This week's important reports and results
Shaftesbury Housing Association's latest annual report added extra colour to the Audit Commission's critical picture of the organisation. The association, which was put into supervision by the Housing Corporation last month, was criticised for poor void rates and repairs backlogs in its subsidiaries – and sure enough, its results for the year to March 2003 showed voids above the Housing Corporation targets: 3.1% against a corporation standard of 2%. Shaftesbury said difficult-to-let sheltered housing units swelled the number of vacancies.

Finance director Colin Adams said Shaftesbury was working to reduce the voids. He said: "We have one or two elderly schemes of bedsits that are becoming hard to let so we are looking at a strategy to improve them. We are looking at ways of improving on our voids turnaround and getting repairs and cleaning done promptly to get new tenants in quickly."

The association's overall spending on repairs rose slightly: up £449,000 or nearly 8%. It directed nearly £1m more than the previous year at responsive repairs in 2002/3 and cut back its spending on major repairs by nearly £500,000.

The association's arrears, also criticised by the Audit Commission, were 2% above the corporation's target.

Source

Housing Today