Former insiders have told of 'waste and money spent on the wrong things' such as 'rock concert away-days and lavish hotels'
Former insiders have told of 'waste and money spent on the wrong things' such as 'rock concert away-days and lavish hotels'
Homes England says its performance had been affected by “external factors”, including Covid, the cost of living crisis, inflation, labour shortages, and interest rate rises. It also oversaw the now ended Help to Buy flagship homeownership scheme and is responsible for its loan book. In recent years it appointed administrators to deal with Help to Buy customers who report poor customer service and being sent incorrect and incomplete legal documents.
A former Homes England senior manager who had previously worked for private housebuilding firms told i that they had left demoralised after three years in their role. “It felt like a bit of a gravy train,” the ex manager said. “I could have got for an architect for far cheaper but I was told it couldn’t because they weren’t on the framework. It was very frustrating.”
“Housebuilding works on personal relationship and a lot of senior staff have left,” Mr Wojtulewicz he said. “When our members of predominantly small and medium-sized housebuilders do get to talk to someone, they’re just asked to fill out all these forms. So they just walk away.” “Team members with experience in delivering programmes were demoted or left in frustration and a positive culture was replaced with one of passive aggression,” they said. “A silo mentality developed between its centralised divisions, creating a turf war and internal competition which made secrecy rife.”
Report co-author, Professor Janice Morphet, said councils waited too long for decisions from Homes England about funding or development. “In one case, an authority waited three years for a decision,” she said.Homes England has missed most of its key housing targets for the past three years and all of them for the past two, despite the goals being reduced, anIn 2020/21, it missed its target to complete 37,771 homes by 2,588 homes after finishing 35,183.
In the same period, it missed its goal for unlocking land for new housing by 35,870 after freeing up land for 58,993 homes against a target of 94,863. It missed another goal for starting homes by 10,248, after getting 38,562 houses off the ground against a target of 48,810. “It is a ridiculous situation when you have got a delivery body handing back billions of pounds back when councils are absolutely cash-starved and have huge housing waiting lists,” she said.
“It appears to be spending a large chunk of its budget on an opaque transformation project while missing its targets on affordable housing and homeownership and appears to be held together by temporary staff,” he said. “The independent public bodies review of the agency, led by Tony Poulter, will soon be published which will provide in-depth analysis of the agency’s governance and accountability, efficiency, and the extent to which we are delivering on our objectives.”Between 2018/19 and 2022/23, the number of temps used by Homes England rose from 25 to 146. The annual bill shot up from £2.5m to £15.6m and the proportion of staff who were temporary rose from 3 to 10 per cent over the same period.
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