§ Mr. David ShawTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of whether authorities which will be restructured following the local government review will have sufficient time to implement the compulsory competitive tendering of housing management.
§ Sir George YoungI am keen that local authorities in the shires should press ahead with their preparations for housing management CCT without delay. Where they can, authorities should let contracts before reorganisation. Where they cannot, their preparatory work will not be wasted but will stand restructured authorities and their tenants in good stead.
513WHowever, as I said in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on 15 December 1993, Official Report, columns 733–34, I recognise that restructured authorities will need some extra time to complete the competition process. In my answer, I confirmed the arrangement whereby such authorities will benefit from an exemption of 18 months following reorganisation to complete the first round of competitive tendering. This should give most authorities sufficient time, having regard to the time that their predecessors will have had to prepare.
Some restructured authorities may, nevertheless, have difficulty in completing the process in the 18-month period. I have therefore decided to extend the exemption to 24 months in certain limited circumstances. The authorities which will benefit from this extension will be those which inherit more than 1,000 dwellings from an outgoing authority which is below the proposed de minimis threshold—and does not, therefore, have to prepare for housing management CCT—and those with a total housing stock of more than 15,000 dwellings. This extension will be granted automatically to restructured authorities meeting one or both of those criteria.