Recommendation 6

The Department does not publish satisfactory data on the type, tenure, size, quality, or location of homes built under the Programme. The Department does not, for example, publish data on the number of homes built, where they are built, what size they are or whether they are for ownership or rent. Furthermore, the Department does not routinely publish data on the Programme’s progress. The public, parliament and stakeholders understanding of the programme and its performance is hindered by the lack of meaningful data available in the public domain. The Department agreed to the notion of annual reporting and acknowledged that updating forecasts is useful and sensible. The Department could learn from High- Speed 2 where we called in 2020 for more transparency and open reporting from the Department of Transport, since when the Department for Transport has been providing six-monthly updates to Parliament which have been useful to all parties. Recommendation: The Department should report annually to Parliament on the performance of the Programme with detail on types, tenure, size, and quality of homes built by local authority area. The Affordable Homes Programme since 2015 7 1 Building new homes