Senior civil servant expects further funding for social housing decarbonisation

Speaking at the conference, Mr Brown said: “We committed £2.9bn of additional funding for Wave 3. With your match funding of over £1.5bn, that’s an almost £3bn Wave 3.

“It has grown from a £36m demonstrator only five years ago, and I expect that we will grow it even further in next year’s iteration, which will be published in the Warm Homes Plan.”

In the Spending Review in June, the Treasury committed £13.2bn between 2025-26 and 2029‑30 for the Warm Homes Plan to “cut bills, tackle fuel poverty and accelerate to net zero”.

This came after Mr Brown said two months before that he was “confident” that the department would secure additional funding for social housing decarbonisation, following a promise he made in November to pursue a top-up to the grant.

Speaking at the conference, Mr Brown said that he will not comment on the upcoming Budget, but vowed to continue to deliver long-term certainty for the sector with decarbonisation funding.

“I acknowledge that there are a lot of competing pressures on housing providers,” he said.

“I also acknowledge what you want and what you’ve always wanted, [and] what I think I’ve always delivered, is that long-term certainty. You want long-term certainty across the policy spectrum… and I’ve always delivered that long-term certainty to you, and I will continue to do that.

“The best way we can do that is by delivering on the programme, by ensuring that we don’t underspend the programme [and] demonstrating to the Treasury that the funding that they put aside can be properly utilised.”