DCLG missing public sector land targets, says NAO

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has met only 5% of its commitment to release enough public sector land to provide sites for 160,000 homes by 2020, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.

Parliament’s spending watchdog said land sufficient for only 8,580 homes has been disposed of in the programme’s first 10 months.

Its report said the government had disposed of land for a further 4,853 homes, but in these cases the Homes and Communities Agency lacked sufficient evidence that the sites would be developed for housing.

To meet the target, departments would have to dispose of more sites in each of the next four years than they achieved in the best performing year of the 2011-15 land disposals programmes.

The new programme requires departments to record information on land sales, but the DCLG does not require them to monitor how many homes are built.
Departments had identified additional land with capacity for 104,461 houses - equivalent to 65% of the programme - but just over half of these were deemed to be ‘high risk’ sites where various constraints meant contracts  were unlikely to be exchanged by 2020. Many such sites were still in operational use.

An NAO report last year had noted that the DCLG could not demonstrate how the 2011-15 programme had alleviated the housing shortage or achieved value for money.

NAO head Amyas Morse said: “The current programme has had a relatively slow start.  “At most, 8% of the overall commitment has been achieved in the first full 10 months of the programme, meaning departments must now dispose of more land in each of the remaining four years than they achieved in any year of the previous land disposals programme."

A DCLG statement said: “The National Audit Office agree that progress has been made, we have measures in place and will monitor the progress of land development including the number of homes built.”