Help for council tenants to move for jobs

dopester

Practically all of the credit boom was to disguise the fact there are fewer well paying jobs for people to do in the West. The credit boom allowed us to pretend there were, with boom money creating jobs and higher pay, with redistribution of artificial boom money flowing into other sectors.

Competition is already intense for jobs in the areas where opportunities exist - and the better jobs which do exist increasingly require higher levels of intelligence, know-how and ability, like in high-tech sectors. Or some others like creative and sales.

There are ways to cut back from the ghastly expensive system we have today, and still allow the unemployed a very high and happy standard of life, comparatively. There is too much focus on work and jobs imo.

Silverbull

Isnt it going to just make the poor areas even poorer just becoming slums?

Then the expensive areas will be filling with all these benefit claimants. With the capping of housing benefit, this is going to lower the rents and with lower rents come lower house prices of these expensive areas?

Generali

headcone wrote: »

Well my wife is a nurse and even she thought that a bit rich coming from a banker.

1. Nurses aren't Civil Servants
2. It's only a joke. Substitute 'RBS' for 'Civil Service' if it floats your boat.

vivatifosi

Quite an important new development on this story this morning:

Pensioners could be forced to move to help free up large council homes




Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said there are "tons of elderly people" living in homes they cannot run as he announced plans to tackle under-occupancy in large council properties...

.....housing benefits bill, which cost £21 billion a year.
In one measure, hundreds of thousands of couples and lone parents could be forced out of their council houses when their children leave after the Government estimated up to 500,000 people are living in "underused property".
Under current rules couples can stay in family-sized accommodation for life, despite the shortage of multi room houses.
But Mr Duncan Smith has now signalled the elderly could be a key target for such "down-sizing".
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, he said: "We have tons of elderly people living in houses which they cannot run and we've got queues of desperate people with families who are living in one and two-bedroom houses and flats,."



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7857396/Pensioners-could-be-forced-to-move-to-help-free-up-large-council-homes.html

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

vivatifosi wrote: »

Quite an important new development on this story this morning:

Pensioners could be forced to move to help free up large council homes

And not before time.

The housing shortage has reached critical levels in this country, and what little state owned accomodation is left will have to be utilised more efficiently.

There are 4.5 million people on the council waiting lists, which are now as long as 30 years in some areas.

robin_banks

vivatifosi wrote: »

Ian Duncan-Smith was talking about this on breakfast TV this morning. It's a great concept, but I don't know where all the spare council houses in the South East are going to come from when many authorities have 12 year waiting lists already.

Good point well made. 18,000 waiting list in Camden alone. That's one inner London borough.

I like IDS, but this is just a gimmick.

robin_banks

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And not before time.

The housing shortage has reached critical levels in this country, and what little state owned accomodation is left will have to be utilised more efficiently.

There are 4.5 million people on the council waiting lists, which are now as long as 30 years in some areas.

It's a moot point and one that has caused a great deal of debate in social housing.

Another point is where possible allow tenants to sub-divide rooms or make alterations where reasonable, so as they can then come off the list. Social landlords have traditionally been dead against this.

chucky

robin_banks wrote: »

I like IDS, but this is just a gimmick.

it's sounds good in principle but it's not the most workable policy in reality.

it looks like they're trying to target the supposed core of Labour voters who are unemplyed or on benefits or haven't even voted to try and win their votes in the future.

it sounds a bit like they may be using this to make themselves popular a bit like the Right to Buy policy that made the Tories more popular with home-owners in the 80s. i think it was called Homes for Votes or something very similar.

robin_banks

chucky wrote: »

it's sounds good in principle but it's not the most workable policy in reality.

it looks like they're trying to target the supposed core of Labour voters who are unemplyed or on benefits or haven't even voted to try and win their votes in the future.

it sounds a bit like they may be using this to make themselves popular a bit like the Right to Buy policy that made the Tories more popular with home-owners in the 80s.

I doubt it's workable at all. The BBC filmed an estate in Roehampton, South West London saying this was the kind of desirable estate where jobs are plentiful that people 'from the north' would want to move to.

One slight problem, the vast majority of flats have been bought under right-to-buy and no doubt re-sold.

silvercar

The advantage of being a council tenant rather than a tenant of a private landlord are huge.

1. Security of tenure
2. much cheaper rent (about half in my area)
3. If on benefit the council tenant's rent is paid, where as a claiming tenant in a private tenacy will have reduced LHA once their household shrinks.

Maybe the difference could be reduced by getting rid of point 3, thereby encouraging tenants to move to smaller properties.

I know some councils used to offer tenants £2000 per bedroom reduction in order to move to a smaller property.