19 December 2003
District councils are outperforming top-tier authorities in the drive to meet the government's decent homes target, according to a leading housing inspector.
Roy Irwin, chief inspector of housing at the Audit Commission, told a Commons committee on December 16 that smaller populations, better housing stock and lower levels of deprivation in district and shire authorities meant they were ahead of bigger authorities in their efforts to upgrade housing stock.
The Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee is examining the decent homes target, which aims to bring all social housing up to reasonable levels by 2010.
Clare Miller, director of regulation policy at the Housing Corporation, told MPs that, as of March 2003, there were 350,000 substandard homes in the housing association sector.
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