Muirhouse Housing Association: from compliance failures to a landmark 100% SHQS rating

What happens when a small housing association gets the right support behind them: Muirhouse Housing Association’s journey from failing standards to record compliance

For years, Muirhouse Housing Association had been managing a growing list of property issues. Ageing stock, underperforming heating systems and windows that residents had flagged as a real concern. They knew what needed doing. What they lacked was the procurement capacity to do it properly. When they came to us, we didn’t just hand them a framework and wish them luck. We got stuck in alongside them.

THE PROBLEM

Years of deferred investment and a compliance position that couldn’t wait any longer

Properties that hadn’t seen a lick of paint in close to two decades. Thermal performance issues. Water getting in where it shouldn’t. Windows that residents were actively complaining about. Muirhouse were carrying a significant backlog of property investment needs and the consequences were showing up in their compliance position. Failures against Scottish Housing Quality Standards and EESSH regulations meant the pressure to act was real and urgent.

The difficulty was that Muirhouse is a smaller organisation. Their in-house procurement resource had its limits, and the scale of what needed to be done required specialist contractors, a proper process and someone who understood both the technical and commercial side of getting works like this over the line.

THE SOLUTION

Hands on support from people who understood the problem

Muirhouse brought us in and we took on the challenge properly. Through our procurement frameworks we were able to open up a range of qualified contractors to them, giving the association genuine choice and competition in the market. But the access to suppliers was only part of it.

Our team worked with Muirhouse through every stage of the procurement process, providing technical and professional guidance and making sure the organisation had the confidence to make good decisions at each step. Stevie McAvoy, Chief Executive of Muirhouse Housing Association, was clear about what that meant in practice.

“They got our difficulty. They got our problem. They got the need to deliver good quality investment successfully but also quickly as well. For a small organisation that has procurement limitations they were able to place us in the market where we procured a product from a contractor that probably without their support I don’t believe we would have got.”

“Hugely impressed by the support and the empathy that the guys at PfH were able to show. I have to say they were first class.”

THE RESULTS

A transformation in compliance, costs and tenant satisfaction

The numbers tell the story. Muirhouse Housing Association achieved 100% SHQS compliance, something that had never happened before in the organisation’s history. Tenant satisfaction from the works returned at 100%. And residents are now seeing around a 60% reduction in their fuel costs.

Stevie McAvoy described the scale of the change: “The change has been absolutely dramatic. We have already endorsed both formally and informally PfH’s support. I have no hesitation in recommending them. My advice to fellow organisations: give them a try.”

For a housing association that had been working through these challenges for years, reaching this point represents a genuine turning point, and one they didn’t have to navigate alone.

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