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DCLG is the house price index of the UK government, which no longer exists in its original form. But it shaped housing policy debates for years. It was published by the Department of Communities and Local Government.
It drew on mortgage completion data provided by the lenders to track the average residential property prices across England, divided by region, type of property, and type of buyer; first-time buyer versus someone who had previously owned a property.
This was hardwired into its approach: since it only recorded mortgage deals, it was always telling a partial story. Since then, it has been absorbed into the UK House Price Index, a more general index jointly produced by HM Land Registry, Registers of Scotland, and Land and Property Services Northern Ireland. This covers all residential sales irrespective of how they were financed.
Example: A policy analyst of housing working in 2009 would have turned to data compiled by DCLG to demonstrate the disparity between regional markets; the average price of a first-time buyer in the North East, which is running at approximately half the prices of Greater London. That type of imbalance was the direct source of argument about where stamp duty thresholds should be and who should be eligible to receive early Help to Buy programs.
