Improve management to end flat delays, Housing Authority told
The Housing Authority must improve top-level management if delays in building new public flats and problems over contracting out estate services are to be avoided, a senior department official has warned.
The official said excessive technical checks on projects had caused delays in construction. Only 25,000 new flats will be built in 2003-04, compared with about 40,000 in both 2001-02 and 2002-03.
'Building works are subject to tight scrutiny, causing delays in many projects,' the official said.
'These delays constitute one of the major causes of the predicted low supply of public housing flats in 2003-04.'
He said contracting out the running of estates to private companies had also caused problems, such as demoralising existing workers, who saw the scheme as a way to get rid of them.