George Osborne has made a U-turn over his plans to top-slice £400million from the New Homes Bonus in 2015-16, apparently in response to some strong lobbying from local authority leaders.
However, the £70million scheduled to be top-sliced from London authorities' New Homes Bonus is still going to be handed over to the London LEP/GLA (outside London the money was to be handed to Local Enterprise Partnerships).
The U-turn is contained in the Autumn Statement which states (para 1.230):
The government will not include the New Homes Bonus in the Local Growth Fund, except for £70 million for the London Local Enterprise Partnership, which is chaired by the Mayor of London.
The exceptional treatment for London may reflect some behind-the-scenes negotiations: housing is high up on Boris Johnson's agenda and he may have been able to reassure the Treasury that the cash will be invested in housing. Outside of London, few Local Enterprise Partnerships looked to be eyeing up housing as a target for investment and attempts in the the original announcement that there was might be some connection with housing were far from convincing.
The top-slice had been subject to a "Technical Consultation" about how it should be implemented . The government has promised its reponse to this "in due course", though it will no longer be of much relevance. However, there was no suggestion in the consultatoin that the principle of the top-slice was under consideration. The government's change of heart cannot reasonably be construed as based on the results of consultation and must be the outcome of the representations from the LGA and others in local government - a rare victory indeed.
Outside of London, the tentative steps taken by empty homes practitioners to make contact with LEPs with a view to securing their support for empty homes issues no longer seem worth pursuing.
The original announcement of the top-slice was covered in our story here.