Home Information Packs

The National Audit Office have today published a detailed response to concerns raised by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) over the consultants used by The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) in developing the policy and over the bidding process in tendering for this contract.

The RICS concerns were summarised as:
The use of consultants, who had a financial interest in a private sector company seeking to be approved under the regulatory scheme, on the development of the policy and the detailed regulatory scheme; and
An unfair bidding process.

The NAO concluded:
The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) employed consultants with a clear conflict of interest, ie guilty as charged then.

Since the 1st Aug 07 Home Information Packs have to be supplied by anyone selling a property with more than 4 bedrooms, the plan is to phase in taking in 3 bed properties next.

As part of its financial audit work, the National Audit Office intends to undertake further work to examine whether the weaknesses in procedures identified as a result of this work are more widespread within the Department. We intend to report to Parliament in 2008-09 on the overall effectiveness of the arrangements put in place by the Department to introduce Home Information Packs and to ensure sufficient qualified inspectors were available to implement the scheme.
The report will also provide an early assessment of the impact of the packs and whether they are meeting the objectives of making home buying and selling a quicker, more certain and less daunting experience

Grant Shapps MP, Conservative spokesman for housing, said:"We have long argued that Home Information Packs are fundamentally flawed, but it is even more alarming to discover that the consultants brought in by the Labour Government to advise on the scheme had their snouts in the trough."This is a shocking indictment of the haphazard and botched manner in which Home Information Packs have been handled by Labour ministers. There now urgently needs to be a full National Audit Office inquiry into the Government's continued bungling.