Housing associations are to be ranked on quality, to highlight "star performers" but also name and shame those in decline, under new plans from the Housing Corporation
As Housing Today exclusively revealed last week, the corporation wants to expose poor performing associations in an effort to reverse falling standards and step up Best Value (Housing Today, 13 January).

Next month a discussion paper will propose ranking associations on how many performance standards they are meeting and whether their performance is improving or declining.

Associations will be placed in one of up to five bands with the best at the top and the worst in the bottom band. The agency is also considering a third ranking system to show which associations are demonstrating Best Value.

The new regime, set to come into force in April 2001, comes after the corporation confirmed that most associations recorded a decline on most performance indicators. Corporation deputy chief executive Simon Dow said: "Ranking is a way of assembling the PI data on key landlord services in a way that will be of interest to tenants, future tenants and local authorities."

He added: "We also want to find a way of telling people where the star performers are on Best Value. Being a Best Value association is meaningless unless your performance improves."

Dow claimed that falling standards could not be explained away by poor housing benefit administration and low demand.

The paper will also begin a review on the future of performance standards, but scrapping the the standards altogether is not on the agenda.

National Housing Federation director of policy Liz Potter said: "It's right to focus on a limited number of PIs and on improvement as well as success. What I'm not happy with is so much emphasis on naming and shaming and the corporation's refusal to drop the social housing standard when Best Value will do the job."

She added: "The corporation should subject itself to Best Value and stop and think before it adds on more layers."

Source

Housing Today