WAVERLEY Council representatives have met senior officials from the Government Office for the South East, to complain angrily that nearly 50 per cent of Waverley tenants' rent – a total of more than £10m in the coming year – is paid to Central Government. This represents nearly £2,000 per home, or £40 per week, and is the highest per home payment made by a council in the entire country under the housing subsidy scheme. Mart Orton, Waverley's Council's chief executive, who was accompanied by David January, director of housing, put bluntly the problems this gives Waverley in meeting the Government's own Decent Homes standards, investing in Waverley's 5,000 homes and estates and in delivering more subsidised affordable housing. The Government has recently announced a review, following pressure from Waverley and other councils, of the housing subsidy system that claws tenants' rents from areas like Waverley. Waverley will be submitting evidence to this review, although no outcome will be known until 2009. Mrs Orton said: "I am not convinced that Waverley will succeed, but we will make the case to the government that this grossly unfair system must be scrapped or changed." Her sentiments were echoed by Pat Frost, housing portfolio holder. "The system's effect on Waverley is disastrous and scandalous. It is now having a major effect on the housing budget, and a rent increase of over 10 per cent would have been necessary this year just to stand still. "I shall not be making this proposal for this year's budget – it is unfair on tenants – but we have had to make substantial cuts in budgeted expenditure, and if the system continues, it will be even worse next year."
