English Partnerships misses 13 of 14 performance targets

English Partnerships has blamed a government review for its failure to meet 13 of its 14 performance targets last year.

The regeneration quango's annual report 2002/03, published last Friday, contains a list of missed objectives. They include: starting work on fewer than half of the 7900 homes it expected; levering in only £690m of private investment, rather than the target of £1.45bn; signing off just 942 affordable homes for delivery at a later date, compared to an objective of 2300; and starting installing infrastructure in just one-seventh of the 370 ha of land it had intended to.

The news follows an annus horribilis for EP: it spent nine months without a permanent chief executive and faced suggestions that it should be scrapped altogether.

John Walker, EP's finance and commercial director, said: "The hiatus in our programme stems mainly from the fundamental review conducted by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The private sector practically stopped talking to us, as they didn't want to deal with an agency they didn't know was going to be around in a week's time."

The first stage of the review, put out in March 2002, had suggested a much smaller remit and led to suggestions that EP wouldn't survive.

However, on 24 July 2002, the government gave the agency a new, expanded, remit including an additional focus on housing.

New chief executive David Higgins arrived on 24 March this year.He was appointed by chair Margaret Ford, herself appointed just the previous April.

Walker says he is now confident EP can turn things around: "We've had to change radically. The expectation is out there and our honeymoon period will soon be over."

He wouldn't be drawn on exactly when targets would be delivered, but said the fruits of the restructuring and new focus would be clear in next year's report.

The scale of the missed targets surprised housing professionals. One regeneration expert, who did not want to be named, said: "While we need to give the new management the benefit of the doubt, they need to effect a substantial turnaround in the next six months.

"Given the government's housing timetable there's not much time to get it right."

But Chris Brown, chief executive of regeneration firm Igloo, said he had confidence in the new team: "The real test is 2004/5 and the year after. I shouldn't be surprised if EP considerably exceeded its targets by then."