19/01/2012

Within the next month official figures will confirm that there are now more private rented than social rented homes in England. This will be hailed as a triumph for the market.

In strictly numerical terms it is. When private renting was deregulated with the introduction of assured shorthold tenancies in 1988 there were 1.8m homes in the sector.

By March 2010 (the most recent figure currently available) there were 3.9m and, with each of the last four years seeing growth of over 200,000, the March 2011 total will almost certainly be over 4m.

In contrast, the social sector shrank from 4.7m in 1988 to 4.3m in 2000 to 4.0m in March 2011. And home ownership has fallen for each of the last four years.

Whether you attribute all this to lack of investment in social housing, high house prices, restricted mortgage lending or the creation of buy to let (in 1996), the transformation is little short of remarkable. And it reverses the seemingly irreversible trend from private renting to social renting seen in the 1960s (in 1961 there were 3.2m social rented homes and 4.7m private rented, by 1971 there were 4.6m social and 3.2m private).

But the real question – and this is my third key question for 2012 – is what happens next. The government’s answer so far is nothing. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with such a market success story.

One of its first acts when it came to power was to reject the modest proposals for regulation put forward by the Rugg Review as ‘red tape’. As Grant Shapps put it at the time:

“With the vast majority of England’s three million private tenants happy with the service they receive, I am satisfied that the current system strikes the right balance between the rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords.”

In November the housing strategy said that:

“The Government is committed to supporting growth and innovation by avoiding unnecessary regulatory burdens on landlords. But we are also looking at measures to deal with rogue landlords and encouraging local authorities to make full use of the robust powers they already have to tackle dangerous and poorly maintained homes.”

Yet there are growing calls from reform – and not just from the quarters you might expect.

Over Christmas The Economist, normally an advocate of deregulation in everything, argued that:

“When demand outstrips supply against a background of profound housing need, tough action is required.”

Visiting a family living in a rented garage in Newham, it dismissed the usual arguments against regulation (free markets work better, self-regulation works better, tenants are as bad as landlords) and concluded:

“Seen from inside the Hamids’ mouldy garage, these arguments are not persuasive.”

In London as a whole, regulation of private renting has emerged as a key issue in the mayoral election campaign. Ken Livingstone has pledged to ‘campaign for’ a form of rent control. Boris Johnson has attacked that idea but he is also pledging a single badge of accreditation for all landlords, letting agents and management agents.

Meanwhile the Lib Dem half of the coalition does not seem as satisfied with things as they are as the Conservative half. Richard Kemp, co-chair of the Lib Dem housing policy group, says that:

“The key new area that I want the Party to tackle is the whole area of private landlords. Some have complained that this will drive a wedge between us and the free market, no holds barred section of the coalition. If that is the case bring it on!”

He goes on:

“I believe that no-one should be allowed to let a property unless that property has been inspected and that inspection is regularly updated. I believe that to be a landlord individuals or companies must either be registered or have to let solely through registered lettings agencies.

Some will say that this is a restriction on fair trade. I believe that it is a restriction of unfair trade. Out of desperation hundreds of thousands of people are living in squalid conditions which are funded by the tax payer through housing benefit. Some of the key supporters of such registration are good landlords who have to compete on price with modern day Rachmans and who get tarred with the brush of “racketeer”.”

So regulation of the private rented sector is an issue that is not going to go away. Getting the system right, and avoiding an over-prescriptive one that would kill off the growing signs of interest in the sector from institutional investors, will not be easy and cannot happen in isolation of wider reform of the housing system.

However, good landlords and letting agents have nothing to fear from sensitive regulation and know that it will work their their advantage by driving out competitors who cut corners to undercut them.

Because the truth is that the explosive growth of private renting over the last decade is evidence not of market success but of market failure: the failure of a rental market in which millions of tenants can only afford their rent thanks to billions of pounds a year in housing benefit; the failure of housing and mortgage markets that have priced hundreds of thousands of younger people out of owner-occupation; the failure of the current system to protect tenants from rogue landlords and agents; and the failure of six- and 12-month tenancies to be remotely adequate for the 1m families with children (an increase of 77 per cent in the last two years) now living in private rented accommodation.

The deregulated system invented 24 years ago has run its course. Much like the 20-somethings stuck living at home with their parents because of the state of the housing and rental markets must be getting sick of being told, it’s time it grew up and took some responsibility.

The number of housing benefits claimants in Great Britain has risen by more than 130,000 to 4.9 million.

Statistics released by the Department for Work and Pensions show that as of October 2011 there were 4.92 million people receiving housing benefit – 132,430 more than the same time the previous year.

Of the total, 68 per cent were social tenants and three-quarters were aged under-65 with the average weekly amount of £87.03 being paid.

Single people made up the largest category of claimants with 3.89 million of them receiving housing benefits – almost two thirds of who were female.

According to the figures, 79 per cent of tenants in the private sector received local housing allowance.

David Salusbury, chairman, National Landlords Association, said:

“Although these latest statistics do not tell us anything about whether the government’s reform package for housing benefits is a success, they do show the significant danger of getting housing benefit reform wrong.

With over 1.24 million people now receiving local housing allowance it is crucial that the government supports landlords providing accommodation for this vulnerable group of people.

The focus must be on encouraging the supply of rental accommodation, as well as reducing benefit expenditure.”

A third of people across Britain have cut back on food so they can pay their housing costs, according to a Shelter survey.

The research, produced for the charity by Yougov, also found 22 per cent of people have cut what they spend on gas and electricity so they can afford their housing costs over the last 12 months.

The figures show there has been a 57 per cent rise in people cutting spending on fuel to pay for housing, and a 42 per cent rise in people cutting back on food, since March 2008.

Shelter is urging anyone who is struggling with housing costs to seek help early to try to avoid losing their home.

Chief executive Campbell Robb said:

“These staggering findings show just how many millions of people are cutting back on essentials as the continued squeeze on incomes starts to really bite.

It demonstrates the tough choices families are now having to make, between heating their home, putting a decent meal on the table or paying for the roof over their head.”

Yougov surveyed 4,014 adults during December.

On behalf of Swindon Tenants Campaign Group I would like to express our gratitude for those people who supported our campaign against the sell-off of our homes to a new Housing Association. I would also congratulate the far larger number of tenants who made their own contribution in delivering an overwhelming No vote. All across the town thousands of discussions took place as tenants considered their future under the proposal of the Council. Each of those conversations was important.

Contrary to those who said that tenants were ‘apathetic’ and the the ‘transfer’ was a foregone conclusion, the high turn out and the massive majority showed that tenants were bothered about who their landlord was.

Those who say the No vote was just the result of inertia and because ‘people don’t like change’ are underestimating the intelligence of tenants and the fact that they thought about and discussed the options they had and considered the consequences of the ballot decision.

Above all tenants refused to be bludgeoned into submission by the relentless campaign of the Council. They were angry that some Council staff were trying to persuade them to vote Yes when they (the staff) were supposed to be neutral. They were angry that they were pressed as to how they would vote when it was supposed to be a secret ballot. Many of them felt they were being harassed by the Council. They asked themselves why the Council was so keen on the transfer. If it was such a good deal why all this pressure? They had the scepticism of working people everywhere when a manager tries to get you to do something you may not want to do and tells you he/she has your best interests at heart.

Isn’t it a paradox, some have asked, that tenants want to “stay with the Council” when they don’t trust it? Most often people talk about ‘the Council’ as if it was a single entity. It’s not. It comprises the political group which runs it (there only by the sufferance of the electors), the senior officers who do the bidding of that group, and, of course, the troops on the ground who do the work for the tenants. Many tenants wanted to hang onto their “secure” tenancy despite the reassurances of the Council. For many of the older tenants, who know what life was like before the big Council house building programmes after the Second World War, Council housing was a liberation from overcrowded, expensive private rented accommodation. A great many tenants were opposed to transfer because of their own or their family’s negative experience of Housing Associations.

Tenants were literally inundated with material from the Council and they could see that all of it was one-sided and biased. It did not admit to a single risk of ‘transfer’. No wonder that a majority of them thought that the Council sounded, as one tenant said at an STV meeting, “like an insurance salesman”.

As the Advertiser journalist expressed it, the ballot result was a “crushing defeat” for the Council. Tenants are not sheep to be easily led. They have their opinions, they can make up their own minds. And they have shown grit and determination.

What now? Swindon Tenants Campaign Group was set up to campaign against transfer. Having played our part in that victory we have decided to continue organising and to campaign for the interests of tenants on an ongoing basis. We will be a non-party political independent tenants group which fights for the improvement of the service we receive. We will campaign for a new round of Council house building which is the only realistic way of tackling the housing crisis and stopping the rise in the numbers on the Council house waiting list. What else we do will depend upon what those who get involved decide together.

Tenants should be aware that the Swindon ballot was watched with interest across the country where other tenants may face the threat of transfer. So we also are connected with the national Defend Council Housing Campaign which has defended Council tenants from the attacks they have been under for many years. We have, by the way, had messages from around the country from tenants who have taken heart from our 72% No vote.

Tenants in Swindon have shown they have some mettle, that the Council cannot ride roughshod over us. We won the ballot but we need to get organised to fight for our collective interests. We cannot tackle the problems we face, each of us on our own. We need to do it together.

If you are a tenant and interested in getting involved in Swindon Tenants Campaign Group, please contact us by email at stcg@btinternet.com or ring 07786394593. Visit our website at http://keepourcouncilhomes.wordpress.com

Martin Wicks

Swindon Tenants Campaign Group

Tenants have backed a council’s proposal to ditch its arms-length management organisation and take control of its housing stock.

Redbridge Council is now working with Redbridge Homes, the ALMO, to ensure a smooth transfer of services for the 7,000 homes.

A survey was sent to all tenants and leaseholders in November and December 2011 and 63 per cent of the 17 per cent who responded supported the councils proposal to bring the service back in house.

Just 9 per cent opposed the plans, which the council said would result in £400,000 of annual savings.

The contract with Redbridge Homes runs out on 31 July this year and the council will control the stock from 1 August.

Robin Turbefield, Redbridge Council member for housing, said: ‘I am pleased that the majority of tenants and leaseholders who responded were in support of this proposal, it was important for us to get their views and I would like to reassure them we will make this transition as smooth as possible. 

‘I would like to reiterate that this is not a reflection on the services Redbridge Homes has provided over the last five years. However, we created the arms-length management organisation to help us unlock government funding.

‘Now this has been successfully achieved it’s important we find the best way of providing housing services as efficiently as possible. We believe bringing services back in house is the best way to do this.’

Submission from Swindon Tenants Campaign Group

To the Secretary of State – Department of Communities and Local Government

Swindon Council Consultation on transfer of Council housing to a Housing Association

Swindon Council has said that it will abide by the statutory guidance for ballot for stock transfer (The Housing Act 1985: Schedule 3A – consultation before disposal to private sector landlord: Statutory guidance – paragraph 3: requirements as to consultation Issued in July 2009 by the Department of Communities and Local Government). The guidance states that:

“Tenants need to understand why the local authority is proposing to transfer their housing, but should not feel that the main purpose of the consultation document is to sell the transfer; rather, it should give neutral information. A balanced and informative approach is needed, which provides brief information on all the options that have been considered. ”

It is quite apparent from the conduct of the Council and the material they have produced that it is not providing “neutral information” nor “a balanced and informative approach”. It is presenting material is a way which is misleading and is designed to lead tenants to conclude that there is no alternative to selling our homes to a Housing Association.

For instance statements presented near the front of the ‘offer document’ give a false impression of what the would-be Housing Association would provide and contradict what is said later in the document. Knowing that some tenants will not read through all fifty pages “facts” are presented early in the document which are at best ambiguous and open to misinterpretation and at worst designed to mislead tenants. On page 7 we read that the new landlord would be able to provide

➢ “modern kitchens to all homes in the next five years”. This is misleading because it may be read by tenants as meaning that all will get a new kitchen in the next five years. But nearly half of us already have a modern kitchen so we won’t get another one inside five years. Later in the document it does mention a 12 years period for a new kitchen but not everybody will read all of the document. Why was this period not mentioned on page 7?

➢ “Upgrading all sheltered housing in the next ten years”. Once again this is misleading. As Lead Member Russell Holland has admitted in reply to a question at a Council meeting, “Works will commence on the sheltered housing stock to ensure the top priority schemes are fit for purpose over the next ten years”. In other words only “priority schemes” will be upgraded in the first ten years – perhaps a quarter of them. The rest will be completed “during the business plan period”, that is over 30 years. Yet this information is not in the ‘offer document’.

Later on in the document it makes promises of what work will be done which are conditional on “where needed”, “where required” but of course it does not specify what that means.

➢ On Page 7 of the document the Council mentions only the number of houses that the HA would be able to carry out “structural repairs and thermal improvements on”. It says: “Without proper investment in non-traditional homes, these properties will deteriorate and could become uninhabitable.” This is quite clearly an attempt to imply that if tenants vote to stay with the Council then these will be the dire consequences. This is nothing other than scaremongering and an attempt to ‘lead’ tenants to vote for transfer.The document does have to admit later on that the difference between what the Council could do and what the Housing Association could do is only a difference of less than 200 homes in ten years.

At the very least the promises for sheltered accommodation fail to abide by the statutory guidance which says that

“The consultation document should enable each tenant to identify the works that will be carried out to his / her home if the transfer goes ahead. ”

Formulations such as “where needed” or “where required” fail to enable each tenant to be clear on what is being promised for them.

Another source of pressure on tenants in sheltered accommodation was the threat that they might lose their resident wardens if tenants voted to stay with the Council.

Rents

On Page 6 of the offer document “Fact 1” gives the impression that the Council could not give a guarantee on future rent increases. It says:

“ Swindon Housing Association would also give a contractually binding guarantee for the five years following transfer that your rent would not go up each year by more than the rate of inflation plus 0.5% plus £2.00 per week, even if the government formula changes. The Council could not give such a guarantee on future rent increases.”

The way that is written gives the impression that the Council cannot give any guarantee on “future rent increases”. This is, of course, not true. The position is clarified later on in the document and the difference in the “guarantee” is one year. Which is to say that the Council cannot say what future government policy will be after 2016.

The Capital Receipt

The Council has failed to follow the statutory guidance which says that information should be provided on “how the local authority proposes to use any proceeds from the sale”. (Statutory guidance ” – Annex 1Para 11“Other information that should be available is how the local authority proposes to use any proceeds from the sale” )

The ‘offer document’ merely speaks of allocating the money “to benefit the wider community”. This hardly clarifies what they are going to do with the receipt.

The pro-sell off DVD and the REG

The DVD which the Council has produced is not “neutral information”. It basically presents the case for transfer. Two members of the Shadow Housing Board appear on the DVD as ordinary tenants asking questions. They are not identified as ‘Shadow Board’ members.

Only one person identifies himself as a member of the Residents Engagement Group. He refers to the ‘new landlord’ rather than the potential landlord.

The REG is supposed to be neutral on the transfer, yet some REG members have participated in producing a pro-sell-off DVD. As individuals they have a perfect right to adopt whatever point of view they wish, but as members of the REG they should not have supported the Council producing a throroughly biased pro-sell-off DVD.

The REG members have been treated with contempt by the Council and its officers. For instance

• The REG voted in favour of tenants being given the ‘upsides and downsides’ of the two options. The Council has merely produced material which sells the transfer. In all the material they have produced there is not a single instance of any risks associated with transfer.

• The Council voted on version 3 of the ‘offer document’ when the REG had not even finished discussing version 2.

• The REG passed a resolution which determined that they would meet to check the DVD before it was distributed. The Officers ignored that decisionarranged for showings for individuals, preventing the group discussing and judging whether the DVD was acceptable, whether it was biased and so on.

Some REG members have expressed their anger that they were told that anybody chosen for the Shadow Board would not be able to continue on the REG, as a result of which they did not apply to be on the Shadow Board. Yet two members of the Shadow Board have been allowed to continue to be on both.

Staff giving misleading information to tenants

On their home visits to tenants Council staff have been providing mileading information to tenants in relation to the proposed transfer. I have direct evidence of that myself. Two staff from the homelessness department visited my house and spoke to myself and my partner.

They informed us that “the Council is turning into a Housing Association”. When we explained to them that the Council was proposing to sell our homes to a Housing Association they would not respond.

Secondly, they informed us that the Council had been told it had to transfer the stock. This is not true, of course, the Council itself haddecided to proceed witha ballot on transfer and, indeed, it had decided that transfer was the “preferred option”.

Failure to correct innaccurate comments in the media

The Housing Director Mr Bernie Brannan was quoted in the Swindon Advertiser as saying that “the No campaign” had been told to “withdraw a leaflet” because it was “misleading”. No such request was made of the Swindon Tenants Campaign Group (there is no such animal as “the No campaign”). We checked with the Director of DWA the “independent Tenants Advisor” who was as bemused as we were by theis assertion by Mr Brannan. She confirmed that they had made no such request of us. We asked for Mr Brannan to issue a public retraction of what he told the Advertiser. He has refused to do so. We asked for DWA to issue a public statement confirming that what Mr Brannan had said to the paper was factually incorrect. They have failed to do so.

Interest rates

Whilst the 2nd Stage document mentioned the fact that the government was reducing the interest rate for the borrowing which the Council would have to make to raise the money to pay off the ‘self-financing’ debt, they failed to quantify this and have failed to say what interest rate they would expect the HA to have to pay for its borrowing. Tenants should surely be given the information to judge the consequences of the borrowing associated with the two options. Moreover, since the leader of the ruling group of the Council, has written in the local paper that the cost of borrowing would be the same in either option there should surely have been a retraction of this statement (in the light of the government’s reduction of the interest rate available to Councils), so that all tenants were aware of the fact that the Council’s borrowing rate would be lower than that of an HA.

The Stage 2 letter

The stage 2 letter issued to tenants by the Council fails to inform tenants of 2 things. Firstly, it does not inform them of the results of the consultation. This may have a bearing on the outcome of the ballot because the feedback suggested that the ballot might be a close-run thing; 646 tenants indicated they wanted to remain with the Council, 661 go over to a Housing Association, 107 had not yet decided, and 28 did not want to inform the Council. We believe that the Council did not inform tenants of these figures as it would serve to give notice to them that the ballot could go either way, and might encourage opponents of transfer to cast their vote. This is a material factor because of the sentiment commonly expressed by some tenants that “the Council will do it anyway” regardless of the vote.

At any rate, if the process was “open and transparent” then why did the Council not publish these figures which constituted a significant part of the feedback?

Secondly, the Council’s Stage 2 letter failed to inform tenants as to what they should do if they failed to receive a ballot paper.

Martin Wicks

Swindon Tenants Campaign Group

Freedom of Information Request

1) I would like to know from the Council the overall cost of the Housing ballot process and its various components. This would include:

• The cost of the contract with DWA (did this include the “independent tenant newsletters”?);

• The cost of using ERS for the ballot;

• The cost of all the associated documentation (Housing Matters, letters and postage, the ‘offer document’, Housing Vote posters);

• The cost of the DVD;

• The amount of staff hours spent on overtime, and the cost of it;

• The staff hours utilised for house visits and phone calls, both for the Housing staff and those from other departments, and the number of staff involved in this work;

• Officers time at sheltered accommodation meetings;

• Senior Officers time spent on the Housing Vote;

• The cost of Sector’s work for the Council;

• The cost of drop-ins, including staff-time;

• The cost of Bridge consultants;

• The cost of the work of the company which carried out the phone survey.

2) In addition I would like to know what information ERS provided to the Council during the ballot process. For instance, did they provide a list of tenants who had not voted?

Regards

Martin Wicks

Government plans to abolish parts of a fund to help vulnerable people have been slammed by 20 organisations. The coalition government plans to remove crisis loans and community care grants from the social fund and transfer administration to councils.

The organisations, in a joint letter to the Guardian newspaper and welfare reform minister Lord David Freud, warn that this could leave vulnerable people with little or no support.

The letter said: ‘Crisis loans and community care grants are the ultimate safety net for the most vulnerable in society. For example, they enable women and children fleeing domestic violence to clothe themselves and furnish their homes or parents in rural areas who cannot afford a car to visit their child if they are taken into hospital unexpectedly. We are deeply concerned at the government’s proposals to abolish these elements of the social fund and pass some of the funding to local authorities, without any statutory obligation to ensure they provide emergency support to vulnerable people.’

The letter’s signatories include the National Housing Federation, Crisis, Homeless Link, St Mungo’s and the Child Poverty Action Group.

The social fund reform proposals are likely to be debated when the Welfare Reform Bill returns to the House of Lords on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: ‘We’re reforming the social fund because it is too complex and poorly targeted. Local authorities are best placed to deliver this support and will ensure that it goes to those most in need. People will now benefit from local knowledge and wider support services.’

The letter’s signatories include the National Housing Federation, Crisis, Homeless Link, St Mungo’s and the Child Poverty Action Group.

The social fund reform proposals are likely to be debated when the Welfare Reform Bill returns to the House of Lords on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: ‘We’re reforming the social fund because it is too complex and poorly targeted. Local authorities are best placed to deliver this support and will ensure that it goes to those most in need. People will now benefit from local knowledge and wider support services.’

He rang me back in good time and I suggested that, given the timescale, he might get onto the Minister asap. Rob agreed to try. I mentioned the fact that Birmingham had won a big cut in their debt. Their Council leader said that they argued that their debt should be reduced because they had nearly reached 100% Decent Homes Standard. We we might apply the same argument for Swindon, I said, because we had achieved the DHS in 2008. Rob agreed, and he said he would get back to me on any progress.

We’ve been calling for the Council to press the government to do this for ages. Back on September 22nd at a Council meeting I asked a question, in Public Question Time, as to whether the Council would be pressing the government to cut the proposed debt for Swindon. Russell Holland answered that the government “will not change the valuation of individual authorities”. I didn’t believe this, and subsequent events showed this wasn’t true. It’s only a pity that the Council and it’s ruling group haven’t previously made a serious effort to press the government. As far as I can see that’s because they were determined to sell our houses and the possibility that tenants would vote against ‘transfer’ was not even considered by them. Why didn’t the ruling group ask their MP’s to intervene on our behalf earlier? After all they would have easier access to the Minister in question.

In the Swindon Advertiser Russell Holland “called the comparison a red herring, as tenants had been given the opportunity to avoid the debt altogether by voting for the transfer.”

So it’s our fault for voting No?

Mr Holland said there was no comparison because Birmingham would be demolishing a lot of houses. In fact, I have never said there was a comparison. All I said was that if a Tory/Liberal coalition in Birmingham could press the coalition government to reduce their debt then why not Swindon. Surely it was worth a try?

Mr Holland told the Adver that the Council would write to the government “to see if there was any further room for manoeuvre and change things”. Yet a mere letter this late in the day is hardly likely to move them. The ruling group in Swindon are members of the same Party which leads the government. They should have been onto this months ago.
That notwithstanding it was worth asking our MP to press the Minister, even at this late stage. Hopefully he will be able to secure some further movement from the government. I will let people know what Rob Buckland reports back to us.

* Swindon Council tenants voted to reject transfer to a housing association by 6,073 to 2,329 on a turn-out of 65.6%.

Martin Wicks

By Josh Layton Swindon Advertiser

SWINDON Council has been criticised for failing to negotiate a bigger reduction in the debt it will have to pay to the Government under a new funding system for its housing stock.

The Swindon Tenants’ Campaign Group rallied support for a ‘no’ vote in a ballot over whether to transfer the local authority’s homes to a private housing association.

The result was a victory for the campaigners, but leaves the council having to borrow £140m to pay the Government when the new funding regime begins on April 1.

Birmingham City Council managed to negotiate away almost a quarter of the bill it was saddled with, which was slashed from £434m to £342m.

Campaigner Martin Wicks said: “We as a town have been lumbered with a debt of £145m, which has been cut to £140m. Yet if the group which runs the council had not been so keen to sell off our housing it should have been approaching the Government to say the debt level was still unsatisfactory, particularly as we have a lot of housing which is expensive to maintain.

“The council told us the Government said the debt level was not up for negotiation, which we didn’t believe.”

Birmingham secured its £92m cut by presenting a case to Government which included arguing that it had ploughed more money into its stock than other local authorities.

But Mr Wicks believes Swindon had also brought its own stock up to similar levels, as judged by the Decent Homes Standard for quality in social housing.

He said: “Birmingham went to the Government and pointed out what a good job they had done maintaining and improving their housing stock.

“They nearly reached 100 per cent for the Decent Homes Standard. When we read that we were amazed because Swindon reached the Decent Homes Standard in 2008.

“If Birmingham City Council can press the Government and get a big reduction in their debt level, then why can’t Swindon do the same?”

Coun Russell Holland, cabinet member in charge of housing, called the comparison a red herring, as tenants had been given the opportunity to avoid the debt altogether by voting for the transfer.

He said: “Our debt was reduced, from £145m to £140m, though if the tenants had voted to go ahead with the transfer, it would have been zero.

“I think the reason Birmingham’s debt was reduced was to do with their position on demolitions – there is no real comparison.”

Coun Holland said the council would nevertheless write to the Government to see if there was any further room for manoeuvre and change things.

“The council had already negotiated with the Government to allow the ballot to go ahead at all,” he added.

“If the transfer had gone ahead the Government would have lost out on £140m.”