Recommendation 42

The National Housing Federation (NHF) told us that the government’s approach to funding remediation for non–ACM cladding allocated public funding in a way that prioritised tenure over risk. It said that the arrangements meant that, in reality, 90% of public funding for remediating non–ACM type cladding had gone to private building owners and only 10% to social landlords.71 When the previous Committee last looked at this issue, MHCLG had announced (in May 2018) that it would make £400 million available to social providers to fund the removal of Grenfell-style Aluminium Composite Material cladding from buildings over 18 metres.72 MHCLG told us that a little under £570 million had gone into social housing through the different government schemes. In November 2024, the NAO reported that MHCLG expected social providers to fund an estimated £3.8 billion of remediation costs for their buildings and that it had set a high threshold for 69 Q 82; Letter from Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to Committee of Public Accounts, 18 February 2025 70 Qq 75, 78-79; C&AG’s Report, paras 3.10; Letter from Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to Committee of Public Accounts, 18 February 2025 71 Q 21 72 Committee of Public Accounts, Progress in remediating dangerous cladding, Sixteenth Report of Session 2019-21, HC 406, 16 September 2020 25 access to government funding. The NHF told us that equal access to funding with the private sector would be a real factor in unlocking pace for the social housing sector.73