Decent Homes Standard
What is the Decent Homes Standard?
In 2001, about 1.6 million social rented homes were named as non-decent following the 2001 English House Condition Survey. After this, the Government set targets to make sure all homes meet standards of decency by 2010. This standard is known as the Decent Homes Standard.
A Decent Home is one that meets the following:
- achieves the current statutory minimum standard for housing;
- is in a reasonable state of repair;
- has reasonably modern facilities and services;
- provides a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.
All social landlords (such as Housing Associations) are affected by this new standard. They have to put plans in place to manage their housing stock and non-decency. All their homes must meet the standard by 2010.
Registered Social Landlords have to give details on all their non-decent homes in their annual returns to the Housing Corporation. They must outline how they are going to deal with non-decent homes.
Find out more about the Decent Homes Standard.
What is Liverpool City Council doing about this?
Each year since 2003, we have carried out an audit of the social housing stock in the city. This helps us to find out which homes do not meet the government's standards on decency. The information in the audit is given to us by local Housing Associations within the city. It gives an indication of the level of poor social housing in any neighbourhood, and how much it would cost to put this right.
In 2004, some 39.7% of the city's social housing stock (both Council and Housing Association properties combined) was classed as non-Decent. This represented some 68,000 homes. The estimated cost of bringing these homes up to the required standard was estimated to be nearly £120million. This task is easier for the Housing Associations to achieve by the target year 2010 as they can get specific funding from the Government to pay for the work required.
However, Liverpool City Council did not have enough money to bring its own housing stock up to the Decency Standard. We do not get the the same money which Housing Associations can, and the government restricts the amount of our own money which we can take from other budgets to pay for improvements to the houses we own.
Therefore, in 2007, tenants voted to transfer the last 15,500 Council homes to a registered social landlord - Liverpool Mutual Homes. The transfer took place on 1st April 2008, and the homes are now being upgraded to meet the standard.