The huge chunk of public money allocated by the Government to housing has not gone on building new homes – but on paying out housing benefit to claimants, including those living in private rented accommodation.
The revelation comes from the National Audit Office and questions whether housing market analysts are asking the right questions.
Out of £28bn spent by the Government on housing in England in the last financial year, £20.9bn was spent on housing benefits, paid to 4,1m applicans.
The National Audit Office also said that house building has not kept pace with need – and that this will continue.
It said that projections suggest there will be at least 227,000 new households formed each year in England between 2011 and 2020.
However, the National Audit Office warns that this is “substantially higher” than the annual average of 166,000 extra homes delivered in England over the last ten years.
It says delivery of the Government’s 1m new homes housing target by 2020 will need at least 174,000 ‘net additions’ each year.
However, while many analysts have concentrated on number crunching new builds, the National Audit Office drew most attention to the sheer scale of housing benefit.
Other figures released by the National Audit Office include:
23.5m
Total number of homes in England in 2014
£28 bn
Estimated total public sector spending on housing in 2015-16
1m
The number of new homes that the Government aims to deliver in 2015-20
£5.6 trillion
Estimated total value of the housing stock in England in 2015
£1 trillion
Estimated increase in the value of the housing stock in England since 2010
62%
Proportion of homes in England that are owner-occupied
20%
Proportion of homes in England that are privately rented
17%
Proportion of homes in England that are socially rented
20%
Proportion of homes in England that were “non-decent” in 2014, down from 35% in 2006
71,500
Number of homeless households in England in temporary accommodation at 31 March 2016
£20.9bn
Spend in England on housing benefit in 2015-16
Yes they still wish to squeeze the PRS….
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It all comes down to bad and incompetent Government. One of the latest target groups are the retiring baby boomers (those that have already given enormously to the country) as being a problem area. For goodness sake the Government has had 60 so years to plan for housing, they knew the statistics. The moan about not enough Doctors; they know the level of demand they should have expected. They moan about housing shortage; the have know about population growth and had the means to control net migration. This was one of the reasons for the census every few years. They moan about the housing benefit bill but they have always had the statistics and still choose to asset strip the social housing by selling it off and not re-investing in more housing.They moan about school places; they know what the birth rate is and what they needed to do. They know about the level of demand for health care yet they have closed so many hospitals and A&E departments and then say there are not enough beds – to Joe public it is so very obvious. Then they blame their incompetence on the rest of society – It is private landlords that they say are causing the problems in housing; they say it is the elderly causing problems with health and bed blocking; and the list goes on.
However I must congratulate politicians has they all have mastered obfuscation to make us believe they solving all the problems, the very problems which are largely predictable and should not have arisen if they did their jobs properly. After all most of this was predicable and the statistics were there for them to see.
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