"I don't want people to think that they can stay in the old-fashioned way of the Town Hall deciding who is allocated housing and the tenants being expected to be grateful for being given what's offered to them," he said.
He added: "That is not a healthy framework and it's one that has to change." Raynsford claimed that offering homes on a no choice basis was "Stalinist".
He also said there were "strong arguments" for forcing more tenants to pay something towards their rent so that they would have more "informed choices" about where they live.
His comments suggest that plans for a new allocations system will form a key part in the forthcoming Housing Green Paper. The Social Exclusion Unit's policy action team on unpopular housing is also expected to call for a more open allocations system as part of a makeover for social housing (Housing Today, issue 131).
Raynsford claimed the existing system "depends too much on the allocation of homes to people who have no say in the process and end up essentially as supplicants being utterly dependent on the decision taken by the local authority or registered social landlord."
The minister said that more choice should be available even in areas of housing shortage.
The date for publication of the paper appears to have been delayed. Earlier this year the government said it would be out this autumn, but in the briefing Raynsford said he could not give a date for publication.
On other issues he said he would push "very hard" for mixed tenure communities through the planning process and he appeared to suggest that leasehold reform would be in the next Queen's speech, but that plans to license HMOs would not.
Source
Housing Today
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