Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Twenty-Ninth Report - The Affordable Homes Programme since 2015
Public Accounts Committee
HC 684
Published 7 December 2022
Recommendations
8
Accepted in Part
The Department specifies the overall number of homes (not just affordable homes) that local authorities...
Recommendation
The Department specifies the overall number of homes (not just affordable homes) that local authorities should build each year, through a calculation known as the ‘standard method’. Local authorities must follow this unless they have exceptional circumstances, and face penalties …
Read more
Government Response Summary
The government will consider additional ways to work with Local Authorities to match delivery with local need, while highlighting existing mechanisms in place.
HM Treasury
View Details →
9
Accepted in Part
We challenged the Department about whether housing providers build homes where they are needed most.
Recommendation
We challenged the Department about whether housing providers build homes where they are needed most. The Department does not allocate funding from the Programme based on its calculation of local housing need.20 Under strategic bidding, housing providers only state the …
Read more
Government Response Summary
The government agrees to consider additional ways to work with Local Authorities to match housing delivery with local need, including exploring giving greater control over the 2021 programme to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the West Midlands Combined Authority, and seeking to improve benefit cost ratio assessments for successor programmes.
HM Treasury
View Details →
19
Accepted in Part
The Department told us that it could have set higher standards from the outset for...
Recommendation
The Department told us that it could have set higher standards from the outset for net- zero, but that doing so would likely reduce the number of homes delivered. We challenged the Department on this assertion, because it had not …
Read more
Government Response Summary
The government will explore the cost and deliverability of additional net zero requirements for a successor programme, while noting existing steps taken in the 2021 programme.
HM Treasury
View Details →