Shapps steps up bid for social landlords to publish £500 receipts

Published by Ross Macmillan for 24dash.com in Housing

Housing minister Grant Shapps has stepped up his bid to make housing associations more transparent, calling on them to follow the example of Viridian Housing and Home Group who are publishing all expenditure over £500.

Viridian Housing - which owns and manages more than 16,000 homes in the Midlands, West Sussex and London - has followed the example of the Home Group and is publishing all expenditure over £500 on its website from April.

It's also making public employee salaries over £50,000.

Last year Home Group - which manages 52,000 homes - became the first association to publish data on all its spending over £500.

Mr Shapps has consistently challenged all social landlords to match his department’s commitment on transparency about expenditure, so tenants can see how their rent is being spent.

He said Viridian and Home Group were "setting the benchmark for a new era of transparency in social housing". 

Last year, he wrote a letter stepping up his fight to improve housing association 'transparency' to the National Housing Federation (NHF), calling on landlords to offer greater transparency.

However, the NHF argues that housing associations have already put in place a "raft of measures to ensure they are transparent, accountable and open in their operations".

Over the next few months officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government will hold a series of discussions with individual housing associations to discuss how they can become more transparent in the way they run their business.

Mr Shapps said: “Housing associations have a long and distinguished track record of providing the affordable homes that millions of tenants rely on. But with more pressure on the public purse than ever, all organisations that receive money from the taxpayer should expect to come under greater scrutiny and be willing to explain their financial decisions.

“So I’m delighted that Viridian, like Home Group before them, has taken this decision to become more transparent to tenants who put the pennies in their purse. Transparency is not just a nice-to-have, it is vital for driving down costs and ensuring more is achieved with every taxpayers’ pound. Large amounts of public money have been invested in social housing – so tenants and the public now deserve to know if their money is being well spent.”

Ministers believe bringing housing associations under the Freedom of Information Act could make it easier for tenants and the public to find out more about how their landlords work, and what their taxes pay for.

The Government has committed to consulting landlords on whether to extend the scope of the Act to include housing associations.

It has also introduced a contractual clause for bids to the Affordable Homes Programme which requires providers, where they are receiving more than £3 million in grant, to publish expenditure over £500 related to grant-funded development.

The Tenant Services Authority (TSA) is also seeking views on changes to the accounting requirements for registered providers which include an increase in disclosures on the payment of senior staff.

The plans would kick in from April 2012 after the TSA is abolished and a committee within the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) takes over scaled-back regulatory functions.