Part 1: Introduction

1.1
State housing is the largest publicly owned property portfolio in the country, with an estimated value in 2008 of $15.2 billion. Ensuring that the state housing stock is well-maintained is important for tenants and for protecting the value of these properties.

1.2
Housing New Zealand Corporation (the Corporation) is the agency responsible for maintaining state housing. Maintaining 68,000 state houses is a substantial task. The Corporation carried out more than 1.7 million maintenance jobs in 2007/08.

1.3
We carried out a performance audit to provide Parliament with assurance about the effectiveness of the systems and processes the Corporation uses to maintain state housing.

1.4
The audit focused on the systems and processes the Corporation uses to:

• plan for maintenance in the long term;
• manage day-to-day maintenance work; and
• monitor and evaluate that maintenance work.

1.5
The audit did not directly assess the current condition of state housing or look at other non-maintenance activities the Corporation carries out, including modernisations, capital improvements, energy efficiency retrofits, or the Healthy Housing, Community Renewal, and Rural Housing Projects.