Disposal of public land for new homes inquiry
Closed
What the inquiry looked at
“Report: Disposal of public land for new homes Report: Disposal of public land for new homes (PDF 191 KB) Follow the inquiry on #publiclandforhomes and #housebuilding The Plan for Growth in the March 2011 Budget set out the Government’s intentions to dispose of surplus government land. The then Housing Minister, Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP announced the first land disposals programme in June 2011 which planned to "release enough public land to build as many as 100,000 new, much-needed, homes and support as many as 25,000 jobs by 2015". In the 2014 Autumn Statement, the Government announced an "increased ambition for public sector land and commits to releasing enough land for up to 150,000 homes between 2015 and 2020". By 2020 the Government expects at least a further £5 billion of receipts from surplus land. No monitoring of sold sites The National Audit Office’s investigation into progress towards these targets raised concerns regarding evidence behind the targets and also that departments do not routinely monitor what happens to a site after disposal so there is no information on how many homes have been built on sold land. This inquiry looks at how the Department intends to measure progress through sales proceeds or number of potential homes; and to clarify who will take responsibility for monitoring what happens to land after disposal within the target period.”
The committee's words, from the inquiry page on parliament.uk ↗.
What it found
The Department for Communities and Local Government cannot demonstrate the success of the land disposal programme in addressing the housing shortage or achieving value for money because it does not collect information on the actual number of houses built or under construction, the proceeds from land sold, or whether the parcels of land were sold at market value. Instead, it chose to focus only on a notional number for ‘potential’ capacity for building houses on the land sold by individual departments in order to determine ‘success’. The Department also counted towards the programme’s target the capacity of land sold before the programme had even started. It did not collect basic information necessary to oversee the programme effectively and, where it did collect programme-level data, there were omissions and inconsistencies. With much greater ambitions for land disposals in the new Parliament, the Department must address the weaknesses in the current programme, and the Department has accepted that it needs to improve its general monitoring. If it is to oversee the new programme effectively then this must specifically include tracking sale proceeds and progress with the actual construction of new homes, and overseeing the programme in a way that gives Parliament and the taxpayer much greater assurance over the value for money achieved from all disposals.
What the government said
No government response is linked to this report.
How the inquiry ran
Each dot is a dated item listed on this page, from the inquiry's opening on 29 June 2015 to its close on 12 May 2016.
- Oral evidence 15 Jul 2015
- Report 24 Sep 2015
What it recommended
The committee's recommendations are not listed here yet. Read them in 2nd Report - Disposal of public land for new homes ↗ on parliament.uk.
Evidence
Oral evidence sessions 1
- 15 Jul 2015No witnesses recordedparliament.uk ↗