Consultant says Community's tenants 'are not involved in setting standards'
A north London housing association that has angered some tenants by proposing to abolish their forum has been criticised by consultants for failing to give tenants a greater say in the delivery of services.

The report, seen by Housing Today, was written by Housing Quality Network Services about Community Housing Association's maintenance service. It concluded: "Tenants are not generally involved in service design or the setting of service standards."

Submitted to the association in February, the report also found that the "key area of responsive maintenance service requires urgent attention".

Although it said the service was "operating satisfactorily in most areas", it added that site visits had revealed "contractor performance that, in most areas, fell significantly short of the service objectives and standards it is contractually obliged to deliver".

CHA owns about 3500 homes, most of them in Camden. It commissioned the report as part of its ongoing effort to audit its services.

The report included a number of case studies where the consultant had followed a repair from report to completion.

In one case, it took more than six weeks to fix a door handle – a job that should have taken five days to complete.

Mick Sweeney, CHA's chief executive, said there had been some "teething difficulties" in the landlord's relationship with Rydon Property Maintenance, which became its maintenance contractor last January. However, he said these had now been largely dealt with: "There has been a steady improvement in recent months and the contractors are now meeting their target time for repairs."

He also said the report's criticism of a lack of tenant involvement in shaping the association's services was "slightly unfair". "Tenant representatives have the opportunity for involvement through the tenant satisfaction project group, which was set up to monitor contractor performance," he said.

CHA's board is to discuss whether to abolish its tenants' forum on 29 April (HT 5 March, page 11). Sweeney said it would not be abolished until a "better mechanism had been put in its place".

A spokesman for Rydon said: "Rydon started the maintenance contract for CHA at the end of January 2003.

"Clearly, with any significant new contract, there are difficulties involved in setting up the systems and appropriate resources required. Much progress has been made since then."

Source

Housing Today