Over 50% of Welsh social housing incompliant with government standards

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government, Development, Environment

Well over half of Wales' 72,329 social homes are failing to comply with the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) - a directive first introduced by the Government ten years ago and that aimed to have every home compliant by 2012, according to official figures.

As of March 2012, only 33% were fully compliant with the WHQS. An extra 9% were "compliant subject to acceptable fails".

A greater proportion of housing association properties were deemed compliant with the WHQS than those run by councils. Of the 53,260 homes managed by HAs, 40% came up to scratch, whilst only 22% of the 19,069 properties in the hands of local authorities were compliant.

The Welsh Liberal Democrat Shadow Housing Minister, Peter Black is concerned that so many homes have failed to reach the WHQS. The MP said: "It is very worrying how badly the Welsh Government has missed its own target. It means that thousands of tenants in social housing are living in poor standard accommodation, many suffering from damp and cold, others with poor standards in their kitchens and bathrooms.

“The Welsh Government’s reaction has been to move the target yet again. The recent Government Housing White Paper now says that they will work with councils to get homes up to standard by 2020. That is yet another long distance target that current Ministers cannot be held to account on simply because they will have moved on to pastures new by that time."

The Government has acknowledged that the 2012 target will not be met but insists that progress is being made. A spokesperson said: "A Ministerial Taskforce has been established to consider progress to date, explore the barriers to achievement and advise on any action that needs to be taken to tackle those barriers. The group has met twice already and is due to report to the Minister next spring.

"We are providing financial support of £108m next year in the form of MRA to local authorities and dowry payments to stock transfer RSLs to help them achieve WHQS. Achieving the WHQS for the people of Wales remains very important to Welsh Government and features prominently in the Housing White Paper which was published for consultation in May 2012."

Tai Calon Community Housing is the largest social landlord in Gwent and took control of 6,200 homes from the council in 2010. Its deadline for reaching attaining 100% compliance with the WHQS has been extended until 2015.

The £111m project, which Tai Calon says is on time and on budget, has already seen 1,629 kitchens and 1,215 bathrooms installed.

Nick Bennett, Group Chief Executive of Community Housing Cymru – the membership body for housing associations in Wales said: “These new statistics show that we’ve made progress in meeting the WHQS but we know we have more to do. Out of the 222,000 social housing properties in Wales, 133,568 are now owned and managed by our members, with more than half of these properties, 70, 258 belonging to stock transfer organisations. Due to the short time period between their creation and the 2012 deadline some have been granted an extension to achieve the WHQS.

"Our own research, carried out by the Welsh Economic Research Unit, shows that our members spent £235.8m on maintenance, repairs and upgrading homes (including WHQS spend) for 2010/11, creating many job and training opportunities for local people while doing so.

"These finding follow a report by the Wales Audit Office in January this year which found that by 2016/17 performance by members will have reached  98% and all five of the organisations with an extended deadline for meeting the standard until 2014/15 will have 100% of their homes meeting the standard across all of the key components.”