The question that's been asked loudest in the past six months by the councils that have yet to figure out how they are going to afford to get their stock up to the decent homes standard is this: "If tenants reject transfer, arm's-length management and the private finance initiative, and vote to stay with us, can we have more government money?"
To date, the ODPM has been adamant that there will be no fourth option for these 100 or so councils.

Just to underscore the point, Keith Hill has warned regional housing boards that funding allocations for councils are unlikely to rise.

But there have been other calls, some from the Chartered Institute of Housing, for the decent homes target to be relaxed.

These have fallen on more favourable ears, so it is surprising that the ODPM has pulled out a clause in its consultation on the issue that offered an extension on the 2010 deadline to councils whose tenants reject all three options (page 9).

It would have been a shrewd move because there will be very few councils whose needs are so great that they couldn't meet the target by, say, 2012, using existing resources and cashflows. And councils such as Camden, in a quandary over where to turn next after "no" votes, would have at least welcomed the breathing space, even though they would still be faced with somehow finding the funds to plug multimillion-pound funding gaps.

It is surprising that the ODPM has pulled out of extending the decent homes deadline for councils that are out of options

But it would have been more of a clever PR move by the ODPM than anything of real value to tenants.

They would have still demanded that their homes were updated quickly, especially when they saw friends in neighbouring boroughs getting the full benefit of ALMOs or RSLs.

And councils would no longer have been able to use the threat of missing the 2010 target to demand more help from the government.

As it is, this confused consultation exercise has dangled a carrot in front of councils only to yank it away again. What is left is half-baked. Although ultimately misguided, the clause on relaxing the standard would at least have made for a balanced set of proposals. If it had stayed in, the door would have firmly closed on the fourth way and Camden could be singled out for special treatment. After Keith Hill's eleventh-hour intervention, ODPM mandarins must be tearing their hair out – councils know how they feel.

Source

Housing Today