Housing minister Grant Shapps’ tenant cashback scheme could see tenants receive around £1,000 to carry out repairs themselves or chose a local company to do the work.
The Government’s view idea is that tenants who look after their homes should be rewarded, that some of the maintenance works done by social landlords to their properties could – and should - be done by tenants and that it will save social housing landlords cash.
We’ve been talking to our residents on a regular basis about this very issue as part of our consultations on service delivery and our 5 key priorities – which includes zero repairs.
Carrying out day-to-day repairs is a chaotic and wasteful service. Over the years social landlords have equated customer service with a fast and furious unrelenting repairs service. I believe this situation was created out of good intentions but is a myopic understanding of customer aspirations, which has been fuelled by regulators and by the actions of social landlords.
We asked our customers whether residents who don’t pay their rent and break their tenancy conditions should be able to report as many repairs as they want.
The majority of our residents repeatedly say no.
This would save millions of pounds as it is well known in the sector that rent defaulters order 3 more times repairs than rent payers.
The majority of our residents also believe that people should take responsibility for carrying out minor repairs apart from those who are unable to.
They are also in favour of offering no claims discount to people who look after their homes and carry out minor repairs.
We complete over 20,000 repairs every year irrespective of what happens and some are very minor such as bleeding radiators and fixing door handles.
No social housing landlord should be expected to have an open-ended repair relationship with their customer irrespective of whether they pay their rent on time, look after their home or in too many instances demand a visit to carry out minor repairs they could do themselves.
We have argued for many years that consumption of housing services should be linked to payment… a transaction that we are all familiar with in every aspect of our daily lives. If you own a car, you don’t call the RAC or AA to clean the headlights or fill up the windscreen washer. We also believe that rent defaulters should only be entitled to a repairs service in extenuating circumstances.
As Shapps says’ social housing should act as a springboard to help people make better lives for themselves.’ I would add social housing is not about creating and perpetuating a dependency culture and that individual consumers should not be entitled to unfair shares of a limited cake especially if they don’t pay and/or damage their homes.
Irwell Valley is absolutely committed to maintaining our homes to above Decent Standard and every resident has the opportunity to benefit from our recently launched New Solid Gold Service that offers customers a better service for reporting and delivering repairs.
We want a better planned and meaningful investment in our homes and will soon offer an annual MOT whilst we complete necessary gas and electricity checks. After that we want our customers to treat us as an emergency service not some alternative to dialling for a pizza!
This will enable us to extend our services to customers and enhance their lives by spending money on things that people want like band stands, street art and furniture, French windows, kitchens, bathrooms, education and health initiatives – and not resetting peoples’ central heating clock, bleeding radiators, unblocking sinks etc., etc., etc.
The Government’s tenant cashback scheme requires the highest scrutiny so that social housing landlords don’t fail in their responsibilities to their tenants. I give it a cautious welcome - as in some part Mr Shapps has hit the nail on the head.
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Best Wishes,