A new report, the UK's most in-depth study of housing repairs services, has found poor performance on planned maintenance, failure to draw up repairs programmes and bad relationships with contractors.
The research will come as a wake-up call for housing organisations because maintenance is their biggest cost. On average, they spend about £1000 per property per year.
Housing performance specialists Housemark and Checkmate carried out the landmark study, entitled Housing Repairs and Maintenance – From Benchmarking to Good Practice and obtained by Housing Today.
Both organisations carried out in-depth analysis of repairs cost and performance records for more than 250 local authorities and housing associations over the past three years.
The research, due for release on 15 July at the National Housing Federation's Development and Maintenance Conference at Warwick University, covers cost and performance of repairs in greater detail than conventional Audit Commission inspections. It found that:
Figures showing that the average housing organisation carries out almost as many urgent repairs (36%) as planned responsive repairs (38%) will cause particular concern. Also, the average amount of emergency work carried out by housing organisations is more than twice that recommended by the Audit Commission.
Paul Edwards, director of performance audit at Housemark, said: " The message to the regulators and government is that there is still a way to go in what is a key area."
Differences between councils and associations were marginal, added Edwards, although it was found that associations complete more of their repairs within target – by as much as 10% in some cases.
However, the administration cost of responsive repairs is higher for housing associations than local authorities. On average, district councils spend about half (£60) the amount housing associations do on the administration of each responsive repair.
The average direct service organisation was found to break even, and was found to be no more expensive for housing organisations than hiring third-party contractors.
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Target repairs (left) and actual
Other, Size 0 kbRepairs completion by sector
Other, Size 0 kbDirect spend and admin costs
Other, Size 0 kbTotal maintenance costs
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Source
Housing Today
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