21 January 2005
Housing associations have given a guarded welcome to a new attempt to assess their financial performance.
The Housing Corporation provoked fury last summer when it published the first efficiency league tables for registered social landlords.
Following pressure from the National Housing Federation, new tables produced by the corporation on January 18 avoid mentioning efficiency and try to reduce controversy by listing RSLs in alphabetical order, along with their operating costs.
The tables, based on 2003/04 figures, are designed to show how well RSLs are performing against similar-sized landlords. To take account of stock condition, each association is given cost ratings both including and excluding major repairs figures.
A federation spokesman said the tables were a more sophisticated way of explaining costs and accounting practices but still failed to address issues such as quality.
Clare Miller, director of regulation policy at the Housing Corporation, said it already published 22 performance indicators, including those for tenant satisfaction and management. 'By looking at all these indicators, you can start to read something into overall quality of performance,' she added.
The tables use a different forecasting model to those produced last August and are not directly comparable. Almost 500 RSLs are included this time compared with 194 in the first table, which used 2002/03 data.
Bristol Churches Housing Association, which came top last time, has slipped to a modest mid-table position, ranked 170 for its operating costs including major repairs, and 154 when major repairs are excluded.
The same housing associations come first and second this time in both analyses. But Agudas Israel and Ability are small RSLs, each with fewer than 500 homes.
Clapton Community Housing Trust has the highest operating costs when major repairs are included, while Enabling Partnership has the highest costs without major repairs.
PFjan2005
