According to a survey carried out by Inside Housing last week councils are set to increase rents by an average of 5.1 per cent in April.
The survey of 25 stock retaining councils found that tenants will face a rent increase of between 4.5 per cent and 6 per cent.
The coalition government continued with the rent setting process put in place by the previous government, but with a revised target convergence date of 2015/16, subject to a maximum annual rent rise for an individual tenant of the retail price index (2.6 per cent in September 2012) plus 0.5 per cent plus £2 per week.
With the advent of housing revenue account (HRA) self-financing councils now need to increase rents each year to cover the costs of owning and managing its housing stock. The HRA self-financing final settlement assumed that councils will continue with rent restructuring.
The Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH) argues that it is now time to think again about rents policy in council housing, and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) agrees.
Together with London & Quadrant Housing Association the CIH has published ‘We need to talk about rents‘, which calls on the government to undertake a formal, public review of rents policy after 2015 in social housing.