ABSTRACT
Public-sector housing includes bodies and authorities in receipt of direct financial provision from the central government for the purposes of building, acquiring and maintaining houses for rent. The housing revenue account may be used only in connection with the building, management and financing of local authorities’ own stock of housing and expenditure incurred in the purchase of existing houses as additional stock. In an economic analysis of public sector housing, the issue of public housing subsidy is treated as being a direct payment or price subsidy from central or local government to an individual. Local authorities have tried in their provision of public-sector housing to be kind to too many people. Excess demand, represented by waiting lists, not only ensures a sustained pressure for greater house-building, but places local authorities in a political and financial straitjacket from which they cannot escape to devise an effective and probably lower-cost programme for the equitable and efficient allocation of housing.
