74 Emily Thornberry: How many is
it? From what date?
Ms Kirkham: The information provided
to us was from May last year and we are currently looking at trying
to update—
Q75 Emily Thornberry: Are those section
20s as well, or is that just the final bills?
Ms Kirkham: That, I am afraid,
I do not know the specific . . .
Q76 Chair: Can we make sure we get
that information afterwards. The issue we want to know is how
many properties from the May 2006 data were over 10,000 and was
that perception of the section 20s—was that an estimate
or the actual costs?
Ms Kirkham: We do know that it
was around 5,000 were over £10,000 out of the total number
of leaseholders in London.
Q77 Chair: How many leaseholders
are there roughly?
Ms Kirkham: About 108,000, I believe.
Q78 Chair: But you do not know whether
those are estimates or the actual costs?
Ms Kirkham: I do not have that
information with me, specifically whether they are section 20
or not.
Anne Main: Those figures surely could
be extrapolated by somebody into a projection?
Emily Thornberry: Not outside London,
I do not think. If it was linked in with the Decent Homes Programme,
if we were at an early stage in the Decent Homes Programme, then
getting figures from May last year is not necessarily—
Chair: I understand that, but the difficulty
is that if you are dealing with people's fears of future costs
we are into supposition and not actuality. That is the problem.
Q79 Anne Main: Definition of essential
works: a Social Sector Working Party recommended extending the
definition of essential works to cover works carried out under
the Decent Homes Programme. Have you discussed this with the Department
of Works and Pensions?
Mr Llewellyn: We have not directly
discussed this with the Department of Works and Pensions, no.
They have particular allowances, and they are related to the housing
health and safety rating measurement on households in Decent Homes.
Ms Kirkham: Simon is right; we
have not had specific discussions. The essential work, as Simon
says, covers what is one aspect of the Decent Homes target, which
is that homes should meet the statutory mandatory standard, which
is now Housing Health and Safety Rating. It does not cover the
other three components of the Decent Homes standard. There is
clearly an issue about what it is appropriate for those to cover,
because these are essential works that would be eligible for any
support to any home-owner who needed to take out a loan in order
to carry out those particular works to their property. So in looking
at this, it is not simply an issue for leaseholders; it would
be an issue for any home owner who perhaps needed some support
with mortgage or other loan in order to carry out those works;
so it is quite a big issue here.
| 
