Caerphilly County Borough Council has welcomed a planned change in the way local authority housing is financed.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Welsh Government Ministers have reached agreement which will enable local authorities to exit the Housing Revenue Account Subsidy (HRAS) system in Wales.
The agreement means the 11 Welsh local authorities that still have housing stock, including Caerphilly, will be in a similar position to stock-owning councils in England, where the HRAS system was replaced by self-financing arrangements in March 2012.
The UK Government has said this will allow councils to have the financial flexibility to invest in housing with tenants benefiting from improvements to their homes.
Cllr Gerald Jones, Cabinet Member for Housing, said: “Caerphilly County Borough Council has an agreed business plan to meet the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) by 2019/20.
“This business plan is robust but clearly the HRA subsidy is part of the financial package that has allowed us to set out a £200million investment in the WHQS programme.
“The discussions around the HRA subsidy have been ongoing for some time and whilst we await the finer details of the agreement between the UK Treasury and Welsh Government, we are hopeful that the agreement will support Caerphilly and the other stock retention authorities to continue with much needed WHQS investment.”
Announcing the change, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said: “The agreement reached will provide Welsh local authorities with the flexibility they need to manage their own housing revenue, while ensuring that any reform is fiscally neutral.”
Welsh Minister for Housing and Regeneration, Carl Sargeant added: “This is an historic agreement which will have a direct impact upon the Welsh stock retention authorities and their current and future tenants.
“It will play a vital role in enabling the 11 authorities to improve their homes to meet the WHQS.”
I would like to ask Cllr Gerald Jones when are the Council are going to give more help and support to carers, as i have been a full time carer for my mum for over 25 years and been on the Caerphilly housing list all that time with no offers of any accomadation have come to us in 25 years, so now we could be homeless in a matter of weeks and my mum has to go for surgery at the end of the month