Ms Patricia King:

In response to the Deputy, in the public consultation we met several of the CEOs of local authorities, AHB managers and so on. First, they need confidence that if they are going to embark upon a project of X number of local authority houses in their county that they will get the required funding. They need to have confidence that they can bring a project from A to Z in a reasonable period and that they will get the money for the project. Several of these people told us that they were not confident that would happen. They were also very animated, in some cases, about the various steps that must be taken, which is an issue we have mentioned before and I will not repeat it. So from conception to the birth of a project it could take anything from four to six years. Such a situation is unacceptable and unnecessary. We included in the commission report that there should be an emergency response because when you know that that is the case, and know the system is not delivering the required output - I am talking merely about social housing as the Deputy has asked - then you have to put in a system that will work. We said to the people concerned, who are involved in all of that, to get their heads together and put this emergency in place in order that they can build local authority housing at scale, which will then start to alleviate all the issues on the other side, including HAP. I mention HAP because it is used as a crutch to provide social housing and interferes with the private rental market, and has done for quite some time.

The Deputy asked me what is causing the hold-up. I do not know. Michael O'Flynn has explained about the oversight executive and how that would work. It seemed to the commission that the only way to resolve the matter was to put in that system, which would then recognise where obstacles exist and try to remove them. Some of those obstacles are only small and some of them are large.