Whilst there are some examples of great practice in delivering a home improvement service, it is very much a post-code lottery and millions of people are left without adequate support.
As part of our Good Home Hub programme, we have commissioned an evaluation of 8 different home improvement services across England. Each case study area service provides most the elements, if not all, of the Good Home Hub. The evaluation of these existing good practice services will provide detailed evidence on what a Good Home Hub looks like practically and how local areas can adopt this model, as well as demonstrating to national and local policy makers the impact of a comprehensive homes improvement service (aka a Good Home Hub).
In this report, ‘Keeping homes safe: a survey of home improvement service across England’, we outline the findings of a survey conducted as part of the evaluation to understand more about existing home improvement services.
The findings provide an insight into the size and scope of existing services, demonstrating the variation of resources available to local areas – all of whom remain operation with a funding scarcity – and the consequences this has for the breadth of services offered. In addition, we provide a vision for what should be available across the country, illustrated by case studies from the handful of areas that have been able to create and sustain comprehensive homes improvement services.
This report forms phase 1 of the evaluation, phase 2 outputs will be launched in Spring 2025. Phase 2 will outline the quality, impact and cost of the case study home improvement services, this includes:
- The impact of home improvement services, on whom, how and why
- Whether the services are cost effective and value for money
- The potential impact of services if these models were scaled up across the country
