A:  Nobody knows.

Wokingham has about 2,800 council houses.  It takes about £11 million in rent.  And pays about £4.7 million of that to the government, to be distributed to other councils with council housing that are deemed to be in greater need.  This is the Housing Subsidy system.

That £4.7 million would come in very handy locally to enable the houses to be brought up to standard, to carry out routine maintenance, and to provide a good service to tenants.  The Conservatives who are running the council have not exactly done a good job of managing the council’s housing stock – they axed loads of jobs which then had to be reinstated, they had some management issues which involved disciplinary hearings, and as a result ended up with a 1 star service, which is struggling to make progress.  The staff team that is in there now is really trying to make improvements, but it is very hard with so little money to play with.  

It appears – and I mean “appears” because I only have smoke signals to work on, not actual facts in writing – that the Conservatives have more or less decided that the only way out is to transfer the houses out of council control, to a housing association.   This would remove the Housing Subsidy payment, meaning that there would be more money to look after the houses.  Unfortunately, they can’t do it.  And the reason why?  Because the government have realised that too many councils are disposing of their stock to avoid the subsidy;  the subsidy system is becoming totally unviable, and so the government are consulting on changing it.  And they are going to send out a letter to councils in early February telling us what they suggest the new system should be like.  But in the meantime, nobody else can get government approval to transfer their housing stock – and you can’t do it without government approval.

So at the moment nobody knows what is going to happen in Wokingham to the council housing.   And we won’t be any the wiser until the Conservatives have read and digested the minister’s letter in February.

 And what do I think of all this?  That whatever does happen, the most important thing is that the people who live in the houses should have a say over what happens to their homes.    That is something that is within the control of the council.  But it seems that, as usual, the Conservatives intend to make a decision and ask people afterwards what they think.  And that is really not good enough.

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