§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what his target was for the proportion of houses brought up to the Decent Homes Standard by 1 April; and what proportion was achieved by that date, broken down by housing sector. [173670]
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§ Keith HillThe milestone for 1 April was
to achieve a reduction of one third in the number of non-decent social sector homes over the 2001 baseline.It will be met if the estimates reported by local authorities through their Business Plan Statistical returns and the regulatory returns from housing associations submitted in July 2004 (stating the number of non-decent homes as at 1 April 2004), show that in aggregate the number of non-decent dwellings has reduced by at least one third reduction since 2001; and the 2004–05 continuous EHCS (reporting in October 2005) confirms there are 1.1 million or fewer non-decent social sector dwellings.The target was for both sectors combined not each sector separately. Our estimate, based on local authority and registered social landlord (RSL) out-turn data up to the end March 2003 and their plans to March 2004, shows a 26 per cent. reduction across both sectors. Local authorities show a 32 per cent. reduction taking into account the stock they transferred. There was a 6 per cent. reduction in the RSL sector, which takes into account all the non-decent stock they receive through stock transferred from local authorities.