Labour Party Conference news September 2529 Miliband firm on no fourth option

29 Sep 05
There will be no 'fourth option' for funding improvements to housing stock and councils must use private money to achieve the decent homes standard, David Miliband was due to warn delegates in Brighton on September 29.

30 September 2005

There will be no 'fourth option' for funding improvements to housing stock and councils must use private money to achieve the decent homes standard, David Miliband was due to warn delegates in Brighton on September 29.

As Public Finance went to press, the local government and communities minister was preparing to deliver an uncompromising message on the controversial issue.


A composite motion calling on the government to rethink its stance on housing finance was due to be put to a knife-edge vote during the local government session, taking place on the final day of the Brighton conference.


But an insider told PF in advance of Miliband's speech that there was no prospect of the government giving in to campaigners' demands.


The source said the minister would tell delegates that the government's multi-billion pound housing programme could not alone fund the building of much-needed social housing and the work to meet the 2010 decent homes standard.


Demands for a fourth option in housing finance, which would allow authorities to fund improvements to their housing stock while retaining ownership, have grown as a significant number of councils still have no strategy for meeting the target.


High-profile cases such as the London Borough of Camden, where all the options have either been vetoed by ministers or rejected by residents, have bolstered calls for direct investment from local government leaders and campaigners.


There is also anger that a vote, by four to one, at last year's conference calling on the government to provide a public investment option has been ignored. But Miliband would not be swayed by another vote in favour of a fourth option in Brighton.


The source added: 'We need private money if the decent homes target is going to be met.'


Less controversially, the minister was also due to use his conference speech to 'set up his narrative for local government'.


Miliband would spell out his support for devolution of power, but make clear that he also wants to see devolution of power from town hall to street level.


At a New Local Government Network fringe event on September 25, Miliband argued that councils' accountability would improve.


'If there's a deal on devolution from national to local level there has to be a deal from local to the street.


'It's the weakness of the bottom-up pressure [on councils] that has led to the tangle of inspections and audit,' he said.


Tackle antisocial behaviour or explain why not


Police forces and local authorities that do not use the powers they have been given to tackle antisocial behaviour will be forced to explain themselves to residents, Hazel Blears has told Public Finance.


The Home Office minister said her department was working with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to draw up 'trigger mechanisms', which would allow communities blighted by crime and vandalism to ensure that local agencies were using the powers available to them to maximum effect.


Local agencies now had a suite of powers they could use to tackle problem behaviour, Blears said, but they were not always being applied. These included antisocial behaviour orders and individual support orders.


'There are areas where, for whatever reason, people are not enthusiastic about using these powers, which can make a real difference to communities and people's lives,' Blears told PF.


'We're working with the ODPM on this and considering the details of how it might work at the moment.'


Once invoked, the trigger mechanism would mean that police forces and councils either had to use the powers, or be forced to explain face to face to residents why they were not using them.


Blears spoke to PF after a question and answer session on the government's 'respect' agenda, during which she sought to allay fears that in reality this merely punished the socially excluded without addressing the underlying causes of their behaviour.


Blears pledged that support, such as training opportunities and drug rehabilitation programmes, would be made available to help people conquer their problems.


Strachan calls for better data on improvements


The data used to measure the performance of public services needs to be more robust if the public is going to trust claims that they are improving, the chair of the Audit Commission has warned.


James Strachan told a fringe session on the use of targets, organised by the Social Market Foundation, that the data used to measure performance was often not of sufficient quality.


He said: 'At a time when trust between government and public is, shall we say, something people are talking about, it's important that people have trust in the data that the government is claiming as evidence of improvements in services.'


He also called for a broader set of data to be used by regulators and inspectors when reaching conclusions. Strachan said he would like opinion polls measuring public satisfaction to be conducted in the run-up to Comprehensive Performance Assessments and fed into the final rankings.


He conceded that such a move would not be popular among public bodies. 'Councils are a bit iffy about it,' he said.

PFsep2005

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