Our recommendations

We recommend that the Earthquake Commission:

1. continue to improve its approach to auditing repairs in the home-repair programme so the Commission is well informed about the scale and type of repair quality risks, can mitigate those risks where possible, and can match the resourcing of its quality assurance processes to the significance of those risks;
2. continue to improve communication with individual homeowners about their claims, giving homeowners as much certainty as possible as early as possible;
3. continue to refine key performance indicators for the home-repair programme to consistently and meaningfully cover cost, time, quality, and safety, with targets where practicable;
4. continue to review and, if necessary, adjust the configuration of repair and project management services in the home-repair programme to deliver the best value and results in the circumstances and treat homeowners fairly and consistently; and
5. identify and record the lessons, tools, and information from the home-repair programme that could usefully support responses to future large-scale natural disasters.

The Earthquake Commission has work under way to address several of these matters. More detailed information is provided in the following Parts of this report.