What are our drivers for change? - HRA Asset Management Plan
Within the social housing sector, we face a period of rapid change that will fundamentally reshape what we do and how we need to deliver strategic asset management services. We must be ‘agile’, - responding quickly to changes in national standards and our tenant’s needs.
Increasing levels of regulation to ensure homes are safe and well maintained
Scrutiny of the social housing sector has focused attention on improving the safety, quality and sustainability of homes, with stronger governance and more accountability. We need to improve the quality of our data to ensure we invest wisely to address the significant investment needs of our city’s ‘ageing’ housing stock. It is essential we provide tenants with assurance that we are investing sufficiently so homes meet all safety, legal and regulatory compliance standards, quickly tackling damp, mould and disrepair issues that may arise.
Providing homes for a net zero carbon future
To tackle climate change, Oxford has set an ambition to be net zero carbon by 2040. There are also national targets for social landlords to ensure all homes have a minimum energy rating of EPC C by 2030. To meet the challenges of a net zero carbon future, we need to carry out significant and costly retrofit programmes for homes. This will also help address the ‘cost of living’ crisis that is seeing rising bills for all, improving the ‘affordability’ of living in homes.
Strengthening the tenant voice
Our tenants want us to listen to them, and act on what they say.
This is not only good practice - but the new regulatory Consumer Standards also require us to involve tenants and ensure their input into decisions about services, homes, and neighbourhoods. We must be open, honest, and respectful, listening and learning from tenants’ feedback and complaints and accounting to tenants for our performance, all to help ensure services are delivered in a tenant-focused way.
We have conducted an extensive consultation exercise to understand our tenants’ priorities, receiving over 550 responses giving us confidence that the results accurately reflect the views of residents. Tenants have told us that we need to focus on the basics - getting repairs done, keeping people safe in their home, investing in kitchens and bathrooms, as well as improving the energy efficiency of homes, and improving external areas.
Resources and partnerships
The Housing Revenue Account is under considerable pressure as we seek to deliver the much-needed new additional homes our city needs, while also maintaining and improving our existing homes. We need to invest wisely, drawing on data and intelligence on the ‘performance’ of our homes to ensure they are sustainable for the longer-term.
We need to work across the Council and with partners to ensure our systems and processes, policies, procedures and structures support efficient and effective service delivery. We must also employ the principles of good procurement and contact management at all stages to deliver better quality services at a lower cost.
Supporting thriving communities and well-designed neighbourhoods
The Council’s Thriving Communities Strategy puts a renewed emphasis on ‘place-making’ and the importance of neighbourhoods being safe and successful communities. Through our asset management work we need to play an important role in directing how we will provide well-managed and well-maintained estates, with good quality green space, external and internal communal areas.
Key statistics
We own and manage almost 8,000 homes in the HRA with a mix of ages, types, and sizes. We have an ageing stock of properties, with well over half being over 60 years old.
Housing mix:
- House - 50%
- Flat - 32%
- Bungalow - 4%
- Bedsit - 2%
- Tower flat - 4%
- Sheltered - 4%
- Maisonette - 4%
Our tenant's priorities:
- Getting repairs done
- Safety in the home
- Facilities e.g. kitchens and bathrooms
- Energy use of homes
- The outside of homes
