Council Housing was a big issue in many towns and cities across England and Wales in the recent Local Council elections and the Government should listen to its traditional labour grass roots and its own party conference.
The giveaway of council houses to the private sector is a disgrace based on political dogma.

There should be a level playing field. We need a Fourth Option for funding for councils to be allowed to raise money in the same way as private companies and housing associations so they can improve council houses and estates, and so that tenants can keep their secure tenancies, their lower rents and an accountable landlord.

The government has been starving council homes of investment and some tenants feel blackmailed and bullied in accepting stock transfer, PFI or ALMOs (Arms Length Management Organisations) which is effectively a two stage strategy to privatise homes.

Despite being accused of underhand tactics to garner support in consultations, the policy is now facing massive resistance with tenants across the country voting 'NO'. 98 local authorities have now decided to keep their housing in local authority ownership, and tenants in a further 100 authorities are getting organised to oppose privatisation in the coming months.
In all, 42 authorities have set up ALMOs and, as opponents predicted, there are now proposals for a majority shareholding in these companies to be transferred into the private sector putting the banks, rather than
democratically accountable local authorities, in the driving seat.

All the major trade unions are now backing the call for the 'Fourth Option' for council house funding and they together with the constituencies gave a resounding mandate for change in the government's council housing policy at the Labour Party conference last September when they voted for the 'Fourth Option' to become policy. Yet the Government is steadfastly carrying on with a failed policy that no one wants. This has to change. As well as being undemocratic, the process is costly with local councils spending a small fortune on glossy PR campaigns to try to convince their tenants that prvatisation is the only answer and private companies and RSLs, or housing associations, set up lavish show homes to tempt people to vote away their secure tenancies on the promise of new bathrooms and garden walls. Higher rents and service charges and worse repairs than those provided by local authorities are however often the result.

Experts estimate that it costs £1,300 more to carry out the same improvements in ALMO or PFI managed properties compared with those run by local authorities, proving that transfer represents bad value for money. Critics are told that they are standing in the way of better funding and standards for council housing but the opposite is true. We simply want to make sure that tenants can be offered all these things by their local authority landlord and be able to keep their secure' tenancies and low rents. We also want those local authority workers who have been transferred into the private sector under stock transfer to be brought back into local authority employment.

There is a growing housing crisis in many areas with 1.5 million households on council house waiting lists yet the Treasury is profiting from council housing to the tune of £2 billion a year. Most tenants believe that all the income from our rents and money made from the sale of council homes is re-invested. But it isn't. Each year government only allows councils to use part of this income the rest is siphoned off.
Next year government plan to withhold £1.55 billion from council house rents. They have also been making an annual profit of more than half a billion pounds from “right to buy” sales. Stock transfer, ALMOs and PFI are a much more expensive way of improving our homes. Savings on costly setup fees, consultants and glossy PR campaigns to bully tenants could all be spent on our homes and estates. Ending transfers would save government the cost of writing off council debts to make the sale attractive. There would also be a saving on Housing Benefit bills. Higher housing association rents cost the Treasury more.

All this money could be used to fund an 'investment allowance” to allow councils to improve our homes which is what tenants want. In 2002 the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister floated the idea of such an “investment allowance”. Now is the time for Ministers to look again at this proposal and give tenants a real choice by providing the “Fourth Option”.

Decent, affordable, secure and accountable council housing is an essential alternative to market forces.
We need investment to improve existing council properties and build new homes for existing tenants and those in desperate housing need.

We also need the employment and skill opportunities that new house construction will create to be generated within the public rather than in the private sector. Council Housing has a long established track record of providing decent affordable homes for rent to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities and I don't know of any tenants who have ever asked to be transferred to private sector landlords, so I would ask a government which talks about choices to give tenants a real choice of staying with the accountable local elected council and to end this giveaway of publicly owned assets.