Housing

  • Public Finance
    8 May 03
    Smaller housing associations are being squeezed out of new development programmes as the Housing Corporation diverts money towards larger landlords. During the coming year, 28,500 new homes will be...
  • Public Finance
    1 May 03
    Social landlords should compete for the right to manage houses transferred from local authorities, a leading lender said this week. Competition might raise the quality of post-transfer management...
  • Public Finance
    1 May 03
    Registered social landlords are generating increasing funds from activities other than social housing. New figures show that income from non-core activities rose by 22% in 2001/02 from £662m to £...
  • Public Finance
    1 May 03
    The government has failed to think through the impact of its plans to build hundreds of thousands of extra homes in the Southeast, according to the Commons committee scrutinising Deputy Prime...
  • Public Finance
    24 Apr 03
    Ministers are poised to create the first urban development corporation in ten years in an attempt to help house-building east of London. Proposals for a UDC in Thurrock, Essex, were published by...
  • Public Finance
    24 Apr 03
    Local authority housing departments will no longer undergo an annual performance assessment under a new funding regime coming into force next year. Although regional government offices must be told...
  • Public Finance
    24 Apr 03
    Work will begin in the autumn on a groundbreaking public-private partnership that will revolutionise health services in Greater Manchester, it has been announced. The £100m Manchester, Salford and...
  • Public Finance
    24 Apr 03
    A three-year government review of rent restructuring has been criticised by the Chartered Institute of Housing for avoiding major questions. The review, launched by the Office of the Deputy Prime...
  • Public Finance
    17 Apr 03
    Action must be taken to tackle staff shortages in mental health services, two leading think-tanks said this week. In separate publications, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (SCMH) and the...
  • Public Finance
    17 Apr 03
    The London Borough of Ealing has had its Comprehensive Performance Assessment upgraded from 'weak' to 'fair' after the Audit Commission was forced to admit the authority had been wrongly evaluated.
  • Public Finance
    17 Apr 03
    Fifteen more councils have told the government they want to create arm's-length management organisations to oversee their housing. Demand for places on the third round of the Almo programme, which...
  • Public Finance
    17 Apr 03
    MPs this week launched a scathing attack on the government's complex community regeneration initiatives, claiming that Whitehall has too much control over the budgets for local schemes. The Commons...
  • Public Finance
    10 Apr 03
    The Home Office has rejected the key recommendation from an inspection of asylum seeker detention centres that children should not be held for longer than seven days. Chief inspector of prisons...
  • Public Finance
    10 Apr 03
    Gordon Brown opened a new front in the government's ongoing battles with trade unions this week when he used his Budget statement to indicate a move towards regional pay settlements.
  • Public Finance
    10 Apr 03
    Government ministers have agreed to alter the Bill paving the way for regional assemblies to ensure referendum ballots have a separate question on the issue of local government reorganisation....
  • Public Finance
    10 Apr 03
    Moves to encourage home ownership should not make the same mistakes as the right to buy scheme by reducing properties available for rent, the chair of the Housing Corporation warned this week....
  • Public Finance
    10 Apr 03
    Weaknesses in the Department for Work and Pensions' computer system hamper efforts to increase the take-up of benefits among elderly people, the Public Accounts Committee has said. Between £930m...
  • Public Finance
    10 Apr 03
    Lethargic planning departments will not be allowed to stand in the way of new housing in Southeast England, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has warned councils. He said: 'We can't be in a...
  • Public Finance
    3 Apr 03
    Social landlords must overcome their poor public image and develop a new profile as independent social businesses, the chair of the National Housing Federation has told housing association managers...
  • Public Finance
    3 Apr 03
    Private lenders are being offered fewer opportunities to fund new social housing because of uncertainty over stock transfers. With many councils keen to set up arm's-length management organisations...
  • Public Finance
    3 Apr 03
    Council tenants wishing to buy their homes under the right to buy scheme will need to have lived in the house for five years instead of two in future, the government announced this week. The...
  • Public Finance
    27 Mar 03
    New companies set up by high-performing councils to manage their housing are enjoying a cash windfall from the government. Twelve months after the first eight arm's-length management organisations...
  • Public Finance
    27 Mar 03
    Plans to bring US-style regeneration to Britain's city centres could be undermined by a row over funding. From April 2004, Business Improvement Districts (Bids), credited with turning around the...
  • Public Finance
    27 Mar 03
    New programmes for helping people who live in sheltered housing could be threatened by contractual rows between councils and landlords. The National Housing Federation, which represents housing...
  • Public Finance
    27 Mar 03
    Manchester has become the first local authority to sign a contract to improve council housing directly through the Private Finance initiative. The contract was signed on March 25 three and a half...

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