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Housing Corporation (Delegation) etc. Bill

It was not practice at the time to include such an express power. After its inception, the Housing Corporation believed that it had implied power in legislation to delegate its functions to its committees and sub-committees, as other organisations delegated such functions. The legal advice that the corporation received at the end of last year made it clear that it does not have that express power, and that it cannot assume that there is such a power in legislation. However, the corporation has been operating on that basis for decades, and lenders, successive Governments and agencies that worked with it made decisions in good faith on the basis of that understanding. Clause 1(1) is not retrospective, as it establishes a power for the future. It brings the corporation’s powers into line with the vast majority of other such bodies. It allows for administrative efficiency, because it is clearly not practical, given the number of statutory decisions that must be made by the corporation on a day-to-day basis for all such decisions to be taken by the board itself. We have attempted to discover from old files why consideration was not given to updating the provisions on the Housing Corporation in the many pieces of housing legislation passed since 1964, including the Housing Associations Act 1985 and the Housing Act 1996. It appears either that there was administrative error about the need for such provision, or that there was genuine belief on all sides that the existing legislation was sufficient. As I have made clear, revised legal advice to the Housing Corporation at the end of last year confirmed that there was no such express power. Since receiving that advice, the Housing Corporation board put in place alternative methods of working to ensure that all subsequent decisions were made by the board. That is clearly an impractical way for it to continue to operate in the long term, but I thank board members who had to put in considerably more time than they anticipated during those months.