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Published on Friday, 13 January 2012 10:19

Auditor General calls for Welsh Government to do more to support and monitor progress and demonstrate value for money

Many tenants in Wales have seen big improvements to the quality of their housing. But the Welsh Government’s original aim that all social housing in Wales would achieve the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) by the end of 2012 will not be met for some considerable time. That is the conclusion of a report, published today, (Friday) by the Auditor General for Wales.

The report points to weaknesses in leadership around the WHQS. It finds that the Welsh Government has not acted swiftly enough to support and monitor progress. It has also not put an effective framework in place to demonstrate value for money from the significant investment in work to achieve the WHQS.

The report draws on WHQS compliance data collected by the Welsh Government in 2010 and published in March 2011, but highlights concerns about the quality of some of that data. The data shows that 26 per cent of social housing met the WHQS in full by March 2010. However, a larger proportion of homes met some elements of the WHQS, with the greatest shortfall being in standards of bathrooms and kitchens.

Landlord projections in 2010 showed that 61 per cent of homes were expected to meet the WHQS in full by March 2013, and 79 per cent by March 2017. The main shortfall was in areas where tenants had voted against proposals to transfer the local authority housing stock to a new housing association, or where tenants were yet to be balloted on similar proposals.

Despite substantial investment, progress towards the WHQS has been affected by the slower than expected development of landlords’ work plans and timescales for local authority stock transfer. Local authority stock transfer has itself required financial support amounting to at least £476 million.

The report finds that landlords anticipate spending some £2.5 billion on major repairs and planned maintenance work between April 2011 and March 2017, to help achieve and maintain compliance with the WHQS. The Welsh Government has increasingly promoted the wider benefits, such as job creation, that could flow from this investment. However, while there is positive evidence of these benefits being achieved, there is no clear framework for measuring success.

The report makes a number of recommendations for improvement, which cover areas including lessons for future policy making, strengthening monitoring arrangements and identifying solutions for homes which won’t meet the WHQS by March 2017.

Auditor General for Wales, Huw Vaughan Thomas, said today:

“The quality of social housing is clearly improving, but a lot of work remains to be done to ensure all social housing in Wales meets the minimum requirements of the Welsh Housing Quality Standard. The Welsh Government needs to demonstrate effective leadership to ensure that progress is sustained and the substantial investment planned for the next few years is used to best effect, particularly in these challenging financial times.”

Tai Calon Community Housing is spending £111 million pounds over five years improving its homes.

Jen Barfoot, Chief Executive, said: “Tenants are at the heart of everything we do.  They voted in favour of us becoming their landlord and in the past eighteen months we have already fitted hundreds of new kitchens, bathrooms, heating systems and roofs.”

At the time of the transfer from Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council, none of the properties met the Welsh Housing Quality Standard.  The Welsh Government granted Tai Calon an extension until 2015 because of the amount of work it has to do.

Simon Carter, Director of Asset Management and Property, said: “We immediately started bringing all our homes up to the standard as quickly as possible.  However, the Welsh Government recognised that Tai Calon needed more time which is why we were granted the extension.   We are confident that we will meet that target.”

So far Tai Calon has installed 720 kitchens and 530 bathrooms.  It has also completed 300 electrical rewires, replaced 1,150 heating systems and 530 roofs.

Published on Friday, 13 January 2012 10:19