Local Government Finance (Hansard, 23 October 1989)

§ Mr. Shersby
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has concerning the number of local authorities in England and Wales who are making arrangements for community charge payers to pay the charge by means of monthly payments; what is his policy towards encouraging local authorities to accept monthly payments; and if he will make a statement.

§ Mr. Chope
Every community charge payer has a statutory right to pay the community charge in 10 monthly instalments. There is no need for chargepayers to apply for this facility; and local authorities are statutorily obliged to accept montly instalments of one tenth of the charge. It is open to chargepayers and authorities to agree different arrangements if they wish; but an authority may not specify payments other than by monthly instalments without the agreement of the chargepayer.

§ Mrs. Mahon
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what contribution the Government will make towards additional revenue costs of running the poll tax in 1990–91 in Calderdale.

§ Mr. David Hunt
The costs of collecting the community charge in 1990–91 will be taken into account in charging authorities' spending assessments.

§ Mrs. Mahon
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what contribution the Government will make towards the shortfall on capital allocation incurred by Calderdale council in implementing the poll tax.

§ Mr. David Hunt
We have made allocations of £160 million to charging authorities towards the capital costs associated with implementing the community charge in 1988–89 and 1989–90. Calderdale's allocation was £513,071.

§ Mr. Bevan
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, when he will consult representatives of local government and relevant professional bodies on his determination under part VI of the Local Government and Housing Bill of housing revenue account subsidy for 1990–91; and what proposals he will be making.

§ Mr. Howard
My Department is today sending local housing authorities, the local authority associations and other interested bodies consultation papers on the proposed new housing revenue account subsidy. The papers contain the Secretary of State's detailed proposals for a method of calculating the new subsidy for which the Local Government and Housing Bill makes provision. They also include details of the guideline rents, and of the allowances for expenditure on management and mainte-nance which we propose to take into account in calculating each authority's entitlement to subsidy in 1990–91. Comments are invited within six weeks. I am putting a copy of the consultation papers in the Library together with a list of the guidelines proposed for each authority.
For the rent guideline we propose to follow the practice of the past two years and assume next year an average rent increase in England of 5 per cent. above the allowance for inflation. But this year we propose to use the provisions in part VI of the Bill to allow the aggregate notional rental income for England to be apportioned between housing authorities by reference to variations in the aggregate 301W values of houses and other property. This leads to different guideline rents for different authorities. A set of rules to limit changes ensures that no guideline rent would represent an increase of more than £4.50 a week over the average rent in any authority this year, and permits at the lower end of the scale guidelines which assume modest reductions in real rents of up to 9 pence per week. This should begin the process of encouraging authorities towards sensible levels of rents in different parts of the country, while ensuring that rents can remain within the reach of people in low paid employment.
For the management and maintenance expenditure guideline we propose to assume an increase for each housing authority of 3 per cent. above the allowance for inflation next year. This should enable the level of expenditure on council housing maintenance to continue to grow.
The "guidelines" both for rent and for management and maintenance spending are no more than the assumptions the Government will make in calculating subsidy. Each council will have to decide for itself what level of rent it wants to set, and how much it wants to spend on managing or maintaining its stock.