Ministers have been urged to draw up plans to protect the £21bn housing fund from disruption caused by local government reorganisation (LGR).

In a new report, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee (PAC) says it is not convinced the Government's flagship land-unlocking fund – the National Housing Delivery Fund (NHDF) – is set up to deliver a fair spread of projects across the country.

The NHDF was launched in March without a pipeline of projects, which the PAC says points to a reactive, demand-led approach rather than one built on strategic planning.

The warning comes as councils across England move from two-tier district and county structures to unitary authorities, alongside the rollout of mayoral strategic authorities with devolved powers.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has already handed £1.3bn of NHDF grant funding to established mayoral authorities through integrated settlements.

The committee warned that it is important that MHCLG and Homes England ‘ensure funding doesn't get disrupted, accountability remains clear and that areas remain focused on delivery’ during LGR.

The Government is aiming to build 1.5 million homes by July 2029, requiring more than 300,000 completions a year – a rate not seen since the 1960s. MHCLG figures show 57,671 homes had been delivered through legacy land programmes by the end of last year.

Recommendations

The PAC set out five recommendations for government:

• Define success – MHCLG should set out clear, measurable success criteria and milestones for each of the fund's aims and confirm when its business case will be finalised.

• Improve tracking – The department should explain its methodology for tracing homes built on land unlocked by legacy programmes and report the final completion figures within a year.

• Plan for reorganisation – By the end of the year, MHCLG and Homes England should jointly explain how council restructuring will affect their approach to unlocking land, and how any disruption will be mitigated.

• Ensure balance – The department should clarify how it will select and balance projects across different locations, and how it decides between grants, loans and equity investment.

• Get evaluation moving – MHCLG should update the committee on progress in commissioning an external evaluation of the fund, given none was in place at launch.

Comment

Clive Betts MP, Deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: ‘We have all long been in desperate need of homes, and land on which to build [houses], so the many billions of pounds that Government has put behind this effort are to be welcomed.

‘However, our committee is focused on delivery, rather than the choice to allocate funds, which in this instance have been set aside without a considered pipeline of projects ready to go. Indeed, £21bn has been marked for housing delivery without any criteria to judge whether it has been successfully spent. We fear that at present, housing projects which advocate for themselves will benefit, while other areas in similar or even perhaps greater need may miss out, which could produce unequal outcomes in different areas of England.’

Responding to the report, an MHCLG spokesperson said: ‘We know Government support is essential to unlock land on which homes would otherwise not be built.

‘This support has already unlocked tens of thousands of homes, but we know that larger sites can take time to come forward.

‘That’s why we’ve launched the £5bn National Housing Delivery Fund and the £16bn National Housing Bank, alongside planning reforms to speed up housebuilding and weather geopolitical pressures.’