Thomas Gould
Question:30. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage his plans to reform the local authority maintenance programme to reduce void turnaround times. [55076/21]
View answerThursday, 11 November 2021
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Written answers
There are approximately 140,000 local authority owned social housing properties in the State which have an estimated market value of €25 billion. It is fundamental that a management and maintenance system be established to ensure these homes comply with the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations, 2019, that they provide good comfort levels for their occupants and that vacancy and turnaround times are kept to a minimum.
My Department is committed to the introduction of proper management and maintenance of local authority owned social housing properties and is currently working with the local authorities on the introduction of a stock condition survey roadmap to enable local authorities to transition from a largely response based maintenance approach to a more strategic and informed planned maintenance approach to stock maintenance.
A national standardised stock condition survey template and ICT system to support asset management have been agreed. The ICT system is currently being procured by the Local Government Management Agency on behalf of the Sector. It is envisaged that stock condition surveys will be completed over a four to five year period and begin once the ICT system to capture the stock condition data is in place. This has been delayed somewhat owing to the Covid pandemic restrictions and it is likely therefore to be 2022 before surveys commence.
A Planned Maintenance Programme will be introduced in 2022 to provide funding support alongside budgetary provisions made by local authority elected members for housing repairs and cyclical maintenance as part of the local authority annual budget process. Funding will remain available under the existing programmes of stock improvement works, such as, Voids, Grants and Remedial Works Scheme during the transition to a planned maintenance approach over the years 2022 and 2023.