At a time when there are pressured decisions to be made on building new units, against the refurbishment of existing vacant stock, Ireland’s Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Authority, Alan Kelly, said 2,300 units were returned to productive use in 2014, with a further 2,700 in 2015. Nearly €60,000,000 was provided over the last two years for this by the Department of the Environment.
This was achieved by a target-driven and cost effective programme on retro-fitting voides within the system. The objective was to return vacant stock to a lettable and energy efficient condition at a reasonable cost. The funding was additional to the routine re=fitting of vacant social housing stock carried out by local authorities within their scheduled maintenance programmes from their own resources.
The planning of stock refurbishment has to be put in place far in advance of the works being carried out, and assistance of the kind outlined above cannot be relied upon. It should be treated as an ad hoc windfall to allow programmes to be enhanced and extended, and never as a factor that builds part of an original proposal.
Planning of this type will need the most robust and flexible processes if it is to be fully effective, and it should be able to readily identify What Matters Most to each constituent part of an organisation. The Investors in Excellence Standard covers all parts of the planning process, and is constantly assessing key areas such as Resourcing and Delivering.
The refreshed Standard is launched on 01 March 2016, and continues to be an excellent tool for measurement and continuous improvement of what an organisation does.