It’s official: housing is to receive £20bn over the next three financial years (pages 7-9) – £2.5bn more than the 2002 allocation. And housing providers that can show the right combination of efficiency and sound management will be able to get at even more money for building homes by spending what they save.

Civil servants in Whitehall might not be so impressed by his moves, however. They knew taxes weren’t going to rise to power the New Labour public services spending machine, so something else had to give.

That something was the sale of government offices in central London – expected to raise about £30bn.

Housing Corporation chief Jon Rouse also has to move some staff from the capital to the regions, but the blow will doubtless be softened by the extra £430m coming his way to build more social housing (page 7).

Meanwhile, the deputy prime minister will be pulling out all the stops to ensure the extra 10,000 homes a year promised by the review are built. The £1.5bn housing providers are expected to save through efficiency will help, as much of this will be available to spend on new social housing on top of the £20bn.

Including intermediate and key-worker housing, the total number of homes built between April 2005 and April 2008 will be 115,000, according to the ODPM.

Given that the Housing Corporation already plans to build 67,000 homes over the next two years, it’s pretty safe to assume that the target of boosting provision from its present parlous state (just 13,600 in 2003/4) will be met.

Of more concern in the spending review, however, is the lack of any mention of the £1.8bn Supporting People care services funding regime. Various government reviews are circling, but service providers need to know how much they are going to bite.

Those that show the right combination of efficiency and sound management will be able to get at even more cash

The funding boost for new-build council housing through PFI should give housing minister Keith Hill some ammunition against the “fourth way” lobby (page22). Regardless of the politics surrounding the issue, it’s good news that the private sector will be tempted to have another go at PFI.

However, many councils are on the edge of their seats – a few reaching their wits’ end – to find out how much they are going to receive, and be able to bid for, through the arm’s-length management programme.

Likewise for stock transfer: the dowry for negative-value transfers is a step in the right direction but, to help more than a handful of authorities, it needs to be at least £500m (page 8).

Investing more in such gap funding will save money from other areas of the government’s agenda, such as the extended £1.5bn neighbourhood renewal fund.

Associations such as Poplar Harca in east London have pledged to pay back some, possibly all, of any gap funding they receive – an offer definitely worth considering when the ODPM publishes its five-year plan in the autumn.