BOE: "Not our job to regulate house prices"

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Plus
Higher cost of lending
Lending fees
Sales fees
Individual legal fees
Valuation fees
Tenant vetting costs

All of which will be passed on to the BTletter for onward recovery.

what are you comparing them too?
maybe your list is a little one sided?


don't council vet their tenants for meeting the criteria?

don't councils have expensive internal procedures that make changing a light bulbs take weeks and cost hundreds of pounds?

don't council have banks of lawyers ?

don't council have to abide by expensive EU tendering procedures?

don't changes of political party at councils lead to delays and political inspired changes of course


all these costs have to be passed on or paid by the taxpayer

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Are the government precludied from adopting competitive tendering? Surely in a free market it would be good to engage with more than one supplier to ensure they are competing.

of course not; but if there are no private (profit making enterprises) then there is no scope for competitive tendering.

in any event unless they have direct build they are legally obliged by EU to publically tender

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Are the government precludied from adopting competitive tendering? Surely in a free market it would be good to engage with more than one supplier to ensure they are competing.

In theory no but having been involved in a couple of attempts to tender for government work it does appear that practically government tender processes are less than efficient.

I know, an Australian company, that attempted to tender for some NHS work and listened, with embarrassment to be honest, to the sorry tale. To paraphrase I was told "Strewth mate! No wonder you poms get such crap service from your health service and pay top dollar for the privilege'

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

If council houses are rented at below market rent then that's a cost too.

Not it's not. Utterly absurd thing for you to suggest.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Not it's not. Utterly absurd thing for you to suggest.

Social sector tenants pay lower than market rent. It's an opportunity cost subsidy for such tenants.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

Social sector tenants pay lower than market rent. It's an opportunity cost subsidy for such tenants.

It's not a "cost".

It's simply not making a profit.

Implying it's a cost allows you to make a whole different argument, which I assume, is why you described it as such.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's not a "cost".

It's simply not making a profit.

Implying it's a cost allows you to make a whole different argument, which I assume, is why you described it as such.

It's a subsidy - there's no other way to describe it. There's an imputed cost.

Your case would be more valid if you recognised it for what it is but argued that as social tenants have never paid market rents and unlikely ever will there's little point in accounting for the subsidy.

My argument is that direct building of houses by the government to be rented out by the government would be an inefficient way of increasing supply. Whether a below market rent is a subsidy, a cost, a loss of profit to the taxpayer or irrelevant doesn't matter - the public sector will make the sum (c£8bn) look like loose change in comparison to their easily predictable waste.

Then once the houses are built and the delighted tenants are happily suckling from nanny's teat the !!!! up will be compounded by giving said houses away to anyone that's been good enough to live in them for 6 weeks or whatever.

grizzly1911

wotsthat wrote: »

It's a subsidy - there's no other way to describe it. There's an imputed cost.

Your case would be more valid if you recognised it for what it is but argued that as social tenants have never paid market rents and unlikely ever will there's little point in accounting for the subsidy.

My argument is that direct building of houses by the government to be rented out by the government would be an inefficient way of increasing supply. Whether a below market rent is a subsidy, a cost, a loss of profit to the taxpayer or irrelevant doesn't matter - the public sector will make the sum (c£8bn) look like loose change in comparison to their easily predictable waste.

Then once the houses are built and the delighted tenants are happily suckling from nanny's teat the !!!! up will be compounded by giving said houses away to anyone that's been good enough to live in them for 6 weeks or whatever.

What is stopping market rents being charged if the occupants are in a position to pay them?

Why does RTB have to exist?

If occupants are need of subsidy then that is a cost to the tax payer. Reducing the cost on the DWP cost centre is a benefit to the tax payer.

grizzly1911

wotsthat wrote: »

In theory no but having been involved in a couple of attempts to tender for government work it does appear that practically government tender processes are less than efficient.

I know, an Australian company, that attempted to tender for some NHS work and listened, with embarrassment to be honest, to the sorry tale. To paraphrase I was told "Strewth mate! No wonder you poms get such crap service from your health service and pay top dollar for the privilege'

I have worked closely with both MOD and private sector procurement staff the former were pretty @nal.

Is the Australian model cheaper per capita then?

grizzly1911

CLAPTON wrote: »

what are you comparing them too?
maybe your list is a little one sided?


don't council vet their tenants for meeting the criteria?

don't councils have expensive internal procedures that make changing a light bulbs take weeks and cost hundreds of pounds?

don't council have banks of lawyers ?

don't council have to abide by expensive EU tendering procedures?

don't changes of political party at councils lead to delays and political inspired changes of course


all these costs have to be passed on or paid by the taxpayer

Why did car makers switch to production lines. Why do service providers find process management techniques cheaper.

Not sure why part politics should come into play at local level for the provision of statutory duties. Central manipulation of local policies for political reasons is no doubt an issue.

I am sure some councils are hampered by PFI contracts making light bulb exchange costly as you say. That is private sector efficiency for you. Efficiently stitching up the tax payer shilling.

I always saw light bulbs as a tenant responsibility though.

We have had some work done by us on behalf of a power company. Basically clearing about 200 linear metres, perhaps 3 metres wide of low trees and undergrowth below a domestic supply overhead line. Ten workers turned up in 5 vehicles with equipment on trailers. They spent the first 2 hours of the day standing round doing apparently nothing. Still doing it on the second day. I don't think waste is just confined to government but probably goes some way to explain the high opertional costs of power transmission included in our bills.

In both the light bulb and my example we are of course talking about extremes and I am sure that most work is done for a realitic price.