LGA Calls On Government To Rethink Pay To Stay Policy

The Local Government Association is urging ministers to rethink the Pay to Stay policy. It comes as new analysis reveals that more than 70,000 social housing tenants could face rent rises averaging £1,000 a year under the policy. The LGA is warning the policy would create a bureaucracy causing stress to families, further costs to councils, and financial returns to the Government far lower than it originally forecast. It is also warning administrative complexities now make implementation from April 2017 impossible. Councils need to invest millions in new IT systems, hire new staff and write to more than a million social housing tenants to try and understand household income and approve individual tenant bills by January.  Read more on the LGA website.

Council Urges Ministers To Use HMRC For Pay To Stay

Southwark Council has written to ask the Government to use its own tax office to pick up the bureaucracy that Pay to Stay will generate. The policy appears to ask local authorities to stump up the administration of means testing council tenants. Those earning over £40,000 in London will be required to pay more council rent. But a £40,000 household income in London is the equivalent of a couple earning the minimum wage and working full time and the council values working households as they help create vibrant and sustainable communities. The immense extra administration that authorities could be required to undertake would be costly, time consuming and in direct contradiction to the Government’s own guidance in the New Burdens Doctrine. Read more on the Southwark Council website.

Town Halls Struggle with 'Bureaucratic' Homelessness Scheme

Fewer than 2% of councils have completed a ‘bureaucratic’ £2.3m flagship programme aimed at improving homelessness services, nearly two years after it was launched. The gold standard scheme is one of the government’s principle programmes designed to stop town hall practices such as placing homeless families into bed and breakfasts. Under the programme, councils are awarded ‘bronze’, ‘silver’ or ‘gold’ status, based on completing 10 ‘challenges’, such as not placing families in B&Bs for more than six weeks and preventing mortgage repossessions. However, figures supplied by Winchester Council, which is running the scheme on behalf of the CLG, reveal that no councils have reached ‘gold’ or ‘silver’ status and just five authorities out of 326 (1.5%) have been awarded ‘bronze’. Read more on Inside Housing.

Greenhalgh and Randall to Lead Red Tape Cull

A highly controversial council chief and a leading solicitor have been appointed to spearhead a government initiative to combat bureaucracy in housing. Stephen Greenhalgh and Simon Randall have been named as ‘sector champions’ for the housing and construction theme of the government’s red tape challenge, which was announced in January. Mr Greenhalgh is currently chief executive of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, although he is due to stand down later this year. His radical approach to social housing reform has been widely criticised by left-wing opponents. Mr Randall is a solicitor specialising in housing who has worked with a number of housing associations including Broomleigh, where he is chair. Read more on Inside Housing.