The ACT Government is to be commended for its leadership in investigating the insourcing of public housing maintenance through a task force and pilot program commencing in 2024. This approach has the potential to improve service delivery, reduce long-term costs, and increase accountability.
However, given the economic limits on the number of insourced trade workers available across the ACT, an additional complementary strategy should be considered to further reduce maintenance times and improve service quality.
One such strategy is to adopt a procurement model similar to the Commonwealth Government’s BuyICT platform, which successfully enables small businesses to competitively bid for ICT contracts through a pre-qualified supplier system. Applying a similar approach to housing maintenance would allow appropriately qualified businesses and tradespeople to compete for packages of work based on size and complexity, while ensuring taxpayer value and maintaining high integrity standards.
This approach directly supports the objectives outlined in the ACT Government’s Growing and Renewing Public Housing Strategy, which commits to delivering better housing outcomes for tenants through increased housing supply, improved asset management, and more effective maintenance services.