Flat upgrade costs were ‘unacceptable’

The flawed upgrade helped earn Student’s Housing Association Co-operative (SHAC) the “unacceptable” grade for its ‘Property Management’ at a city centre apartment block in Londonderry.

SHAC provides accomodation at a number of locations in Londonderry but part of the DSD inspection team’s remit was to appraise a maintenance scheme carried out at Woodleigh Terrace, Asylum Road in 2007.

According to the final inspection report which has been released by DSD under the FOI Act SHAC undertook the planned maintenance scheme at Woodleigh Terrace in July 2007.

Earlier, in July 2006, a consultant had completed a schedule of works and the scheme was tendered in July 2007 with a contract completion date of August 2007.

But whilst overall the refurbishment of the ten 20 year-old 44 bed-space block was deemed successful a detailed examination of SHAC’s files and a site visit revealed a number of concerns.

The DSD report found that: “Rather than request a full condition survey including energy efficiency, the need for any miscellaneous works and compliance with the Decent Home Standard, the Association restricted the works to kitchen replacement and internal redecoration.”

It also found that the invitation to tender did not include all the documentation required by DSD and that the original £65k projects cost was exceeded by a fifth.

“Additional painting and work to fire doors resulted in a 20 per cent increase in costs from the original contract sum while gutter cleaning priced at £922 (and considered an essential requirement) was omitted,” the inspection revealed.

Other failings were that “retention monies were not released at practical completion stage as required under the conditions of contract” and “the kitchen layout in the 4 bed units and warden’s flat does not fully comply with DSD design requirements (no work surface to both sides of the cooker position).”

DSD said the objective of the examination of SHAC’s ‘Property Management’ was to ensure that housing associations manage good quality homes that seek to meet the people’s needs and preferences now and in the future.

But a detailed inspection of three recently completed schemes including Woodleigh revealed “the Association’s greatest problems at present appear to be contract administration and cost control.”

The ‘unacceptable rating’ is only given to associations failing to provide any of the following: sound corporate and financial governance, quality housing; value for money; improvement of services. Such housing associations are considered a high risk to themselves and the public funds which they might receive.

According to the report the Property Management inspection revealed that though in the short term the Association had a Maintenance Programme for 08/09 in the long term due to the lack of information and the financial viability of the Association the Association had no idea of the work required to maintain its existing stock.

“A complete list of the issues arising from the inspection (including the site findings) was issued to the Chief Executive on the 12th March 2009,” ther report revealed.

“In view of the findings it is the inspector’s opinion the Board of Management needs to urgently address the issue of staff and level of expertise on property management and commit greater financial resources to improving the condition of the stock and reduce the number of voids,” it added.

At the time of going to press no response from SHAC had been received.