HC Deb 20 July 2004 vol 424 cc204-5W
Dr. Iddon

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what evidence his Department has collated to support its conclusions that(a) it is more cost effective to improve a house when the improvements are conducted by a housing association or an arm's length management organisation rather than by a local housing authority and (b) the transfer of local authority housing stock into alternative management and/or ownership results in higher levels of tenant satisfaction. [184121]

Keith Hill

The information is as follows.

(a) The Public Accounts Committee's 40th report: Improving Social Housing through Transfer published in July 2003 contains supplementary evidence provided by the office on the value for money of stock transfer. This assessment carried out in April 2003 used guidance in the 2003 Treasury Green Book "Appraisal and Evaluation in Central Government" which took effect on 1 April 2003. As stated in our response to ODPM: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee's Report on Decent Homes, evidence is also available on inspection ratings of ALMOs following their first six months of operation compared with their previous inspections as local authority managed housing departments.

Together with the Housing Corporation, we are currently considering the most appropriate approach for future monitoring and evaluating the transfer programme, and parallel work is underway for the ALMO programme. Each monitoring/evaluation system will be tailored to the particular circumstances of each programme, but will also collect consistent data so that it is possible, in the longer term, to provide a comparative assessment of decent homes delivery, value for money, and tenant satisfaction across the different programmes.

(b) Housemark's January 2004 report showed 79 per cent. of transfer tenants were satisfied with their landlord compared to 74 per cent. for council tenants.

As the ALMO programme did not start until 2002, there are no reliable data available to demonstrate whether levels of participation and satisfaction are improving.