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Government drops plans to force councils to sell higher-value stock
The government has finally officially abandoned David Cameron’s flagship plan to force councils to sell off their most valuable homes.
As it prepares to publish the long-awaited Social Housing Green Paper this morning, the government has confirmed it will not go ahead with the ‘higher-value asset levy’ first announced in 2015.
The policy would have required councils to make an annual payment to government, to be recouped through the sale of higher-value homes as they become vacant.
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The intention was to use the funds to meet the £4bn cost of extending Right to Buy discounts to housing association tenants.
It is not clear how the government intends to fund this policy, or indeed if it intends to go ahead with it, now that the policy has been dropped.
In a statement ahead of the publication of the green paper, the government said: “The paper outlines plans to build on the new borrowing capacity granted to local authorities by exploring new flexibilities on how they spend the money from homes sold under the Right to Buy scheme, and not requiring them to sell off vacant, higher-value stock.”
Inside Housing revealed last October that the government was close to scrapping the higher-value asset levy.
The policy was deeply unpopular with councils, which warned it would rob them of their best homes and prevent them building new ones.
The government had previously announced the policy would not come into force in 2018/19 – but had not formally scrapped it.
KEY PROPOSALS IN THE SOCIAL HOUSING GREEN PAPER
- New 'league tables' of housing providers based on key performance indicators, surrounding services such as repairs and neighbourhood management. This could be linked to housing grant.
- Consideration to scrapping of the current 'serious detriment' test, to allow 'Ofsted-style' tougher consumer regulation
- New home ownership options such as allowing tenants to buy as little as 1% of their property each year through shared ownership. This would only apply to new shared ownership purchases.
- Ditching of plans to force social landlords to offer fixed term tenancies rather than lifetime tenancies in social housing
- Ditching of plans to force councils to sell off their most valuable social housing when it becomes vacant
- The potential introduction a new stock transfer programme from councils to 'community-led' housing associations
- The return of guaranteed debt funding to help the development of affordable homes, and longer term 'strategic partnerships' for developing housing associations
