Kāinga Ora reports on reset progress, releases performance scorecard

In the past 12 months, the agency has:

• Strengthened its tenancy management and improved its maintenance programmes. As a result, the percentage of tenants who feel satisfied with their homes, and the way they are looked after, has risen to 80%.
• Met its build targets by delivering more than 4,300 new and retrofitted homes. This was achieved at a lower cost than previously – build costs fell 9% in the past quarter.
• Exceeded its targeted operating cost savings by $170 million, which has enabled the agency to come in under its overall budget despite the recently announced substantial project review and land write downs.

“We’re doing a better job of managing our homes and our tenants and preliminary reporting shows we have improved our financial sustainability. We are confident we are on track to meet all our Reset Plan commitments,’’ says Chief Executive Matt Crockett, as he released a new quarterly scorecard for the agency.

“Earlier this year we committed to being more open and transparent with the public about how we are performing as an agency. Our new scorecard is designed to make it easy for people to see how we are tracking in our key priority areas.’’

Improved tenancy management

“Our tenancy management has improved, and we are being a fair but firm landlord,’’ Mr Crockett says.

“Achieving good tenant outcomes has been an important focus for us and it is pleasing to see tenant satisfaction levels lifting. In our latest survey, around 80% of tenants reported feeling satisfied with their home and the way we look after it.

“In the past 12 months we’ve introduced new policies and practices to provide clear consequences for the small minority of tenants who don’t pay their rent or who aren’t good neighbours. Our frontline teams are acting sooner on disruptive behaviour and using the Residential Tenancies Act tools more,’’ Mr Crockett says.

A firmer approach is being taken with tenants who are behind on their rent. Consequently, about 2,400 fewer tenants are in rent arrears compared to a year ago and rent debt has fallen from $19.4 million at the end of June 2024 to less than $7 million.

Better build performance and portfolio management

Changes have been made to how Kāinga Ora manages its housing portfolio to ensure homes are vacant for the minimal time possible between tenancies. The agency is also lifting the quality of its housing stock. 

“We’ve met our housing delivery and retrofit home targets for the financial year – that's 4,330 (gross) new and retrofitted homes delivered in 12 months.

“We reviewed our development pipeline to ensure we’re building in priority areas and are providing for value for money, optimised our housing plans and build standards, and changed our procurement process, resulting in more competitive bids and lower build costs for recently contracted work. In the last quarter, build costs have fallen 9%.

“Our contracted rates for the new builds we’ll be delivering in the coming year give us confidence that our build costs will continue to fall and that we can achieve rates that align with the market in the next 12 months,’’ Mr Crockett says.

Greater cost efficiency

“We are transforming the way we plan and deliver asset management and maintenance to be more efficient and cost-effective. At an organisational level, we’ve renewed our structure and reduced the size of our workforce from about 3,400 to 2,600. All these changes have resulted in significant savings.

“We know taxpayers expect us to spend our funds wisely and we have a comprehensive transformation programme under way that will deliver further efficiencies and savings in the years ahead,’’ Mr Crockett says.

Improved financial sustainability

“Our end-of-year financial accounts are still going through our auditing process. However, preliminary results indicate that exceeding our operating cost savings mean we will still meet our financial targets, despite the write-downs associated with the reviews of our project pipeline and vacant land holdings.

“Our financial sustainability has improved and overall, we are pleased with the progress we are making. There is more work to be done but we are determined to meet the commitments we made in our Reset Plan.

“We will continue to provide regular updates on our progress so people can have confidence that we are delivering for New Zealanders,’’ Mr Crockett says.