§ Baroness Byfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Mr McNulty, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, on 30 January (HC Deb, 789W), why the only region that shows an improvement in the relet times for local authority dwellings between 1993–94 and 2001–02 is London; why there has been a 22 per cent average increase in reletting times across all local authorities in England (including London); and why there has been an average increase in reletting times across all rural authorities of 63 per cent; and [HL1506]
Further to the Written Answer by Mr McNulty, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, on 30 January (HC Deb, 791W), why improvements in relet times for registered social landlord dwellings between 1996–97 and 2001–02 have been achieved only by the South East region; why there has been an average increase in relet times across all local authorities in England of 24 per cent; and why there has been an average increase in relet times across all rural authorities of 38 per cent. [HL1507]
§ The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Priime Minister (Lord Rooker)We are extremely gratified that local authorities in London have shown a marked improvement between 1993–94 and 2001–02 in the average time it takes to relet their dwellings; and that30WA registered social landlords have shown an improvement in average relet times across the South East between 1996–97 and 2001–02.
The figures quoted for the average time taken to relet local authority housing stock should be treated with caution, however. These figures are based on estimates provided by local autorities as part of their annual housing investment programme returns and there are likely to be variations in the way local authorities maintain their lettings records and compile these estimates.
One factor contributing to the increase in average relet times is likely to be the impact of low demand on housing, since the largest increases are in the regions which are experiencing the most acute level of low demand—North West, North East, Yorkshire and Humberside and West Midlands. In these regions we are tackling the problem head on through the establishment of nine sub-regional pathfinder projects to address the most acute problems of low demand. We have recently announced in Sustainable Communities: Building for the future an additional investment of £500 million in the next three years for these pathfinder projects. An important part of returning these areas to sustainability is ensuring that there is a better balance between supply and demand for housing across all tenures (including the social housing stock).
The Government are committed to the adoption by local authorities of customer-focused, choice-based lettings policies. We believe that this is the best way to ensure sustainable lettings and stable and viable communities. We are funding a pilot: scheme to test different choice-based lettings approaches and are monitoring their effect on relet times as part of the evaluation of the pilot scheme.