By the end of 2010, we expect 92% of social housing will meet the Decent Homes Standard of being warm and weatherproof with reasonably modern facilities.

Decent homes are an essential part of creating thriving and sustainable communities and are vital for the health and wellbeing of those living in them.

In 1997 there were 2.1 million houses owned by local authorities and housing associations that did not meet the decent homes standard. One million of these have already been raised to a decent standard and most of the improvement has taken place in deprived areas.

Meeting the decent homes standard

The 2010 Spending Review settlement published on 20 October, included the announcement of £2.1bn capital funding from 2011/12 for the Decent Homes programme. Of this, £1.6bn will be available to council landlords to help tackle the backlog of homes that are not meeting the Decent Homes standard, and £500m is available to ‘gap’ fund existing stock transfers.

Our role

We work with local authorities and other Registered Providers of social housing (including ALMOs and LSVTs) to help them achieve their goal of improving all social housing to a decent standard and to ensure that landlords have plans to sustain the improvements made to social housing.

The HCA has published, on behalf of itself and DCLG, proposals for a process and criteria for allocating the decent homes backlog funding. The proposal document was published on Thursday 11 November 2010, alongside a written ministerial statement.

Decent homes backlog funding for council landlords - Proposals (PDF, 146KB)

Any comments on the proposals should be made in writing by 5pm on Monday 6 December 2010, as described in the document.  We ask councils and ALMOs to co-ordinate their points into a single response.

http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/decenthomes.htm?reset=1