Reply To: Proformas
Julian Hobson“Julian,
HRA rent rebate largely falls within ODPM’s remit. They are currently
responsible for the rules/rates of subsidy paid for HRA rent rebates.
Therefore they would need to consider whether any changes need to be made to
their subsidy determination.
ODPM have already set out the HRA subsidy rules for 2003/4 in the HRA
Subsidy determination 2003/4. This was issued before Christmas, after full
consultation with all authorities and local government associations. But
ODPM are now currently considering the possibilities for changes to the
subsidy determination, to achieve the desired result to compensate local
authorities, but with minimal disruption.
HRA rent rebates overpayments or backdated rebates attract a nil rate of
subsidy. This includes departmental error overpayments. This is because ODPM
pay all HRA rent rebate subsidy claims at a subsidy rate of 101.7%. The
additional 1.7% is added as a flat rate allowance to cover expenditure on
the incentive areas. The additional 1.7% was originally calculated based on
the average spend on these areas across the country. It therefore provides
an incentive since an authority which spends less than 1.7% will gain more
subsidy.
DWP will assume responsibility for payments of rent rebate subsidy from
2004/2005, subject to Parliamentary approval of the Local Government Bill.
Andrew Curphey
LA Subsidy”
So I suppose quite a few LA’s unfortunate enough to still have LA stock will be well cheesed off, how could DWP expect us to make decisions on departmental error contingent upon the subsidy regime in force, and why should LA’s suffer financially for applying one set of rules regardless of scheme.
I’m going to raise this internally and suggest that we seek an urgent response from Paul Howarth. I’ll keep you posted.