The Decent Homes Standard is a technical standard for public housing introduced[ when? ] by the United Kingdom government. It underpinned the Decent Homes Programme brought in by the Blair ministry (Labour party) which aimed to provide a minimum standard of housing conditions for those housed in the public sector - i.e. in council housing or by housing associations.
In 2000, the government set out a target that it would "ensure that all social housing meets set standards of decency by 2010, by reducing the number of households living in social housing that does not meet these standards by a third between 2001 and 2004, with most of the improvement taking place in the most deprived local authority areas." [1]
Local authorities were required to set out a timetable under which they will assess, modify and, where necessary, replace their housing stock according to the conditions laid out in the standard.
The standard's criteria for housing are as follows:
The standard was updated in 2006 to take account of the Housing Act 2004, included the implementation of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). [4]
The policy also makes it possible for local councils to privatise their housing stock via stock transfer to registered social landlords, housing associations or private companies, and to seek funding under the Private Finance Initiative in order to fund future developments. [5]
Some local authorities calculated that large proportions of their housing stock were in need of upgrade. For example, Norwich City Council calculated in 2006 that 36% still needed refurbishment. [6] Other local authorities, such as the London Borough of Lewisham felt unable to meet the 2010 target and applied for extensions of time to 2012 on the grounds that the works required major regeneration. [7]
The policy led to the demolition of some tower blocks and prefabricated buildings which were deemed beyond repair or too expensive to refurbish. [8] [9]
Many local authorities set up ALMOs to manage their homes in order to access extra funding. However, in 2009 the Government diverted some of this funding to new building, to the dismay of the tenants who had got involved with the new management organisations. [10]
At the start of 2010, the CLG announced that 95% of Council homes would meet the standard by the end of the year. [11] However, provisional figures published in August that year indicated that 10.2% had failed the standard at the original target date of April 2010, [12] and figures for London published in September showed that a quarter of Council homes still fell below the standard. [11] By 2022, this figure had dropped to one in seven homes in the capital. [13]
The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 1992 by Prime Minister John Major, and expanded considerably by the Blair government, PFI is part of the wider programme of privatisation and financialisation, and presented as a means for increasing accountability and efficiency for public spending.
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of poverty, and other criteria for allocation vary within different contexts. Within the OECD, social housing represents an average of 7% of national housing stock (2020), ranging from ~34% in the Netherlands to less than 1% in Colombia.
The Housing Corporation was the non-departmental public body that funded new affordable housing and regulated housing associations in England. It was established by the Housing Act 1964. On 1 December 2008, its functions were transferred to two new organisations, the Homes and Communities Agency and the Tenant Services Authority. The Corporation was formally dissolved on 1 April 2009.
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, non-profit making organisations that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surplus is used to maintain existing housing and to help finance new homes and it cannot be used for personal benefit of directors or shareholders. Although independent, they are regulated by the state and commonly receive public funding. They are now the United Kingdom's major providers of new housing for rent, while many also run shared ownership schemes to help those who cannot afford to buy a home outright.
Housing Benefit is a means-tested social security benefit in the United Kingdom that is intended to help meet housing costs for rented accommodation. It is the second biggest item in the Department for Work and Pensions' budget after the state pension, totalling £23.8 billion in 2013–14.
In the United Kingdom, an arms-length management organisation (ALMO) is a not-for-profit company that provides housing services on behalf of a local authority. Usually an ALMO is set up by the authority to manage and improve all or part of its housing stock. Ownership of the housing stock itself normally stays with the local authority. The work of an ALMO may touch and overlap with that of a tenant management organisation (TMO).
Domestic housing in the United Kingdom presents a possible opportunity for achieving the 20% overall cut in UK greenhouse gas emissions targeted by the Government for 2010. However, the process of achieving that drop is proving problematic given the very wide range of age and condition of the UK housing stock.
Building Schools for the Future (BSF) was the name given to the British government's investment programme in secondary school buildings in England in the 2000s. Around half of the work was procured under the private finance initiative. The delivery of the programme was overseen by Partnerships for Schools (PfS), a non-departmental public body formed through a joint venture between the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), Partnerships UK and private sector partners. The programme was cancelled in 2010.
The Code for Sustainable Homes was an environmental assessment method for rating and certifying the performance of new homes in United Kingdom. First introduced in 2006, it is a national standard for use in the design and construction of new homes with a view to encouraging continuous improvement in sustainable home building. In 2015 the Government in England withdrew it, consolidating some standards into Building Regulations.
Popular Front of India (PFI) is an Islamic political organisation in India, that engages in a radical and exclusivist style of Muslim minority politics. Formed to counter Hindutva groups, it was banned by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) on 28 September 2022 for a period of five years.
Homelessness in the United Kingdom is measured and responded to in differing ways in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but affects people living in every part of the UK's constituent countries. Most homeless people have at least a modicum of shelter but without any security of tenure. Unsheltered people, "rough sleepers", are a small minority of homeless people.
Eco-towns are a government-sponsored programme of new towns to be built in England, which are intended to achieve exemplary standards of sustainability.
Homes England is the non-departmental public body that funds new affordable housing in England. It was founded on 1 January 2018 to replace the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). HCA in turn was established by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 as one of the successor bodies to the Housing Corporation, and became operational on 1 December 2008.
A local information system (LIS) is a form of information system built with business intelligence tools, designed primarily to support geographic reporting. They overlap with some capabilities of geographic information systems (GIS), although their primary function is the reporting of statistical data rather than the analysis of geospatial data. LIS also tend to offer some common knowledge management functionality for storage and retrieval of unstructured data such as documents. They deliver functionality to load, store, analyse and present statistical data that has a strong geographic reference. In most cases the data is structured as indicators and is linked to discrete geographic areas, for example population figures for US counties or numbers claiming unemployment benefit across wards in England. The ability to present this data using data visualization tools like charts and maps is also a core feature of these systems.
Marcus Charles Jones is an English Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nuneaton since 2010. Previously he had been the Leader of Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council. He has been serving as Government Deputy Chief Whip and Treasurer of the Household since October 2022.
Lewisham London Borough Council, also known as Lewisham Council, is the local authority for the London Borough of Lewisham in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in London. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2010. It has been led by a directly elected mayor since 2002. The council meets at Lewisham Town Hall in the Catford area of the borough.
Salix Homes is a housing association, affordable housing provider and former council housing management company in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester. As of April 2023 it owns and manages 7,760 homes.
Stock transfer is a process whereby the ownership of council housing is transferred to a housing association. The term was first used in the United Kingdom. Here 1.3 million dwellings were transferred between 1998 and 2008.
A council house or council flat is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 after the Housing Act 1919 to the 1980s, with much less council housing built since then. There were local design variations, but they all adhered to local authority building standards. The Housing Acts of 1985 and 1988 facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profit housing associations with access to private finance, and these new housing associations became the providers of most new public-sector housing. The characterisation of council houses as 'problem places' was key for leading this movement of transferring public housing stock to the private arena. By 2003, 36.5% of the social rented housing stock was held by housing associations.
Affordable housing is housing that is deemed affordable to those with a median household income as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. A general rule is no more than 30% of gross monthly income should be spent on housing, to be considered affordable as the challenges of promoting affordable housing varies by location.