Allowing authorities to put the management of their housing into new arms-length will enable them to attract private investment but retain ownership - ensuring councillors "no longer feel they are under the cosh," Raynsford told Housing Today.
Insisting that the new innovation "is not a soft option", Raynsford suggested that councils would have to show an improvement in performance standards. However, it has not yet been decided whether arms-length management would be regulated by the Audit Commission's Best Value housing inspectorate or by the Housing Corporation.
The proposal to introduce a single social tenancy for both sectors is being seen as a key method of softening the political impact of transfer - tenants currently fear a loss of security if they switch tenancies following transfer. The Right to Buy, however, will not be extended to existing housing association tenants.
Meanwhile, the mechanism for transferring council stock to new landlords will be amended to avoid simply switching ownership between inefficient monopolies.
Large inner-city authorities, such as Birmingham, may be expected to break up their transfers into smaller chunks. Such a move would run the risk of alienating private lenders, who prefer to see the economies of scale and more solid business plans of larger organisations.
Bringing the private finance initiative into housing revenue account stock, which pathfinder authorities fear has been sidelined by the government in the rush to transfer, will continue as a further option.
Commenting on the overall investment package, Raynsford said it would encourage a more competitive culture between housing providers. "This is all designed to ensure that within a decade we have dealt with the large backlog of poor condition housing and bring social housing up to a desirable standard."
Chartered Institute of Housing policy director John Perry was delighted with the package of options which he said offered a realistic chance of tackling the repairs backlog.
He suggested a compromise could be found for transfers such as Birmingham's. "I think it's going to be better to break some of the larger transfer bids up into two or three rather than eight or nine or 10."
Source
Housing Today
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