[Herald Article] The Scottish Tenants’ Organisation is demanding a meeting with the Chancellor, Alistair Darling to discuss writing-off local authorities’ £2.2bn historic housing debt.
The organisation cites a report from Audit Scotland which showed that this would be neutral in terms of the public purse. Debt write-off was previously dependent on council tenants agreeing to vote for transfer to new landlords.
But one of the cities to suffer most from not going down the stock transfer route is Edinburgh and with Mr Darling an MP for the city the STO hopes to impress on him their case.
John Carracher, convener of the organisation said: “Writing off this debt would release huge amounts of money to allow councils to invest in stock thereby solving virtually all our council housing investment problems in one act.”
“We believe there are no good financial reasons for denying debt write-off and a change of direction could take place now with no need for legislation, so what are we waiting for?”
The STO cites the report by Audit Scotland which said: “This form of debt repayment is not in itself a cost to government in cash terms. The original borrowing – and the investment it funded – was a cost to government. But subsequent debt interest and repayments are transactions entirely within the public sector, so there is no net effect.”
Mr Carracher said: “Improvements to people’s homes and a change of landlord are two quite separate issues and should be treated as such. Housing stock transfers are an illogical approach to public housing provision and the approach must change.”
He said that at a recent meeting with the Scottish housing minister the STO argument had been accepted and he hoped Holyrood would back them in their fight with the Treasury.
Tags: Council Housing, Economic Background, Scotland's for Council Housing, STO
