You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Councils meet with DCLG over bespoke deals
Three councils met with Department for Communities and Local Government officials to discuss bespoke deals over rent and borrowing last Thursday.
Sheffield City Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and arm’s-length management organisation (ALMO) Newark and Sherwood Homes met with government representatives to put forward the case for tailored deals to raise the borrowing caps and change rent rules for cash-strapped councils, which they claim will help ease the housing crisis.
It is understood the councils set out calls for additional borrowing and revenue raising powers - including debt cap flexibility, a fresh deal on rent setting and receipts from Right to Buy sales.
With help from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), the National Federation of ALMOs (NFA), and the Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH) – all of which attended the meeting – the authorities presented the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) with proposed business plans outlining the impacts of changes.
“We’re more positive about this than we have been for quite a number of years,” said Eamon McGoldrick, managing director of the NFA.
Discussions between the groups are ongoing and further meetings have been scheduled.
In a joint statement, the organisations said: “The government said in its Housing White Paper it would consider making deals with individual councils so that they can once again play an important role in housing delivery. It’s excellent to see government follow up on that promise by getting local authorities and industry bodies around the table to work out a way forward.”
A DCLG spokesperson said: “We’ll work closely with housing associations and local authorities to agree a social rent policy for beyond 2020, giving them the confidence to plan ahead.”
