Struggling to Identify Objectives: Local Authority Housing

Abstract

Abstract As Chapter 6 explains, subsidy for social housing involves different systems for two subsectors: those for local authorities and for housing associations (or registered social landlords, RSLs). Between the two, arrangements for transfers of housing from local authorities to associations involve what is, in effect, a third subsidy system through the financial terms on which transfers are made. Further, in contrast to the education and health sectors, where the bulk of spending is on current services, a large part of housing finance concerns capital assets—either the financing of new provision (or of repairs treated as capital spending) or the treatment of existing assets and liabilities. Adding to the complexity, a substantial part of the revenue of social landlords comes from the rents they charge (backed for the majority of their tenants by housing benefit). This means that issues like the ‘affordability’ of rents, or relativities between rents for different tenants, are major issues in a way which is not true for health or education finance, where charges are relatively insignificant. All this means that the sector offers a rich—and at times confusing-variety of subsidy and financial allocation systems through which the centre tries to influence and control the behaviour of social landlords.