Rethinking repairs and maintenance in social housing

During my decades working in the sector, I have always been clear that the first duty of social housing providers should be to ensure that residents live in homes that are safe, comfortable and in good repair. Landlords have arguably never been under more scrutiny to ensure that their repairs and maintenance services meet residents’ expectations, and rightly so, following a number of high-profile and severe failings.

The publication of the Better Social Housing Review (BSHR) in 2022 was a landmark moment, setting out a clear roadmap for the sector to rebuild trust and ensure that homes are fit for the future. A key finding was the need to improve repairs and maintenance services, which led to the Rethinking Repairs and Maintenance Project.

This project assembled a panel of cross-sector leaders, including policy experts and frontline practitioners, to gather insights from residents and registered providers. I was proud to be invited to represent service providers on the panel. My role as chair of the National Housing Maintenance Forum’s ‘Service Provider Forum’ at the time also ensured that many contractors and suppliers could contribute through focused workshops and feedback sessions.

The aim was to develop recommendations to enhance repairs and maintenance, ensuring social housing meets high standards of safety and comfort. It was not intended to be revolutionary – instead, seeking to hold a mirror up to existing good practice in the sector, drawing it together and offering practical suggestions for how it can be adopted more widely.

Landlords have arguably never been under more scrutiny to ensure that their repairs and maintenance services meet residents’ expectations

The review also looked at how social landlords could work more collaboratively with their contractors and service providers and in-house repairs and maintenance teams to improve service delivery. We have worked with the Chartered Institute of Housing to create a new community-sharing best practice to enable this. This is an informal group where anyone interested in this work can share good practice and discuss how we can overcome common challenges in repairs and maintenance service delivery.

Our work was split into two main areas:

• Registered providers’ staff and residents: We might spend our time dealing with bricks and mortar, but social housing is a people business above all else. The project emphasises the importance of improving cultures and behaviours, promoting inclusivity, and tackling discrimination. It provides strategies for structuring tenant engagement, involving colleagues in the process, understanding performance metrics, and ensuring feedback is acted upon to “close the loop.” It is crucial to involve a wide range of stakeholders, including tenants, in the procurement process. Tenants’ input helps shape service specifications and prioritise tender responses.
• Contractors and service providers: The project highlights the need for early market engagement and effective procurement practices. It calls for continuous improvement and the development of sustainable relationships through good working practices, ensuring a collaborative approach to maintaining and improving social housing standards. Social Housing providers should seek insights from service providers with extensive experience across various contracts and areas. Clients can gain valuable perspectives that inform their decisions by asking pertinent questions, such as what the contractor would do to improve services.

Also, engaging the market early in the procurement process to refine specifications ensures that tenders are realistic, costed appropriately, and attractive to potential bidders. Early engagement helps identify potential risks and leads to better specification design and contract types.

We might spend our time dealing with bricks and mortar, but social housing is a people business above all else.

There are 12 guiding principles across six themes, but there is no prescriptive way to follow them. It is recognised that each housing provider works within different geographical contexts, serves different communities, and faces different challenges in delivering repairs and maintenance services.

Smaller landlords, specialist providers, and providers with a proportionally larger number of older people and/or supported housing all need to approach the delivery of repairs and maintenance services slightly differently.

Through this guidance, we are trying to strike a balance between articulating principles that we feel all housing providers can follow and defining those principles so that they can work for all of the social housing sector, including local authorities and their housing management organisations.

We want it to enable landlords to design and deliver more inclusive services that meet the needs of all their tenants. This change will not happen overnight, but if we can get these guiding principles right, we think there is a better chance that the sector can deliver on the ambition and ethos of the BSHR.

Local authorities and social housing landlords continue to face unprecedented pressures, and rightly now operate under a much greater level of scrutiny than in previous years, from the media and regulatory bodies alike. The need is to make homes safer, more pleasant to live in, and more energy efficient while ensuring that customers’ expectations can be met. This requires a new approach to working with repairs and maintenance providers.

The Rethinking Repairs and Maintenance Project should serve as a watershed moment for the sector. We should not only reflect upon the ways in which we can improve as individual organisations but also come together as one to face the challenges of the future together.

Mike Turner is an executive director at Cardo Group