Home is where the reality is

Home Housing Association is right to take a stand on the inconsistencies between providing a customer-focused repairs service and complying with rigid Housing Corporation performance indicators ("New order", 17 October, page 30).

We have been partnering with contractors, suppliers and residents for more than five years, and have just achieved the Judges' Award for an outstanding Charter Mark application. But we still find ourselves producing reams of statistics for the corporation that add little value to the quality of service. For example, whether a major flood reported by a tenant is fixed within 24 minutes or 24 hours, it is still deemed "attended within the appropriate timescale" by the corporation's crude criteria.

Equally, if a tenant reports a repair but asks that it be fixed on a day convenient to them but beyond the timescale deemed satisfactory by the corporation, then this is recorded as an unsatisfactory response time – hardly an accurate reflection of customer satisfaction.

We have recently been a pilot for the performance indicator validation exercise, and it is clear there will be increasing pressure for greater consistency on a wide range of standardised performance indicators. While it is important to be able to compare performance across associations, we must ensure it measures real levels of customer satisfaction and is not just another box-ticking exercise.