Maintenance of ageing social housing stock: Australia asset management in practice

According to the 2006 figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 259,000 units of the Australian national public housing stock were build before 1980. At the same time the rate of new social housing being added has continued to decrease annually during the last 15 years. Therefore a major issue for all State Housing Authorities (SHAs) is ageing stock. In such a situation maintenance of current stock becomes a major factor in meeting an increased demand for government subsided housing. Thus the role of facilities maintenance is of primary importance and warrants research into current practice. This study of five State Housing Authorities found that Facilities Management Plans were used by all states. However, both internal and external factors prevented full implementation of these plans resulting in continued maintenance backlog. This backlog, combined with ageing stock, means that although implementation of predictive maintenance would be considered best facilities management practice, on average 60% of maintenance activity is responsive. Four of the five SHAs in this study did sometimes manage to have a slightly higher percentage of planned maintenance. But the lack of new stock, the growing need for affordable housing and long-term tenant demographic changes puts pressure on the social housing numbers. The SHAs in our study had good records to assist in the decision-making process when considering up-grades or disposal. At present less than 0.1% of ageing housing stock across Australia is considered beyond repair. Thus, despite the ageing stock all SHAs appear to be able to balance the tenure, financial, social and technical management priorities to meet Australian social housing policy expectations.