Schemes to help young workers get a foot on the property ladder are of little use to the poorest families, MPs have said.

A report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee, published today says low-cost home ownership schemes such as Open Market HomeBuy, under which a housing association and mortgage lender cover 25 per cent of the cost of a property, are out of reach of most council tenants.

The report, A Foot on the Ladder, points out that most of the assistance in 2004/5 went to households with incomes over £25,000.

However, most new social housing tenants have household incomes of less than £20,000 - not enough to afford Sussex's soaring house prices, even with help.

The Argus has learnt that, since April 2006, just 114 buyers have taken advantage of the Open Market HomeBuy scheme in Sussex.

A majority of these were "key workers" - which means health workers, teachers, police staff, firefighters, prison staff and council workers.

The report says: "The current Open Market HomeBuy product requires a purchaser to buy a 75 per cent share of a property which makes it unaffordable for those with incomes below £20,000."

It calls for low-cost home ownership assistance to be "properly targeted."

The South East England Regional Assembly, which is in charge of development, has called on Sussex to provide as many as 96,000 new homes over the next 20 years.

The MPs' welcome the Government's commitment to make homes in Sussex more affordable but warn: "Demand for help exceeds availability."

The Government has said it is seeking to develop a scheme which allows households to buy 50 to 70 per cent of an open market property.

Today's report urges ministers to "press ahead" with this option.

Edward Leigh MP, Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, said: "Increasing the level of home ownership among low income and other priority groups is a highly desirable social objective.

"With house prices rising at a greater rate than increases in average earnings, however, a growing number of people cannot afford to buy their own places - especially those trying to buy for the first time.

"Inefficiencies and poor targeting of low cost home ownership assistance are wasting large amounts of money. And information on the effectiveness of the assistance is thin.

"HomeBuy is a well-meaning scheme but, without much tighter managerial grip and much better information on how the money is being used, the first rung of the home ownership ladder will remain beyond reach for many needy families."

Housing Minister Yvette Cooper, responding to the report, said: "This analysis is out of date and doesn't take account of the full benefits of shared ownership schemes, nor the ongoing improvements being made to them.

"Nearly 80,000 households have already been helped to get a foot onto the housing ladder, and we will double this by 2010 as a result of improvements to the scheme."

A Communities and Local Government spokesman pointed out that a scheme already existed to allow buyers to put up as little as 25 per cent of the cost of new-builds.