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Revealed: Carillion collapse contributes to increase in number of repairs left outstanding at the NIHE
The number of repairs left outstanding by Northern Ireland’s housing authority have more than doubled over the past three years, Inside Housing can reveal.
Figures obtained through Freedom of Information Act laws show that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) had 21,632 outstanding repairs at the end of last month – compared with 9,692 at the end of October 2016.
The data indicates that the 85,000-home landlord was badly hit by the collapse of giant contractor Carillion in January 2018 and has since struggled to recover.
Unfinished jobs soared from 19,510 at the end of January 2018 to 30,887 by the end of March that year, with emergency repairs nearly tripling between December and March and those classed as urgent more than doubling.
Carillion had held housing maintenance and heating contracts with the NIHE worth around £45m a year. The landlord was forced to transfer these after the firm went into liquidation.
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The NIHE confirmed that the spike was linked to Carillion’s collapse and said that the overall increase is down to a “skills shortage within the relevant sectors in Northern Ireland”.
Outstanding repairs came down to 22,018 by the end of July 2018 but have since remained static rather than returning to 2017 levels – with jobs also climbing steadily during that year.
Nichola Mallon, deputy leader of the SDLP and MLA for North Belfast, said that the figures “confirm what we are seeing on the ground” and warned that families “are being left to live in houses that are old and in a poor and unacceptable condition”.
In early 2019, the NIHE collapsed tenders for two major maintenance frameworks worth more than £1bn following legal challenges from unsuccessful bidders.
Gripped by a severe funding crisis, the NIHE has warned that it may start “de-investing” in around half of its huge housing stock from 2020 if a solution is not found – risking tens of thousands of homes falling into disrepair.
It has plans to decommission all 33 of its tower blocks over the next few decades and has begun looking at an in-house repairs model in response to its experience with Carillion.
Ms Mallon said: “We have seen a sharp increase in the last few years in the number of people coming to us for help because they are waiting and waiting for badly needed repairs and improvements to their homes.
“Many families are being left to live in houses that are old and in a poor and unacceptable condition. In response the Housing Executive says it hasn’t the money to carry out all the repairs that are needed.
“But yet it is sitting with £102m in its reserves in the midst of a housing crisis as people and families are left to live in poor housing or left on a waiting list for years because there is nowhere near the number of social homes we need.
“People are being failed. They deserve better than this.”
A spokesperson for the NIHE said: “We complete over 400,000 repairs annually through our all trades contractors and of those repairs, 95% are completed within the prescribed time period.
“Overall, these fall within our contracted key performance indicators.
“However, we have seen a gradual increase in the number of overdue repairs and this can be attributed to the current skills shortage within the relevant sectors in Northern Ireland.
“We are working with our contracting partners to address these shortages and to ensure all repairs are done within the prescribed timeframe.”
