Overview of housing finance and household expenditure

Introduction

Housing finance is a complex and wide-ranging topic. It covers both government and household finance for housing.

Government finance on housing is generally split into capital and revenue. There is also a difference between central government funding allocations to Local Authorities (LA) and the actual expenditure incurred by LAs. For the former, some or none of the total allocated might be taken up and the latter includes additional money which comes from the local authorities themselves.

The housing finance data covers only housing capital expenditure and funding data that are specifically related to social housing. The P1A part of the P1A/B Quarterly Housing Monitoring return, and the HSSA form 2004 are used to collect information on housing finance for this section.

For household finance data is included for general expenditure on housing by households e.g. gas, electricity and other fuels. The tables in this section are derived from the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS).

Other housing finance and related data including Housing Capital Investment Allocations (previously known as the Housing Investment Programme or HIP) and Council Tax data may be found in the Housing and Local Government Finance sections of Communities and Local Government website (respectively). Links have been provided, where appropriate.

The following list the available live tables within each of the sub-headings.

Revenue Expenditure

Live table 651 covers local authority Housing Revenue Account income and expenditure. It is derived from the Housing Subsidy Claim Forms.

Capital Expenditure

Live tables 661 to 666 cover various aspects of housing capital expenditure as reported to the Department by local authorities on their quarterly P1A and annual Housing Strategy Statistical Appendix (HSSA) returns. A new P1A/B Quarterly Housing Monitoring form has been introduced from the June quarter of 2004/05 to replace the older P1A and P1B forms. The tables show expenditure in both cash and constant prices.

Household Expenditure

The three live tables available include data from the Expenditure and Food Survey, a continuous survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics. It collects information from 7,000 households per annum in Great Britain, of which some 6,000 are in England.