The Mayor’s Affordable Homes Delivery

The London Assembly Housing Committee is investigating the Mayor of London's Affordable Homes Delivery.

This investigation aims to:

• Scrutinise the GLA’s progress against its delivery targets for the AHP 2016-23 and AHP 2021-26.
• Scrutinise the Mayor’s targets of acquiring 10,000 council homes within the next decade and building 40,000 council homes by 2030.

• In 2017, the GLA published a Strategic Housing Market assessment which stated that London needs 42,841 affordable homes each year between 2016 and 2041.  This covers all affordable housing, not just that delivered by the Mayor.
• The Mayor has several current programmes and targets for delivering affordable housing, which have different funding sources. The largest funding source currently available to the Mayor is the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP). This investigation will focus on the major programmes and targets which relate to the AHP.
• There are two overlapping funding periods under the AHP: 2016-23 and 2021-26. The 2016-23 programme reached completion in March 2023 when the target for 116,000 starts was met. Completions of these homes are currently ongoing.
• The 2021-26 programme faced delays attributed by the GLA to severely challenging market conditions and delay by the previous government to release funding led to setbacks in contracts being signed with developers. ,   This resulted in the programme only starting to deliver in quarter 3 of 2023-24.
• The GLA aims to deliver at least 60 per cent of the homes under the AHP 2021-26 at social rent. Other targets include a target for 1 per cent of homes delivered to be supported and specialist housing.
• In 2024 the Mayor announced two major targets for council home building and acquisitions. These include a target for councils to acquire 10,000 council homes “in the next decade”. The Mayor expects that some of these acquisitions would be funded by the AHP 2016-23, though has stated that meeting the target would be contingent on future AHP funding.
• The Mayor also made a manifesto pledge to build 40,000 new council homes by 2030. It is expected that AHP-funded homes would count towards this target, though the Mayor has not yet publicly shared clear parameters for this target. 

1. In November 2023, the Mayor launched a programme to fund the first part of his ambition to support councils to acquire 10,000 homes in the next decade. In March 2024 he stated that meeting this ambition was dependent on future Government funding. How many of these acquisitions do you expect to be funded by the AHP 2021-26?
2. In the Mayor’s manifesto, the Mayor committed to building 40,000 new council homes by 2030. In 2023/24, GLA figures show that 862 council homes were started and 2,519 completed by GLA programmes (not including homes acquired under the Council Homes Acquisition Programme). How will the Mayor build 40,000 new council homes?
3. In July GLA officers said that the GLA is seeking flexibilities from the Government around the AHP 2021-26 parameters. What specific flexibilities is the GLA seeking?
4. What are the specific asks the Mayor is making of Government for future AHP funding, following previous requests for £2.2bn emergency funding and £4.9bn funding per year?
5. How does the GLA balance the need to hold its delivery partners to account to build the homes they committed to, with the need to make allowances for the challenging delivery environment?