Decent Homes For All PDF Download

Under the Decent Homes Programme, over a million homes have been improved since 2001. The living standards of vulnerable households will have been greatly improved by the installation of, for example, 810,000 new kitchens, 610,000 new bathrooms and 1,140,000 new central heating systems. There have also been wider benefits such as more tenant involvement in housing decisions and jobs created in deprived areas. The report welcomes the improvements made and the substantial progress towards the original target of all social housing being of a decent standard by December 2010. However, despite this progress, the target will not be met: 305,000 homes will still be non-decent at that date and the last of these will not be decent until 2018-19. The DCLG needs to do more to ensure that landlords can complete this outstanding work and that properties are not allowed to fall back into disrepair. It also needs to improve its financial control over this Programme. It is still not clear how much the Department itself has actually spent on the Programme, nor whether DCLG has obtained best value from the funds given to Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs). The Programme will have cost local authorities and Registered Social Landlords approximately £37 billion by 2010-11. The Department lacks some basic management information on the Programme, and needs to address these deficiencies in order to evaluate the impact properly.