Repairs will miss decency target, says commission

Nearly 85 per cent of council repairs and maintenance services are not good enough to deliver the government’s decent homes target by 2010, according to the Audit Commission.

A report this week reviewing all 34 of the commission’s housing repairs and maintenance Best Value inspections to date said only five councils had a service rated ‘good’.

Eighteen councils had a ‘fair’ service and 11 had a ‘poor’ service, the commission’s Housing Inspectorate found. There were no ‘excellent’ ratings.

The 15 per cent good rating contrasted with 37 per cent good ratings across 500 other Best Value reviews in a recent commission study.

The news could be a blow for the DTLR’s ambitious improvement targets.

Councils plan to spend £4.8bn on repairs this year, but the estimated repairs backlog is worth £19bn in England and £750m in Wales, according to the most recent studies.

“Local authorities need to take action to deliver the government’s housing decency target and ensure that new money is spent effectively,” the report urges.

The report found councils often based investment decisions on out-of-date surveys, leaving budget underspends.

But producing the necessary updates “will take several years to implement fully, and until then money may be wasted in some areas,” the commission said. And councils’ technical sections tended to draw up works programmes “in a distant and functional way, focusing more on assets than their inhabitants”.

However three quarters of councils were likely to or would improve. No councils were judged ‘will not improve’, although more than a quarter were ‘unlikely to improve’.

The commission called on the government to “consider allocating some of the new resources through a funding stream specifically related to actual backlog”.

Gwyneth Taylor, housing and asylum programme manager at the Local Government Association, said while councils had to improve, the report highlighted their capacity to do so.

“Historically authorities have had to manage housing repairs in a climate of insecurity, as resources fell over 20 years. With the introduction of the Major Repairs Allowance we are moving towards a greater degree of security,” she said.