Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
258-259)
MS ALISON
INMAN, MS
GWYNETH TAYLOR
AND MR
PAUL TANNEY
23 NOVEMBER 2009
Q258 Chair: Can I welcome you to this
evidence session of the Select Committee? We are operating courtesy
of Stockport Council in their magnificent Council Chamber. We
have two witnesses from the National Federation of ALMOs and one
from East Durham Homes. Please do not feel obliged to both answer
the same questions if you agree with each other because we have
a number of questions that we want to get through. If I could
start with the first one, which is addressed to the National Federation
in the first instance, I would like to ask you about the remaining
non-decent homes managed by ALMOs across the country and what
you believe are the barriers to those remaining non-decent homes
being brought up to the minimum standard after 2010.
Ms Taylor: The first problem is
the general insecurity about the future of the Decent Homes programme.
Not only are a number of Round 6s unclear about when or even if
they will get their funding once they achieve two stars, but also
all of the Rounds 3 to 5 ALMOs were in 2006 asked by CLG to re-profile
their Decent Homes programme to go beyond 2010 and many of them
have done that, so there are a number of ALMOs who are also concerned
about what happens after the current CSR period because their
current funding only goes up to 2011. That is the immediate issue
in terms of funding. Longer term there is the issue about sustainment
of Decent Homes funding post-2010 for those ALMOs and local authorities
that have achieved it and that is very much dependent upon the
outcome of the finance review and what resources might be made
available to enable that to happen. Certainly the current major
repairs allowance will not achieve sustainment of Decent Homes,
even once backlogs have been met, and some of the early round
ALMOs are already in danger of falling back out of decency again,
having achieved Decent Homes once already.
Q259 Chair: Can I follow up that
last point you made about some of the homes that are currently
decent falling out of decency? Is that a reflection of the standard
being too low or is it a reflection of the work not having been
done to a sufficiently high standard in the first place?
Ms Taylor: It is neither. It is
a reflection of the fact that the Decent Homes standard involves
a certain time period element so that year on year new homes will
fall out of decency if they are not previously addressed through
the major repairs programme. The original aim of the Decent Homes
programme was to fund the backlog and then future properties would
not fall out of decency because the major repairs allowance would
achieve that. The Government's own review has proved conclusively
that the major repairs allowance would need to be dramatically
increased, by at least 43 per cent overall but in individual circumstances
probably by a significant amount more, in order to sustain Decent
Homes longer term. What you also need to bear in mind is that
the very fact that properties are being managed by ALMOs is because
they are managing the most intractable stock. If local authorities
had been able to manage decency within their existing resources
they probably would not have gone down the ALMO route or the LSVT
route. It is a particular concentration of the most difficult
stock and it is a time related element as well.
Ms Inman: Obviously, a lot of
houses that were built post-war were often built to a much higher
standard than houses that were built in the sixties and seventies
and those houses are now reaching non-decency because of how long
it is since they were built. If I may just state the obvious,
Decent Homes is not an end game; it is the beginning of a process.
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