Social Rented Housing: Standards

Robert Neill
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether any changes are planned to levels of Decent Homes funding to fund the other housing measures announced in the Draft Legislative Programme.

Mr. Ian Austin
There are no current planned changes to levels of Decent Homes funding to fund other housing measures announced in the Draft Legislative Programme.

Mr. Betts
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government when expenditure is planned to start under the Decent Homes programme to improve the standards of rented homes under the management of Round 6 arm's-length management organisations which have gained a two-star rating.

Mr. Ian Austin
Four Round 6 ALMOs—Haringey, Blackpool, Enfield and Stevenage—have funded Decent Homes investment programmes. On 14 July, as part of the Housing Pledge announcement, the Minister for Housing announced that those remaining Round 6 ALMOs, who had yet to qualify for Decent Homes funding on that date, are more likely to receive their capital allocations in 2011-12, subject to the ALMO achieving the Audit Commission inspection rating required.

Mr. Betts
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much money is planned to be diverted from the arm’s length management organisations decent homes programme in (a) 2009-10 and (b) 2010-11 to contribute to funding the building of new homes.

Mr. Ian Austin
There are no plans to divert funding from the Decent Homes programme in 2009-10. In 2011-11, £150 million has been reprioritised from the programme to fund the Housing Pledge initiative to contribute to the building of new homes.

Ms Keeble
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate he has made of the proportion of former council properties transferred out of council ownership through local authority stock transfer which meet the Decent Homes standard.

Mr. Ian Austin
As at 31 March 2009, the proportion of homes owned by registered social landlords that own stock transferred from local authorities, which met the Decent Homes Standard was 88.1 per cent.

Source:

RSR 2009

Ms Keeble
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate he has made of the proportion of properties owned by arm’s-length management organisations which meet the Decent Homes standard.

Mr. Ian Austin
Information reported by local arm’s- length management companies in 2008 on dwellings that meet the Decent Homes standard show that 69 per cent. of their homes met the standard.

Ms Keeble
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate he has made of the proportion of homes owned by registered social landlords which meet the Decent Homes standard.

Mr. Ian Austin
As at 31 March 2009 the proportion of homes owned by registered social landlords which met the Decent Homes standard was 91.7 per cent.

Source:

RSR 2009