§ Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what has been the response to the tenant's exchange scheme; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. StanleyThe tenant'ss exchange scheme was introduced in England and Wales on 1 April 1982 and extended to Northern Ireland on 1 October 1982. It seeks to help the tenants of councils, new towns, housing associations and other public sector housing authorities who want to move by exchanging homes with other public sector tenants. Each local authority is sent monthly for public display a computerised list of tenants elsewhere in the country who have registered with the scheme and want342W to exchange with tenants living in its own area. As at the end of 1982 nearly 49,000 public sector tenants had registered with the scheme.
This figure excludes 1,796 registrations that were confirmed by the computer bureau on 9, 10, 13 and 14 July last year, but which the bureau subsequently inadvertently deleted from the computer records, and which have never appeared on lists sent to local authorities. By the time this was discovered, the relevant registration forms had been destroyed, and it has not therefore been possible to reprocess them, or to contact the tenants concerned directly to ask them to re-register.
The private computer bureau, which operates the scheme under contract to the Government, has accepted full responsibility for the loss of these registrations. Steps have been taken to prevent this happening again, and to publicise at the point where each local authority's tenants exchange scheme list is on display the dates of registrations that have been lost with advice to tenants who may be affected how they can check to see whether they need re-register. Although the 1,796 tenants concerned have not had their details displayed in the areas to which they want to move, they have of course been able to examine their own council's lists for possible exchange partners from those areas.
Notwithstanding this unfortunate mishap, the introduction of the tenant's exchange scheme has been widely welcomed and should prove to be a material aid to assisting mobility in the public sector. I shall be considering with the local authority associations later this year whether the scheme could be further improved.
§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many (a) local authority, (b) new town and (c) housing association tenants have registered under the tenant's exchange scheme since its inception on 1 April 1982; and what is his estimate of the number of mutual exchanges so far arranged through the scheme.
§ Sir George YoungAt the end of 1982 nearly 49,000 public sector tenants in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, including those of the Development Board for Rural Wales and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, had registered with the tenant's exchange scheme. Registrants are not asked to indicate the status of their landlord. No information is available on which to estimate the number of tenants who have affected exchanges as a direct result of using the scheme.