Grants to Home-owners: A Policy in Search of Objectives

Abstract

This paper examines the policy of providing capital grants to home-owners in England and Wales for repairs and improvements to their properties since its origins in the late 1940s. Such grants have been the major mechanism for delivering state support to home-owners with repairs and improvements and at times have formed a major component of public spending. Grant aid, usually covering 50 per cent of approved costs, was initially intended as an incentive to owners (mainly landlords) to install amenities and facilities which had not been provided when properties were constructed in the 19th century. With the growth of low-income home ownership, grants were extended to provide assistance with repairs and to cover a greater proportion of the costs of work. In some cases, 100 per cent grants under which the organisation of work was taken out of the owner's hands completely were provided in order to secure better works quality. Unfortunately these approaches coincided with financial retrenchment. From 1990, the government reaffirmed that repairs and improvements were primarily the responsibility of home-owners and grant aid was residualised, that is focused on the poorest households in the worst condition properties, leading to a dramatic reduction in the number of home-owners receiving state assistance. Subsequently other objectives such as community care, public health, energy efficiency and environmental concerns have further eroded the resources available for housing stock renovation. Despite the mismatch between the grant policy mechanism and available resources, there has been little progress in the development of a new philosophy defining the interest of the state in the condition of private sector housing and the respective responsibilities of the state and private owners and the introduction of alternative ways of helping low-income owners with repair and improvement.