Faced with the task of improving over 9000 properties to meet the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard, we needed to agree a way to meet the standard that was acceptable to most of our tenants.

We held two seminars involving tenants’ network chairs, council officers and members to agree the best approach to take to meet the standard.

We held the first seminar in December 2005, where we agreed the following set of work ‘packages’.

a. Voids – Improving our empty properties.
b. Elemental component – Improving certain parts of the property (for example, windows and doors).
c. Internal and external – Improving all inside (internal) parts (kitchens, bathrooms and so on) and outside (external) parts (windows, doors and so on) of our properties. For this option, we would carry out the internal work at a different time to the external work.
d. Whole-scale refurbishment – Doing all the internal and external work mentioned above at the same time.
e. Demolition and rebuild (Carmarthenshire County Council) – Demolishing the properties, rebuilding them and keeping the properties afterwards. (Very few of our homes need to be demolished, so if we do this it would be to improve the layout of the site or because the structure of the properties will not allow us to meet the standard).
f. Demolition and rebuild (outside Carmarthenshire County Council) – As e above, but passing ownership of the properties to another landlord.
g. Least work first – Focusing on those properties that need the least amount of work.
h. Most work first – Focusing on those properties that need the most amount of work.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using any of these options. This is why we also agreed a set of nine selection conditions we could use to compare each option. We felt that some of the conditions were more important than others, so we put them into priority order and gave them a score based on their importance.

Selection conditions

With the list of options and the selection conditions, we were able to begin to choose our preferred approach to how we will meet the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard.

In July 2006 we arranged a second seminar. In that seminar we set up six groups and asked each group to give every option a score. With the combined results from each group, we were able to choose which approach we would take.

To help the groups, the Delivering the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard Consultation Group developed the following guidance notes.

Option A – ‘Voids’
Work on empty council properties

Advantages

• Easy to carry out the work
• All the work is done together
• Don’t have to pay tenants compensation
• Easy to keep to health and safety requirements
• Easy to link adaptations screening process

Disadvantages

• New tenants have properties that meet the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard, resulting in long-standing tenants having their work done last.
• With around 800 voids (empty properties) a year (and some properties becoming empty more than once), this is unlikely to fit into the necessary timescale
• Difficult to meet the housing need

Option B – ‘Elemental component’ (carried out in each area, instead of as necessary)
Work based on replacing a single part (‘component’) of a property – for example, a window, door, kitchen, bathroom and so on – in every home that needs it.

Advantages
• Can carry out the work for as many tenants as possible
• Unlikely to involve moving tenants out of their homes
• Doesn’t have any significant effect on the housing need

Disadvantages
• Tenants will be disrupted as workmen will have to repeatedly visit the property to carry out work
• Tenants’ and contractors’ health and safety could be at risk
• Tenants may be reluctant to have the work done
 

Option C – ‘Internal and external’ (carried out in each area, instead of as necessary)
All internal or external improvement work done together. External work would include roofs, windows, doors, rendering, fascias, paths and boundary walls. Internal work would include kitchens, bathrooms, rewiring and central heating.

Advantages
• Unlikely to involve moving tenants out of their homes
• Little effect on the housing need
• Causes less disruption to tenants than some other options, as the work is done in two phases

Disadvantages
• Not as many tenants benefit as in option B, as the work focuses more on internal and external work
• Tenants will be disrupted as workmen will be working in their homes
• Tenants’ and contractors’ health and safety may be at risk
• Tenants may be reluctant to have the work done

Option D – ‘Whole-scale refurbishment’ (carried out area by area, estate by estate and road by road)
Improvement work to whole properties to bring them up to the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard. Tenants will need to be moved out of their properties for us to be able to carry out the work.

Advantages
• We save money by refurbishing whole properties, rather than just a specific part of them
• All the work is done together
• Easier to organise work with site agents and contractors
• Fewer health and safety issues in relation to tenants and contractors

Disadvantages
• Involves moving tenants out of their properties
• Has an effect on housing need
• Causes major disruption to tenants
• Difficult to find suitable accommodation for tenants who have to move out of their homes
• Only a few tenants have the improvement work done in any one year because of the high costs and the availability of funding
• Tenants prefer to stay in their homes when we are carrying out the work
• Past work has shown that it is difficult to meet the timescales for carrying out this kind of work

Option E – ‘Demolition and rebuild (Carmarthenshire County Council)’
Work involves moving tenants out of their properties. We will continue to own the properties (for example, in Carregamman and Brynhyfryd) once they are rebuilt.

Advantages
• All the work is done together
• Fewer health and safety issues in relation to tenants and contractors
• Properties can be redesigned to meet tenants’ needs

Disadvantages
• Expensive
• Have to pay tenants high amounts of compensation
• Have to move tenants out of their homes
• Has an effect on the housing need
• Causes major disruption to tenants
• Difficult to find suitable accommodation for tenants who have to move out of their homes
• Only a few tenants have the improvement work done in any one year because of the high costs and the availability of funding
• Tenants prefer to stay in their homes when we are carrying out the work
• Past work has shown that it is difficult to meet the timescales for carrying out this kind of work
• Possible that resources will be wasted, as we will still have a duty to provide adaptations in properties which will be demolished in future years
• Unlikely that we will meet the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard within the timescale

Option F – ‘Demolition and rebuild (outside Carmarthenshire County Council)’
We would no longer own the properties (for example, Bryngolau and bungalows in
Heol y Gelynen) once they have been rebuilt.

Advantages
• Provides another source of funding
• All the work is done together
• Fewer health and safety issues in relation to tenants and contractors
• Properties can be redesigned to meet tenants’ needs

Disadvantages
•  Can only transfer small numbers of properties at a time
• Have to pay tenants high amounts of compensation
• Have to move tenants out of their homes
• Has an effect on the housing need
• Causes major disruption to tenants
• Difficult to find suitable accommodation for tenants who have to move out of their homes
• Only a few tenants have the improvement work done in any one year because of the high costs and the availability of funding
• Tenants prefer to stay in their homes when we are carrying out the work
• Past work has shown that it is difficult to meet the timescales for carrying out this kind of work
• Tenancies are less secure, as tenants would no longer be council tenants
• Goes against our decision to keep our council housing
• Unlikely that we will meet the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard within the timescale

Option G – ‘Least work first’
We would focus on the properties that need the least amount of work to meet the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard first.

Advantages
• A high percentage of properties would meet the standard quickly
• The funding would go further in earlier years
• Fits our funding profile

Disadvantages
• Tenants who are in the greatest need are left until last
• Work would not be organised on an area-by-area basis
• Would create bad feeling among tenants on our estates

Option H – ‘Most work first’
We would focus on properties that need improving the most first.

Advantages
• Properties in the poorest condition are improved first

Disadvantages
• Only a low number of properties meet the standard
• Only a few tenants have the improvement work done in any one year because of the high cost
• Does not fit our funding profile
• Work would not be organised on an area-by-area basis

Results

The results of the seminar showed that the preferred approach to meeting the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard would be to carry out all internal work in one visit and all external work in another visit. 

What next?

Even though we knew what approach to take, there was still a lot of work needed to finalise the work programmes.

We needed to agree:

• how we would divide the budget to internal and external work; and
• which properties we should work on first.

The tenants’ survey told us what your main priorities were. Your top-four preferred improvements were as follows.

1 Windows and doors
2 Kitchens
3 Bathrooms
4 Central heating

With this information, we used the asset management database to identify which homes in the county needed their kitchens, bathrooms and central heating upgrading to meet the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard. After this, we looked for homes that needed just kitchens and bathrooms, then homes that needed kitchens and central heating but not bathrooms. Finally, we identified the homes that needed a bathroom and central heating.

This allowed us to produce a list of properties across the county that were in the worst condition in terms of how close they came to meeting the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard. We also gave each property a score. To make sure that our contractors could organise the work, we sorted the properties into estates and prioritised those with the highest average score.

The consultation group also wanted us to see if we could prioritise work for tenants who had held a tenancy the longest. We did this by awarding points according to the length of time a tenant had held their tenancy. We then multiplied this score by the condition score mentioned above, giving us a total score based on the condition of the property and the length of tenancy.

Finally, to make sure that there was an even spread across the county, we sorted the estates into priority order according to our 18 housing officer ‘patches’ and made sure that there was some work being carried out in each patch every year.

We took a similar approach when prioritising the external-work programme. However, when we tried to prioritise the sites we identified a problem with this approach.

We wanted to do all external work in one visit by prioritising the properties as follows.

• Replacing cavity-wall insulation and wall ties (this attracts extra funding)

• Windows and doors (our tenants’ first choice, according to the tenant satisfaction survey)
• Roofs

As a result, the order of priority for the work will be as follows.

Priority 1 – Cavity-wall insulation (with funding) and associated work, windows and roofs
Priority 2 – Cavity-wall insulation (with funding) and windows
Priority 3 – Cavity-wall insulation (with funding) and roofs
Priority 4 – Cavity-wall insulation (with funding)
Priority 5 - Windows and roofs
Priority 6 - Windows
Priority 7 - Roofs
Priority 8 – Cavity-wall insulation (where no funding is available)

As with the internal refurbishment, we needed to prioritise which sites get done when. However, we found that, because of the funding profile, we were not able to do as many sites as we needed to guarantee the full amount of funding for cavity-wall insulation.

As a result, we went back to the consultation group and agreed with them that for external work we would visit the property three times.

First visit – Windows and doors
Second visit – Cavity-wall insulation, and rendering and painting
Third visit – Work to both gardens

We used the same method for prioritising work – that is, the length of tenancy, condition of the property, and making sure there was an even spread across each housing officer area.

This is how we prioritised the work programmes and produced the work schedules that we sent to all tenants in the April 2007 edition of ‘Housing News’.
 
Link to work programmes.

Prioritising the work programmes has been a very complicated exercise designed to make sure that they cover many factors. If you want to talk to a member of the Delivering the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard Project Team to discuss the work we plan to carry out to your home, please contact us on 01267 228362.

The following maps show how we expect the work to progress on a ward-by-ward basis from the end of 2007/2008 to the end of the project in 2014/2015. (put in compliance maps)

Complience maps here