Labour's current policy amounts to nothing less than the destruction of council housing as we know it. Cllr Matt Sellwood, Oxford City Council Green Group.

The Government has imposed an obligation on local councils for all their housing to meet the ‘Decent Homes Standard’ by 2010. This requires massive extra funding which the local authorities do not have, and which they cannot raise themselves. The government are offering to make up this funding shortfall themselves – but only if the local authority agrees to sell-off its council housing. If they refuse, and chose to keep their council housing under democratic control, they get nothing.

Despite a £27 million shortfall in the money needed to reach the Decent Homes Standard by 2010, over 90% of tenants in Oxford when consulted have said they want their housing to remain under the ownership of the Council. This is despite a gagging policy from central government, which has made it almost impossible for elected councillors to engage in the debate over council housing. Local councillors have been told that they cannot give their view to tenants, on pain of the entire process being declared ‘unfit for purpose’ and the decision being taken away from the Council. This led to one amazing incident recently, where unelected Council officers, on the behest of the Government Office of the South East (GOSE), released a newsletter specifically attacking one political group in Oxford (the Independent Working Class Association) who were campaigning for stock retention. When questioned about this incident, the responsible Labour councillors were forced to admit that GOSE bureaucrats could do what they liked. Thousands of pounds of public money was spent releasing a newsletter to all council tenants which blatantly pushed the pro-privatisation line – and Oxford’s elected officials were unable even to comment publicly on it!

It won’t be easy to meet the Government’s statutory target for 2010, but in Oxford we are determined to do it without privatisation – and hopefully with money from central government once Labour have been forced to backtrack on this policy.

Independent Working Class Association FACTS on council housing leaflet and Labour's response:
www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/news/news0003.htm
www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/news/news0007.htm#story1