The Sector Scorecard is an initiative to benchmark housing associations' performance and check they are providing value for money. This report provides the results for 2020/21 and has been produced by Housemark and the National Housing Federation. The coronavirus crisis meant this was an unprecedented year for housing associations and their residents, and some of this year’s Sector Scorecard results reflect this. Housing associations devoted significant resources to supporting residents through the pandemic alongside maintaining business outcomes.

Despite the considerable challenges throughout the year, the Sector Scorecard shows that housing associations remain financially secure, well-managed and efficient organisations. Key results are as follows:

Business health

• The pandemic-led pause in planned works during 2020/21 meant less expenditure and a rise in operating margins – with a median result of 23.54%.
• Operating margins for supported housing and housing for older people stock average around 8 percentage points lower than social housing lettings overall, which includes general needs stock.

Development – capacity and supply

• Development programmes suffered some quite severe setbacks in 2020/21. During the first lockdown almost all building sites shut down, with many remaining closed for 10 weeks or more.
• With a median rate of 0.9%, the knock-on effect has been a 30% reduction in new supply delivered compared to the 1.3% rate published in the 2020 report.

Outcomes delivered

• Average satisfaction scores of 86% are 1-2 percentage points lower than previous Sector Scorecard reports.
• Developments of the course of the pandemic have led to a situation where customer expectations returned to ‘normal’ while landlords continued to tackle backlogs in activities such as repairs and lettings.

Effective asset management

• Restrictions on home moves, residents’ lack of confidence about moving and delays in void turnaround throughout 2020/21 had an adverse impact on lettings activities. Terminations surpassed re-lets, resulting in more empty homes and average occupancy rates reducing to 99.2%. This means around 9,000 additional empty housing association properties across the UK.
• While almost all maintenance and improvement works were disrupted by the pandemic, in terms of costs, major improvement expenditure reduced more than responsive repairs. This means that housing associations spent proportionately more on responsive repairs, with a median ratio of 0.71 – the first time it has risen above 0.70.

Operating efficiencies

• The decrease in planned works expenditure, which affects operating margins, reinvestment and return on capital employed has reduced the overall median cost per unit from £4,023 in 2020’s Sector Scorecard report to £3,891 in 2021.
• After an initial shock to income management caused by the increase in Universal Credit claimants during the first lockdown, many housing associations managed to recover outstanding debts. By the end of the financial year more than half had collected 100% of rent due within the period – a position shared across general needs, supported housing and housing for older people.

Download the sector scorecard analysis report 2021

The provider level data is also available to download [Excel]