In its investigation, the government spending watchdog said the programme, which frees up public land for housebuilding, found no supporting documentation or economic evidence behind the target or how it was allocated to departments.
In 2011, the coalition government set out targets to release enough land to build a potential 100,000 homes with the intention of supporting 25,000 jobs by 2015.
The government’s overall target to build 240,000 homes a year by 2016 has been met with scepticism, largely due to the UK’s restrictive planning system.
Government departments were accused of failing to routinely monitor what happened to a land site after disposal, meaning that no information exists on how many homes have been built on sold land.
The watchdog also found that the value of land disposals was under question, as the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) had not collected information on the amount of money raised from the sales. It explained that without data on the number of homes or sales proceeds, it was unable to assess whether government secured value for money from the programme.
Government took “an inconsistent approach” to assessing site housing capacity as each department followed its own methods, the NAO said. The biggest contributing departments to the land disposal effort include the Ministry of Defence, Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and the Department of Health, with the total land disposed comprising 942 sites.
With new targets for land disposals for 2015-16, the watchdog has urged the government to review its target process. The government hopes to deliver at least £5bn of land and property sales between 2015 and 2020 and release land for up to 150,000 homes in the same period.
The watchdog said the DCLG and HCA should clarify how it intends to measure progress through the sales proceeds or number of potential homes. It also called for a member of the department to take responsibility for the monitoring process of what happens to government land after disposal within the target period.
