Healey orders assessment of Decent Homes initiative in bid to bolster under-performing councils

The government has launched a full-scale assessment of the Decent Homes programme, amid concerns that the poorest performing councils “appear to be going backwards”.

Announcing the review, housing minister John Healey claimed that the programme was “a massive national refurbishment of unprecedented scale” with £33bn already invested.

But the minister said he was particularly concerned that 27 local authorities had seen an increase in their non-decent stock, 13 still had over half their stock in a non-decent state and ten had a third of their housing stock non-decent.

As part of the review, social landlords will be invited to submit evidence about the successes of their programmes and the lessons they have learned.

Healey said the assessment would allow the sharing of best practice and provide “a helping hand” to struggling councils.

He added: “This government remains committed to making sure that all public homes are made decent. I am concerned some of the poorest performing local authorities are going backwards and I want to make sure that they are not letting their tenants down and are getting the benefits of the lessons learned in their area.”