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New Dawn for Social Housing Conditions

The Decent Home Standard has been around since 2001. One could be forgiven for thinking that it’s old news now. But recent developments amount to a renaissance of the concept of a standard for managed stock.

It was already a revolutionary concept. “Standards” are what we have for new build. Obviously we maintain the existing stock to a high standard.

Well think again. The Decent Home Standard is about as basic as you can get - it’s well below the standard to which housing associations maintain their stock.

Yet still in 2006, the Regulatory and Statistical Return (RSR) tells us that there are 293,556 housing association homes that do not meet the Decent Home Standard.

The data in the 2006 RSR showed a great leap forward towards achieving the Decent Home Standard, with almost 64,000 homes brought up to standard last year. This is the biggest increase since the standard was introduced in 2001.

The Housing Corporation recently commissioned the third Decent Home Standard Sector Study, carried out by Trimmer CS.

It also carried out a Thematic Review, which analysed data from the RSR in depth and at the regional level.
The findings have illuminated several aspects of housing associations’ property maintenance practices and both the Thematic Review and of the third Sector Study corroborate each other. Both indicate that associations will achieve the 2010 deadline.

Between them, findings included:

  • High levels of asset management activity: including disposals and demolitions.
  • They found that tenants’ wishes impact strongly on DHS programmes.
  • Associations are working to higher standards than DHS.
  • Funding is predominantly from rental streams, and from energy grants.
  • There are clear differences between LSVT and traditional associations and these impact on the tasks facing our field offices.
  • DHS performance is also affected by Groups and merger activities; and has implications for Investment Partnering.

So how is the Decent Home Standard revolutionary? Not only is it the first time we’ve had a standard - apart from the housing fitness standard - for managed social housing property: it has transformed the way that housing associations - and local authorities - look at their stock. To assess whether properties meet the standard, social landlords have to know not just how many roofs will need replacing in the next ten years - or how many new boilers they will need - for business planning. They need to assess the condition of each home.  How many things are wrong
with it. This is how tenants experience their homes. It’s a tenant-focussed approach to housing condition.

The recent research found that tenants’ views are having significant impact on Decent Homes programmes. The third Sector Study has found that associations are consulting tenants about repairs programmes, and incorporating what they want into their planned maintenance schedules.

The Study found that over 40 per cent of associations that responded had adopted higher standards than the Decent Home Standard in respect of kitchens, bathrooms, insulation, and heating provision, and associations also exceeded the standard in respect of double glazing, internal common parts and external environments.

For the first time in 2006, the RSR asked how many tenants refused to have Decent Home Standard work carried out in their homes.

The Guidance states that tenants may refuse work if it is not structurally essential. We expect that in this first year of asking the question, there is probably a degree of under-reporting. The level of refusals is not nationally significant.

However Stock Transfer associations are more likely to experience it, as tenants are reluctant sometimes to go through the upheaval involved in having new kitchens and bathrooms; and also to incur the rent increases that follow.

The downside is that associations do need to programme to carry these works out at a future date - out of sequence so less cost effective - and a future obligation to be included in the Business Plan. Often of course tenants do come round as they see works done to their neighbours’ homes.

Housing associations have made commitments to their tenants to carry out Decent Home Standard works by 2010.

It’s still a long way off - if you’re waiting for a decent kitchen. They’re getting there.