Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
113-119)
MR PETER
MORTON, MR
BOB MCCANN
AND MR
JOHN CLAYTON
9 NOVEMBER 2009
Q113 Chair: Welcome to our witnesses.
Can I start off by asking you what is the proportion of social
sector non-decent homes in each of your councils and what do you
expect it to be by 2010?
Mr Morton: In Sheffield the current
non-decent figure is 19.1 per cent; by March 2010 it will be 12
per cent and by December 2010 it will be eight per cent. We are
aiming to achieve the target by 2013-14.
Mr Clayton: In Sandwell's case
our stock is currently 19.7 per cent non-decent. At the end of
2010 it will be 7.7 per cent non-cent. We aim to reach our target
in December 2012.
Chair: I do not want to go down the list
here but I think we would find it quite useful if each of your
councils drop us a note and say what you think the Decent Homes
standard is as you apply it in your area because there is clearly
a certain degree of variation, if I may put it that way. If you
are—which I think you are—implementing a "Plus"
can you indicate what you regard as the "Plus" standards?
Thank you.
Q114 Mr Slaughter: You are having
some difficulty in reaching Decent Homes targets. Is that fair
to say, obviously with ALMO status? Do you have an opinion on
this issue of where Decent Homes standards should go for now,
whether they should become broader or whether they should encompass
other factors be they other structural factors like environmental
improvement to property and cladding and things like that, or
whether they should include wider environmental factors to do
with neighbourhoods and things like that. What is your view of
that?
Mr Morton: The Decent Homes standard
as presently described is essentially that internal work. The
standard that I would advocate would include the environment,
the communal areas, cladding, the external environment. What we
find is that tenants come out of their homes in Sheffield having
had them made decent and they are satisfied, they go outside their
front door and they go into an environment which is not decent
and that needs fixing. The other big area is around CO2 and there
are ambitious targets for the government to achieve a reduction
in CO2. Most CO2 comes from houses and we need a big programme
to retrofit and fix council housing in that regard. The other
point I would make about standards is that we now have the TSA
in place, they are consulting about standards and they are setting
a standard for the quality of homes. There needs to be a tie in
between the TSA standard and the government standard post Decent
Homes, but fundamentally authorities need the ability to resource
that which at present they do not have.
Mr McCann: One of the things we
are very conscious of in Sheffield is making the tenants a driving
force behind setting the standards rather than working to government
standards or council standards. It is very much about tenants
setting the standard that they want and not what the authority
wants.
Mr Clayton: I would support everything
that has been said by my colleague from Sheffield. The standard
needs to be extended to cover common parts, environmental considerations
on estates; I think very importantly it needs to be dovetailed
into the government's carbon strategy where there is an opportunity
to get some synergy between spends and renewables and refurbishments
of homes. In addition to that I think the standards should reflect
the need to provide disabled facilities which again is an opportunity
to get synergy from other areas of spend.
Q115 Mr Slaughter: I take your point
on CO2 because since Decent Homes was launched the climate has
changed, but do you not feel it is your responsibility to maintain
the common parts of estates? I take exactly the point about the
environment, but is that not simply your duty as landlords to
ensure that there is a pleasant environment for people to go out
into? Decent Homes is there for a specific purpose and we heard
from previous councils that because they are short of money they
wanted to fiddle it so they could spend it on their lifts of something
else like that. You are ALMOs, you have got the money for Decent
Homes, that is there to cure a real evil that has built over several
decades in social housing, but do you not think it is part of
your year on year responsibility to maintain the common parts
of the environment of your estate?
Mr Morton: Absolutely, but the
difficulty we have got is that we do not have the resources to
enable us to maintain the external environment to the standard
that tenants would expect. When Decent Homes is completed we are
back to a position where we were prior to Decent Homes of rationing
the resources that we have. We cannot do everything because of
the constraints we are under within the funding system. It is
absolutely right, there is a high expectation and a rising aspiration
for the standards they ought to expect. As a landlord, if we don't
have the resources to do that, then we can't meet tenants expectations.
Q116 Anne Main: You are talking about
the synergy between different departments and different aims and
government targets, what about the target for reduction in fuel
poverty which the government has not exactly been hitting. Do
you think there is greater opportunity within Decent Homes to
hit those targets and do you think the budgeting should be more
flexible to enable you to get funding to help hit those targets?
Mr Clayton: Absolutely. The improvement
of the thermal efficiency of homes has a very direct impact on
fuel poverty. One of the things we need in order to reduce carbon
emissions is to make homes more thermally efficient. So yes, you
bring the agendas together and it has the benefit in terms of
reductions in fuel poverty.
Q117 Anne Main: So is this like one
department not speaking to another, or is it the grant structure
or what is it that is stopping you trying to do that?
Mr Clayton: In terms of the carbon
agenda there is precious little funding available for large scale
improvements for thermal efficiency in properties. The thermal
standards that can tie with the Decent Homes standards are very
low, they come up from a very low base and it is going to be necessary
in the future, if we are going to hit our carbon targets—particularly
the tough one in 2050—it is going to be necessary to identify
the funding that is required to improve both the insulation and
the mechanical performance of the installations in homes.
Q118 Anne Main: Can I just pick you
up on what you said about the standard being very low for the
installation of thermal properties of a refurbished home? Could
you anticipate then that after that low level refurbishment a
family could still be in fuel poverty?
Mr Clayton: In the right circumstances
but it also relies on the income of that family within the calculations,
so yes, that could arise.
Q119 Chair: Do you agree with that
or not?
Mr McCann: I would agree to a
point. During our Decent Homes programme we are doing a reasonably
high degree of thermal insulation.
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