The Housing Corporation’s new league table of associations’ costs penalises home help schemes for vulnerable tenants, chief executives have warned.

The corporation’s operating costs index is due to be published in full next week when chief executive Jon Rouse returns from holiday.

However, associations have already received letters showing their position in the index.

The index is intended to correct some of the flaws of a pilot version, published in August and formerly known as the efficiency index, which received a barrage of criticism from the sector. The new version, which has been expanded from 192 associations to 504, takes account of the extra costs of providing supported housing, for example.

But organisations that provide floating support – where a support worker visits tenants in their homes – said the index penalises them.

Brendan Sarsfield, chief executive of Mosaic Homes, said his association had slipped from 84th out of the 192 associations in the pilot to 400th of the 504 in the new list.

He said: “We grew our supported housing service by £6m between the first and second tables. We did it through floating support rather than new properties. But this makes us look like we are £6m less efficient than we were before because they discount units of supported housing [but not floating support].”

He said the association had actually doubled its surplus in percentage terms but this was not reflected in the league table.

Source

Housing Today