Quality homes

With a growing population, overcrowded homes and the building industry still recovering from recession, ensuring London's existing housing stock is up to scratch has never been so important.

Living in a home that is safe and of an acceptable size and standard is essential for the health and wellbeing of all Londoners. One fifth of the capital's population live in social housing, and London’s councils are responsible for maintaining and managing much of this valuable stock.

'Decent' homes

The previous government set up the Decent Homes Programme in 2001 in an attempt to support social landlords to improve the physical quality of their homes and meet the Decent Homes Standard. In 2009 the government announced that funding for some of the ALMOs (Arms Length Management Organisations) in round 6 of the Decent Homes Programme had been delayed. This affected six of London’s boroughs who were unable to proceed with planned improvements to their housing stock. London Councils worked with the affected local authorities to argue for the funding to be restored. All the ALMOs which subsequently passed their inspection were awarded Decent Homes funding.

The Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010 announced £2.1bn of capital funding nationally from 2011/12 for the Decent Homes programme. Of this, £1.6bn was made available to local authority landlords (including those with stock managed by ALMOs) to help tackle the backlog of homes that were not meeting the Decent Homes Standard, with the remaining £500m available to ‘gap’ fund existing stock transfers.   

In December 2010 the Homes and Communities Agency invited local authorities to bid for this funding, and in February 2011 Ministers announced the allocations to local authorities. All the 14 boroughs in London that had not received Decent Homes funding up to that point were awarded some funds. London Councils welcomed this, especially in the current economic climate.

Also in February 2011, the government announced the details of the reform of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and the move towards self-financing for council housing.  This included a one-off debt settlement to local authorities of £28bn, some £3bn of which was debt allocated to ALMOs for Decent Homes spending over 30 years from April 2012.  This is only half of the £1.6bn that government made available in the CSR for the same purpose, which leaves open the possibility that local authorities will be paying off debt for a Decent Homes programme double the sum that they have received.  

Read our response to the HCA’s ‘Decent homes Backlog Funding for Council Landlords 2011-15’ consultation in December 2010.

Renewing homes

London Councils is also a partner in the pan-London RE:NEW project which seeks to make wide scale upgrades existing homes in the private and public rented sector to reduce C02 emissions (also known as retrofitting). Read more about the RE:NEW project