27 June 2003
Struggling housing departments should be offered a cash incentive to improve their performance, according to the president of the Chartered Institute of Housing.
Andrew Gray, director of housing consultancy RDHS, argued that a major question mark remains over councils whose tenants have rejected stock transfer but are not good enough to become arm's-length management organisations.
'We are not asking for a get-out-of-jail card for poor performers,' Gray told conference delegates on June 17.
'But we are arguing for a specific pot of money to offer an incentive to those local authorities with zero or one stars to improve.'
A similar incentive had recently been offered to hospitals, he pointed out.
'If the government is to meet its decent homes target and all tenants are to experience better services, then what these landlords need is help to improve their performance – not abandonment,' the CIH president said.
Earlier, the institute called for planners to be allowed to specify the type of housing that can be built on different sites as a means of providing a better mix of communities.
Certain areas should be designated 'sites for social diversity' and set aside solely for affordable housing in accordance with local needs, says a joint report by the CIH and The Royal Town Planning Institute.
Planning for housing – the potential for sustainable communities calls for a culture change in the planning profession and suggests that new planning guidance should distinguish between social, intermediate-priced and standard market types of housing.
PFjun2003
