Explained: useful terms on key workers

Starter home initiative
The government's £250m scheme to house around 10,000 key workers between 2001 and 2004. Most of those helped will be health workers, teachers or police officers, although there is some assistance available to other key workers such as social workers and fire fighters. In most cases the initiative is being managed locally by housing associations. Contact details for each area are listed in separate tables for police, health workers, teachers and other key workers. Under the programme, key workers will be housed using a variety of methods - such as equity loans and shared ownership that are explained below.

Equity loan
A lump sum paid to a key worker toward the price of a home. The loan is only repaid when the property is eventually sold. The amount repaid is based on how much was initially borrowed, so if the loan represented a third of the value of the home when it was bought, a third of the value of the home will have to be repaid when the home is sold. The amount provided will depend on the housing associations managing the scheme. Of the 10,000 key workers helped through the starter home initiative, 2,000 will be given £10,000 equity loans.

Other help
The housing corporation, the funder of housing associations, will house a further 8,700 key workers and others between 2001 and 2004. Most are expected to be helped using the homebuy initiative (see below). This assistance is not as narrowly restricted as the starter homes initiative, those helped do not have to be key workers but will need to show they cannot afford to buy a home without help and do not qualify for affordable rented housing. Requests for such help in the past have been heavily over subscribed.

Homebuy
This is another equity loan scheme where the purchasers have to find a mortgage for 75% of the value of a home. The remaining 25% is provided by a housing association. In return, the housing association is paid 25% of the value of the home when it is sold.