statistics

Lots of news items and some interesting links

A written answer to an enquiry by Mrs. Spelman

"To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which 20 local authorities have the highest level of (a) long-term empty social housing and (b) long-term empty private housing. [306408]"

NB that  the answer continues into the next page

It contains the valuable statement that:

"The reasons for homes becoming and remaining vacant are varied ranging from an over supply of accommodation, the redevelopment of an area to the standard of accommodation and in some circumstances individual failure to maintain a property in good repair. Numbers of empty properties within local authorities should not therefore be seen as a reflection of the approach adopted by local authorities to tackle these issues."

This common sense view is very muich in line with NAEPP's position on empty homes statistics.  It certainly raises the question why, then, were such statistics ever used in the CPA regime.

The source of statistics includes the CTB returns for October 2008.  It isn't clear why they were used rather than the 2009 returns which have been available for some time.  One consequence is that the list of local authorities contains places that no longer exist following government reorganisation - for example Macclesfield and Derwentside.

This is the government's response to the Lifting the Burden task-force recommendations - including the recommendation to remove BVPI64 immediately.  As BVPI64 has now gone, this mainly of historical interest. But in its response here, the government refused to remove the indicator saying it was needed to ensure local authorities took responsibility for empty city centre flats.

(The LGA taskforce had made a big play about empty city centre apartments unfairly pushing up their empty homes figures....).

This Public Account Committee report contains shocking figures for MOD empties - currently running at 17% of the stock.  Most appear to be lettable based on the analysis of condition categories.  Hundreds of properties have been empty for an average of 5 months solely because the MOD doesn't have a simple way of getting carpets into them!

The report also contains some interesting insight into how Council Tax works in MOD properties.  It is not clear whether the money raised goes back to the government as with most Council Tax or is retained locally.

This is an analysis of HSSA data which shows long-term private sector empties as a percentage of all private sector empties for each local authority and region, showing also quartiles and deciles for the purposes of comparison.  It is part of the NAEPP Strategy Toolkit we are currently developing.

This is for paying members of NAEPP only. Please do not distribute further.