Speaking in response to a press enquiry, Cllr Mark Roberts, Deputy Leader of the Council, said:
“Stockport Homes was formed in response to the Blair government’s move in the late 1990s to improve the quality of council housing after decades of underfunding by central government, resulting in very poor quality social housing nationally.
“Funds to bring properties up to the new “Decent Homes” standard were only accessible to Councils if they either transferred their housing stock into the hands of housing associations, signed up to complex private finance initiatives, or formed an arms-length management organisation (ALMO) such as Stockport Homes.
“Cllr Mark Hunter was Leader of the Council at that time and led an all-party delegation to Westminster to meet Geoff Rooker, the then Minister for Housing and Planning, along with members of the tenants federation. Following a ballot of all tenants, an agreement was reached that the best vehicle to access this desperately needed funding, which retained maximum control over the housing stock and housing policy within the council, was the ALMO route.
“As an organisation, Stockport Homes has always been high performing, and this has been reflected in the recent review that the Cabinet considered this week. It wins many accolades and awards and is considered one of the best housing organisations nationally.
“The main challenges seem to be around maintenance and availability of social housing.
“On the latter point, neither Stockport Homes nor the council can be blamed. There is currently a housing crisis, there are not sufficient funds available to councils to build enough social housing to meet need, and this can only be solved through central government intervention and funding.
“Funds for maintenance, repairs and capital works are also constrained. The last Conservative government invited housing providers to enter into so-called “self-funding” arrangements for their Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which were modelled upon rents increasing at a planned rate. Having entered into such an arrangement in good faith, the government then chose to make changes to rent increases which introduced huge shortfalls into the HRA. As with all areas of the public sector, social housing is suffering from underinvestment from previous governments and urgent need for injections of more funds.
“However, we do believe that Stockport Homes should and can deliver a better service for their tenants and have better liaison with local councillors. We believe that the measures set out in the report agreed this week will help with that. We need to ensure that there is the right level of control being exerted by the Cabinet to set the direction of travel for Stockport Homes, that there is the right level of information sharing with all councillors and of formal Scrutiny at both a central and an Area Committee level.
“We are at the start of a journey of improvement following this review. It will take time for the new structures to come into place, be tested and bed in. During this phase we need Members of all political Groups to do what we do best in Stockport, work constructively together in the best interests of the borough and its residents to deliver what we can within the constraints we face.
“Whilst that is happening it is imperative that Stockport Homes work hard with ward councillors to ensure that outstanding repairs and complaints are addressed, that progress is made with the large scale and long-standing issues such as Lancashire Hill, and that the faith some councillors have lost can be restored in short order.
“We are also very keen to keen to explore how we increase the accountability of all social housing providers across the borough.”
