# UK Social Landlords Revise Repairs Procurement

A recent conference in London emphasized the need for social landlords to restructure incentives for repairs sub-contractors to improve first-time fix rates and maintain tenant trust, particularly during housing association mergers. Key insights include involving tenants directly in procurement decisions and exploring in-house repairs services, which have demonstrated significant improvements in customer satisfaction and cost efficiency. These developments come amid increased spending on repairs and maintenance in the social housing sector, highlighting the importance of effective contract management and service delivery.

- Social landlords should consider revising contractor payment models to incentivize quality and efficiency rather than mere attendance, as demonstrated by Southern Housing's approach involving resident input.
- Tenant engagement in procurement processes is critical to sustaining service quality during organizational changes such as mergers.
- In-house repairs services can substantially boost customer satisfaction, with reported improvements from 37% to 80% satisfaction rates over two years.
- Procurement professionals should evaluate contract structures and service delivery models to align with these emerging best practices and sector spending trends.

**Jurisdictions:** sled
**Industries:** Construction & Infrastructure
**Topics:** Contracting Vehicles
**Published:** September 24, 2026

### Government Entities
- Regulator of Social Housing

### Key Quotes
> One of the things that Southern Housing did, which was really good, was that they, through their procurement with residents, they looked at the contract and they saw that one of the systems that they had was that contractors will be paid per property, so they got paid just to show up.
> — Theresa Lisk, Resident Board Member

> I27m currently going through a merger process with my housing association and all the tenants are saying, 27Whatever happens, whether you reap the benefits or not, don27t let the repair service go downhill during that period27.
> — David Hampton, Tenant Board Member

> We27re now two years into that journey, and it27s going from strength to strength. We27ve still got lots to learn, we27re not there yet, but our customer satisfaction rates have gone from 37% to 80%.
> — Ian Hancock, Executive Director of Property

### Sources
- [Landlords need to incentivise repairs sub-contractors differently, conference hears](https://www.sustainableconstruction-now.com/article/550111/landlords-need-to-incentivise-repairs-subcontractors-differently-conference-hears) - Trending Now Sustainable Construction