Housing associations are the main providers of social housing within the UK and a major force in area regeneration initiatives. They also have a pivotal role to play in promoting equality of opportunity since a large proportion of their clients are from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities. However, few housing associations have recognized the potential of their purchasing power in terms of investment in construction and maintenance work in promoting equality or the business benefits of doing so. This paper presents the research findings of a study of housing associations' contracting practices in London. The study aimed to highlight and document current practices in the employment of BME contractors and consultants and identify the equal opportunity issues associated with their engagement. The findings suggest that there is a general lack of appreciation among housing associations of the importance of employing BME contractors and consultants from both an equal opportunity and a business perspective. In view of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and government guidance on equal opportunities, the housing association sector has still to fully recognize its influential role in this area.Equality, construction, housing, ethnic and minorities,
Reviews the early years of the operation of the “one‐stop” approved list for public sector construction work in the UK. The findings of questionnaire studies of clients and contractors/consultants suggest that a majority of users are satisfied with the system but that some fine‐tuning is required to ensure further take‐up of Constructionline.
This paper reflects on a research project funded by a consortium of leading sheltered housing (SH) providers and their regulatory body, the Housing Corporation. The project aimed to ascertain which aspects of SH older people perceived to be central to their satisfaction and the methods they judged most appropriate to measuring this. We outline key policy developments of importance to SH (specifically the development of performance measurement regimes), and changes in the nature of SH, which are driving providers to re-evaluate how they measure user satisfaction. We discuss the aims of the project, our methodology and findings, and conclude by raising critical questions about the process of measuring satisfaction within an increasingly managerialised housing system. We argue that this favours standardised methods of information gathering (such as questionnaires) rather than engage with clients in order to develop methods and systems capable of eliciting qualitative issues of concern to them. Our conclusions are, we believe, applicable to health and social care provision, where similar tensions exist around performance measurement and user satisfaction.
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