Council housing could be sold via auction website eBay, a parliamentary committee has said.
Public engagement in policy making
The Public Administration Select Committee said the move was one way of using digital technology to increase public involvement in government policy making.
Its report, Public engagement in policy making, which was published today, says the Department for Energy and Climate Change could trial the use of eBay, Amazon and supermarket websites to boost the number of people who improve their homes through the green deal home energy efficiency scheme.
It says a similar approach could be tested to sell homes through the right to buy and help to buy schemes.
The chief executive of the London Borough of Redbridge told the committee that it had used its website to ask the public whether it should sell council land and to lay out the options and values for various sites. Giving evidence to the committee, Roger Hampson, said the authority first did this in 2008 as part of work to gather the views of residents on the council’s spending choices.