People still wait for mortgage help

Lobbydog has discovered that the Mortgage Rescue Scheme has hardly helped anyone so far.

Proper monitoring procedures won't be set up till later this month, but DCLG has done a survey of sixty councils – the scheme is being run by local government.

There have been 500 applications but only 180 met the strict criteria.

I called a couple of councils myself – in one city they’d had only 20 enquiries to the scheme, announced in November last year, with not a single one being approved.

In another they’d had 50, but again, not a single one had yet been approved.

Part of the problem seems to be the eligibility criteria – the scheme doesn’t accept anyone in negative equity for example.

To be fair the Government said it would only help 6,000 in the first place.

But people at the Citizens Advice Bureau claim the criteria is so tight that there are people who need help who won’t get it.

Other councils haven’t got it going yet saying it’s just too early.

Housing Minister Margaret Beckett told me: “It does have a limited budget, but we are keeping that under review

"If it looks like the criteria might need to be changed then we will consider it.”

A second initiative which might be broader – the Homeowners Mortgage Support Scheme – doesn’t come on-line till April.