A parliamentary answer by Mark Prisk, Housing Minisiter, confirms that most of the zero figures for empty homes returned to use in the provisional New Homes Bonus allocations are for authorities where the empties figures are being queried.
The parliamentary answer states:
For year 3, there are 29 authorities where we have asked for clarification of empty homes data provided, and have not included an empty homes component in their provisional allocations. We will take account of those authorities' responses when determining final allocations, and at that stage all authorities will receive an allocation that includes any empty homes element due to them.
It is not clear how this will be taken into account in the Local Government Revenue Settlement given that New Homes Bonus is funded in part by a top slice from the Revenue Support Grant. The amount of NHB is likely to go up, given that the percentage of NHB attributable to returning empties to re-use has declinjed over the previouse two years. But all the suggestions are that the government has decided to absorb any extra as they have given a firm figure for the amount of topslice of £411million, following negotiations with LGA: the negotiations are understood to be around the provisional nature of the NHB figrures, with the government originally proposing to top-slice £500million.
The 32 authorities reporting zero empties returned to use are listed below. We do not know which of these are the 29 where clarification is being sought.
Barking & Dagenham
Bexley
Bolton
Cherwell
Cornwall UA
Dacorum
Dartford
Dover
Ealing
Enfield
Epsom and Ewell
Hillingdon
Isles of Scilly
Kettering
Kingston upon Thames
Lambeth
Lewisham
Maidstone
Melton
Oldham
Poole UA
Reading UA
Redbridge
Redditch
Rushcliffe
Sandwell
South Northamptonshire
Southend-on-Sea UA
Spelthorne
St Helens
Stafford
Stoke-on-Trent UA
Torridge