The Decent Homes Standard was a tremendous success story. Why did it work? What can we learn from it?
A recent item on the BBC website reported that 1 in 4 council homes in London currently fail to meet the Decent Homes Standard. This should not be seen as a failure of the programme. The vast majority of social housing tenants in England have benefitted from the programme. By April this year only 10.2% of social stock was “non-decent” and for the RSL sector the figure was 5.3%. The London situation stands out from the national council housing figure of 16.2% and even in London the figures are skewed by the poorer performing boroughs such as Havering (56%) and Tower Hamlets (55%).
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