Tenants assured work continuing during Housing Executive contracts ‘issue’ talks

Speaking at a meeting Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council on Tuesday evening, Jennifer Hawthorne, the Housing Executive’s interim director of Housing Services, said that the Executive operates “hundreds and hundreds of contracts”.

“It is not shock horror – all contracts have stopped work. There are a lot of work types that are continuing,” she stressed.

“We are in the business of hundreds of millions of pounds worth of contracts.”

She indicated that the “current issue”  does not affect heating contracts, for example.

She reported that the issue is “being worked through at the minute” and is currently “the subject of negotiations”.

“As a result, we are unable because of contractual liability to discuss the details of that. We will absolutely get back to the council once those discussions are concluded.

“Geographically it does affect a range of council areas . Our priority is to get the work on site for our tenants. We will do everything in our power to do so.

“We are working through issues on a specific set of contracts. In the meantime, work continues through the other contracts.”

Challenging Circumstances

A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive said: “Over the last two years and during very challenging circumstances, our teams and our contractors have been providing maintenance and improvement services to our tenants.

“Last year, we delivered in excess of £190m within these areas – the largest annual investment in our properties since 2008. We invest to ensure our tenants are safe, warm and dry and to ensure their health and well-being and to reduce local fuel poverty.

“Investing in our stock also has an enormous impact on our local economy, sustaining jobs and securing supply chains across Northern Ireland – we are currently managing around 150 different contracts across all our maintenance activities.

“The current economic environment, however, has created significant inflationary pressures which has had a major impact on the construction industry and the maintenance services we provide to our tenants.

“We are pro-actively engaged in ongoing discussions regarding some of our planned contracts and cannot comment further until these have concluded.

“Other planned schemes across Northern Ireland are unaffected.| All our response (repairs) contracts are currently in place for the next 12 months. Over this period. we will be re-procuring these response contracts.”

Michelle Weir, Local Democracy Reporter