Review of Council Housing Finance

The Government is currently undertaking a Review of Council Housing Finance  which is being jointly led by the Communities and Local Government Department (CLG) and HM Treasury. 

The purpose of the review is to ensure that there is a sustainable long, term system for financing council housing and that this system is consistent with wider housing policy including the establishment of a regulator for social housing.  The Review will also consider rent policy.

The review is in its early stages and the Government is keen to hear tenants' views so that these views are fed into discussions to find a solution that works for everyone and is fair to both tenants and taxpayers.

Background information
Background information on the review can be found on the CLG website.

The CLG and HM Treasury have produced the following information:

• a leaflet summarising what the review is looking at and why it is happening 
• a presentation which introduces the review and summarises progress so far
• the Terms of Reference for the review

A set of documents outlining the four main work areas of the Review have been produced by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIOH). They can be downloaded in pdf format and cover the following issues:

• Costs and standards (75 kb) 
• Rents and Service Charges (53 kb) 
• The mechanism for delivering funding to local authority housing (54 kb)
• The rules of the Housing Revenue Account (52 kb)

Making your views known
Tenants who wish to make their views on the Review of Council Housing known directly to CLG should complete the Tenant Feedback Questionnaire which you can either download and return to the address on the form or you can complete it online. The original closing date for questionnaire responses was 30th September 2008 but this has now been extended to 31st October 2008.

In addition we are arranging a special joint meeting for resident representatives who are members of the Borough Residents' Forum and the four Area Housing Panels to discuss the Review in more detail and hear what tenants and leaseholders think about the issues involved.  Representatives will be contacted in writing advising them of the date, time and venue for this meeting.  Responses from discussion groups need to be with CLG by 31st October 2008.