Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many occupations managed by NHS Property Services are currently in dispute over rent or service charges billed to those in occupation; and if he will make a statement.

NHS Property Services (NHSPS) was set up from the estates of primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities upon their abolition with effect from 1 April 2013. These organisations operated a variety of charging mechanisms for the properties that they held, in some cases recovering market rents from occupiers and in other cases recovering just the direct revenue costs of provision or indeed less than that in some instances.

In addition records of the PCTs charging arrangements were not always reliably passed on to NHSPS, creating uncertainty as to some of the local charging principles.

In the interests of transparency and consistency and to incentivise efficient holding of property, NHSPS is charging market rents on all of its properties with effect from the beginning of 2016-17, such that all of its occupiers will be charged on a consistent basis. All of NHSPS’ freehold and long leasehold property has been assessed by professional valuers and a market-based rental valuation has been made. This value has been reflected in all bills from 1 April 2016.

The changes have been aggregated and funding for the overall increase in rents and charges has been provided to NHS England, and NHS England has written recently to all clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) setting out the funding that will be available to them to fund increases to market rent in buildings from which they commission services.

CCGs are now working with NHSPS and NHS England to finalise allocations to fund the change in rental charges as quickly as possible.

The move to market rents is a significant change for the 3,500 properties the NHSPS manages. As can be expected, the change has generated a high volume of queries from tenants. The Department is working with NHSPS to resolve approximately 20 complex billing related disputes.