The decent homes target is unlikely to be met unless more money is committed to it, according to the ODPM select committee report on decent homes.
The report, published last Friday, said ministers should put pressure on the Treasury to ensure sufficient funding was available to meet the 2010 target.

The committee of MPs was concerned at what it called "discrepancies in the ODPM data" that made it "virtually impossible to assess whether the currently projected funding provisions are likely to be adequate".

The report said: "The committee is concerned that sufficient funding may not be being planned for, especially given the ODPM's own admission that the cost of bringing each home up to the standard is likely to increase in real terms over time as landlords come to deal with more difficult stock."

The report said the target was unlikely to be met in major cities, such as Birmingham.

And it appeared to lend weight to calls for a fourth option for council housing beyond transfer, the private finance initiative and arm's-length management.

It said that when tenants voted to reject large-scale stock transfer in 2002, "Birmingham was effectively left with no available route to achieving the decent homes standard by the target date of 2010; two years down the line, a complete solution still remains to be found".

A spokesman for Birmingham council said: "As things stand, we have a gap of £165m to meet the decent homes standard by 2010. We are exploring all the options for closing this gap, but we won't force tenants into any options they don't support."

Source

Housing Today