Campaigners urge “fourth way” in council house funding
MPs, trade union bosses and councillors are meeting today in London to discuss how best to push the Government to move to a “fourth way” in council house funding.
At the Defend Council Housing conference in London, MPs Austin Mitchell and Ken Purchase, alongside trades unions leaders such as the GMB’s Kevin Curran, will call for local councils to be allowed to repair houses on a “level playing field” with housing associations.
Under current Government policy, extra money for repairs to council housing is only available if councils hand houses over to a housing association or arm’s length management organisation, or allow them to be run under a private finance initiative.
The so-called “fourth option” was backed by delegates at this autumn’s Labour Party conference, despite the leadership’s instance that the policy would cost £5 billion. Speaking at the conference, the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott told delegates that the resolution – which demanded that when tenants chose to remain under local authority management they were not “financially disadvantaged” and all councils should have access to the funds available for stock market transfer – was “nonsense”.
The Government insists that there is no such thing as the “fourth option” and stress their belief that the options on the table are sufficient.
However, there have been a number of high profile rejections of their policy. In January, Camden Council balloted its council tenants on a proposal to transfer stock management to an arm’s length body (ALMO).
This was overwhelmingly rejected by tenants – 77 per cent to 23 per cent – on a turnout of around 30 per cent. Without tenants’ agreement, councils cannot transfer housing stock.
Defend Council Housing claims that this is unfair, and argue that “decent affordable housing is an essential component of a comprehensive welfare state.” They claim that stock transfers and the use of PFI “reduces accountability, leads to increased rents, more public money being siphoned off into consultant and management fees, telephone number salaries and profits for the, so called, ‘partners’ and is ‘Bad Value’.”
Campaigners are also seeking to gain support in the Commons. A recent Early Day Motion on the issue, tabled by Mr Mitchell, attracted 120 signatures. It stated that: “The present ideological obsession with pressuring councils to get rid of the housing stock they have built up over the years to serve the needs of local people is doctrinaire, inefficient, and more expensive than council control, because council housing can pay for itself but privatisation requires subsidy through council, housing revenue account and general funds, as well as huge debt write-offs, gap funding, private finance credits and substantial fees for consultants, lawyers, surveyors and adviser” – without increasing tenant satisfaction.
