A report examined the opportunities and risks arising from legislation to reform the Housing Revenue Account. Efficient operation of the HRA could lead to the build-up of some £50 billion of new investment resources over 30 years. There were a range of alternative options for unlocking HRA investment capacity, consistent with the coalition government's priority to control the national debt.
Source: Joe Reeves and Simon Martin, Making the Most of HRA Reform, Smith Institute/PricewaterhouseCoopers
Links: Report | Inside Housing report | Public Finance report
Date: 2011-Jun
A report examined the alternative approaches available to finance housing infrastructure investment in Scotland.
Source: Newhaven Research, Paying the Piper: Funding and financing infrastructure issues for housing in Scotland, Chartered Institute of Housing in Scotland
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Mar
The government published details of its plans to pass control of social housing finance to local councils in England.
Source: Implementing Self-Financing for Council Housing, Department for Communities and Local Government
Links: Report | Hansard | CIH press release | SIGOMA briefing | Public Finance report
Notes: The Localism Bill (given a second reading in January 2011) included a proposal to scrap the housing revenue account, under which rents were passed to central government and then redistributed. The HRA would be replaced by a self-financing system from April 2012, which would allow councils to retain their own rents.
Date: 2011-Feb
A report by a committee of MPs said that private finance initiative (PFI) projects had delivered many new hospitals and homes that might otherwise not have been delivered. But there was 'no clear evidence' as to whether PFI offered any better or worse value for money than other procurement routes.
Source: PFI in Housing and Hospitals, Fourteenth Report (Session 2010-11), HC 631, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | CBI press release | BBC report | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2011-Jan
