Councils in England will have greater flexibilities on how they
spend the capital receipts from council housing sold under the
statutory Right to Buy (RTB), following an announcement by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick
MP on 20 March 2021.
For some time now ARCH has been pressing the Government to
introduce greater flexibilities for councils in the use of the
monies received from the sale of council homes under the RTB. Under
the Government's one-for-one commitment made under the
reinvigorated RTB introduced in 2012, local authorities currently
have three years from the date of the sale of each "additional
home" sold as a result of the reinvigorated RTB to provide a
replacement home but can only use RTB receipts to a maximum of 30%
of the cost of providing a replacement.
Figures show that the Government continues to fall short of its
commitment to replace dwellings sold under the reinvigorated RTB
and even by the Government's own targets the gap between the
numbers sold and the number of replacement homes provided continues
to grow.
The Government published a Consultation Paper on
flexibilities in the use of RTB
receipts in August 2018 alongside the
Social Housing Green Paper. The sector has been waiting over 2.5
years for the Government's response to that consultation and we are
pleased that the Government has recognised the need for councils to
have greater flexibilities in how they spend the monies received
from the sale of council housing.
ARCH has long campaigned for such flexibilities and we have
argued that to ensure that as a minimum council properties sold
under the statutory Right to Buy are replaced on a one-for-one
basis the Government should allow local authorities more
flexibility to make maximum use of the capital receipts from RTB
sales and we have pressed the Government to:
- Allow councils to retain 100% of the revenue raised from sales
to be reinvested locally in social rented housing.
- Give councils the freedom to use RTB receipts to meet more than
30% of the cost of building replacement homes, to combine RTB
receipts with grant funding, other capital receipts held in the
housing revenue account (HRA) or public land and to pass RTB
receipts to an arm's length management organisation (ALMO) or
another council owned company -provided the money is still
reinvested in new homes.
- Extend the cost floor ceiling, which prevents new council homes
from being sold at a loss, from 15 to 25 years.
- Extend the three-year time limit within which RTB receipts must
be committed to five years.
- Allow councils freedoms to reduce RTB discounts locally, where
they are able to demonstrate that they will otherwise have
insufficient receipts to enable them to replace homes sold and a
reduction in the discount would be unlikely to significantly impact
on the volume of sales.
Over recent weeks we have been in dialogue with senior officials
at the Housing Ministry regarding the need to introduce changes to
the rules on use of capital receipts and raised the matter with senior officials at HM
Treasury when we met with them on 18 February 2021 and
we are pleased to see the Secretary of State's announcement on
relaxation of some of the rules; even if not all of our "asks" have
been met by the new measures in his announcement which include:
- Extending the time councils have to spend Right to Buy receipts
from three years to five years and move to an annual rather than
quarterly process for pooling Right to Buy receipts. Currently
local authorities have 3 years to spend receipts from the quarter
the receipts were received in, meaning they have 4 separate
deadlines for spending receipts in each year.
- Increasing the cap on the percentage cost of new homes councils
can fund from Right to Buy receipts from 30% to 40% per home for
both existing and future receipts.
- Allowing receipts to be used for shared ownership, First Homes,
as well as affordable and social rented housing.
- Introducing a cap on the use of Right to Buy receipts for
acquisitions to help drive new supply for both existing and future
receipts but the first 20 units of delivery in each year will be
excluded. Councils will not be prevented from acquiring properties
above the cap but will not be able to use Right to Buy receipts to
do so.
The first 3 changes above will be introduced with effect from 1
April 2021 with the cap on acquisitions introduced from 1 April
2022 and phased in over 2022/23 to 2024/25 from a cap of 50% down
to 40% in 2023/24 and 30% from 2024/25 onwards.
The Government says it is keen to work with all stock holding
local authorities to increase the level of Right to Buy
replacements which are delivered through new build and the key
objective of the acquisition cap is to limit the percentage of RTB
replacement homes that are delivered through using RTB receipts to
acquire existing housing - principally housing which is bought on
the open market from the private sector.
The Government acknowledges that certain acquisitions that add
to overall housing supply should be excluded from the cap,
including acquisitions of new builds from a local authority's own
housing company and where commercial buildings are acquired to be
redeveloped for housing as part of regeneration programmes and
promise to further clarify ahead of the introduction of the
acquisition cap the types of acquisitions that will be included in
the cap and will discuss with local authorities any specific
challenges that they may face.
In its response, the Government has refused to consider allowing
councils to combine RTB receipts in conjunction with other grant
funding, arguing that under the self-financing settlement homes
built with RTB receipts are meant to be in addition to those built
using other grant money and although acknowledging that to combine
these resources might make certain developments easier to fund but
would run the risk of reducing the overall additional supply of
council housing.
Full details can be found in the Governments response to the consultation on
flexibilities in the use of RTB receipts.
ARCH Chief Executive John Bibby comments:
"The Government's announcements on greater flexibilities in
the use of RTB receipts to help provide more social and affordable
rented homes is to be warmly welcomed - particularly the increase
in the time councils have to spend those receipts and the increase
in thecap on the percentage cost of new homes councils can fund
from RTB Buy receipts."
" The cap on use of RTB receipts for acquisitions may cause
councils some concern but it is pleasing to see that use of RTB
receipts for up to 20 acquisitions will be excluded and that the
cap will be phased in from 1 April 2022, giving councils time to
plan their future replacement programmes."
"We have been given assurances by MHCLG officials that they
will continue a dialogue onthe types of acquisitions that will be
included in the cap and will discuss any specific challenges that
councils may face as a result of the introduction of the cap and I
would like to hear from any ARCH member councils that feel the
introduction of the cap will adversely affect their housing
programmes and their ability to replace stock sold under the RTB.
We are particularly concerned that local authorities that work in
partnership with housing associations to build more council housing
should not be penalised by the cap on acquisitions."